Side Projects: The Unsung Heroes of Software Development

Discover in this conference talk from Copenhagen Developers Festival how side projects can transform both personal and professional growth in software development. Learn from the journey of poe.ninja, a community website that grew from a weekend project to serving millions of daily page views and ranking among the top 5000 websites globally. Explore how this Path of Exile economy tracking tool, built with ASP.NET Core, C#, TypeScript, and React, evolved while maintaining core design principles like single-CPU operation. Gain insights into managing side projects effectively, understanding the balance between quality and speed, and leveraging the unique opportunities they provide for experimentation and learning. Follow the speaker's experiences in creating and maintaining a successful community tool, while understanding how abandoned projects can still contribute valuable lessons to a developer's journey. Master the art of using side projects as a sandbox for rapid feedback, technological exploration, and comprehensive understanding of modern development stacks.