Why is good to have old side projects

Jun 27, 2025

I have a few side projects with low traffic: Quiz4math gets about 1,000 users per year, and Book Community had 1,800 users in the first six months of this year. Quiz4math started back in 2018, and Book Community in 2023. I don’t make any money from these projects—and that’s okay.

Recently, I’ve been rewriting the Book Community site, removing the old UI libraries that were slowing down SEO. Sometimes I wonder if I’m wasting my time working on projects that aren’t popular or profitable. But then I realize: these projects are my best training ground.

It’s not just about testing new technologies or experimenting with ideas. Maintaining and improving these projects helps me learn how to revisit old code, refactor it, and make it better. I’ve learned to avoid unnecessary complexity—choosing simpler, more maintainable solutions over trendy frameworks or libraries. Every time I return to an old project, I practice reading and understanding code I wrote months ago, which is a crucial skill for any developer.

These side projects are also a test of my professionalism. They teach me how to write better code, improve my logic, document my work, and ultimately become more reliable for clients. I’m learning how to build software that lasts—software that can be easily updated even after a year, without breaking everything.

In the end, I’ll keep coding for fun because I enjoy it. But I also see these projects as a way to grow and become better at my craft.