Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too)

Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by lucb1e on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @01:51PM (#22948258)

Is there a reason the author uses the word dish instead of project? While I suspected as much before clicking, it would clear up the title if it would just say what was actually about.

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Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by nicholaides on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @02:07PM (#22948438)

RTFA: it's not talking about side projects.

Side dish = product built on a platform the customer already uses. Example: Streak (a side dish) is a CRM that lives inside Gmail (the main dish).

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Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by seedless-sensat on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @11:17PM (#22952514)

Well you just explained it better than the author. The introduction definition of a 'side dish' was not clear.

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Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by vladsanchez on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @03:23PM (#22949208)

+10 RTFA

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Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by cassiet on Thursday April 23, 2020 @08:00AM (#22955015)

The opposing side to RTFM is for you to just “Answer the fucking question”. I don't have issue with people that didn’t read or understand, but I do have issue with your RTFA nonsense. What does this add? Far less value than a question that everyone seems to want to know...

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Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by nicholaides on Thursday April 23, 2020 @03:36PM (#22960192)

Thanks for bringing it up. An underlying assumption here is that cordiality should be the default, and I agree with that.

In this particular case, though, this question is essentially "TL;DR?", which is also a question everyone wants to know, but not considered good etiquette by this community.

The question was "Is there a reason the author uses the word dish instead of project?" If the answer is yes, then, you can find out by reading the article. If the answer is no, then a comment critiquing or clarifying would be helpful.

I could have been more cordial, but it's unsustainable (IMO) to counter low-effort with high-effort. Acting annoyed is a convenient shortcut for communicating etiquette expectations.

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Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by cassiet on Thursday April 23, 2020 @08:40PM (#22963374)

There are plenty of good reasons to start to read the article, not quite understand the usage, and come to the comments for clarification. I don’t assume, if I’m not following, that reading more will clear up the confusion. If those reasons exist, as they plausibly do, then how do you ensure you aren’t erroneous, and making an inaccessible community.

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Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by giza182 on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @02:15PM (#22948512)

Side dish in this case does not necessarily mean side project. Its more of a product that is built on top of another product. Take for example an independent WordPress plugin. In that scenario the plugin would be the side dish and Wordpress would be the main dish.

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Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by piranha on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @02:05PM (#22948416)

Because he is not talking about side project! “Side”-ness in this case is his service not being a necessity for someone.

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Re:Why I'm Building a Side Dish (and Maybe You Should Too) by noahbragg on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @02:38PM (#22948761)

Another similar word I could have used is Entree or appetizer. It helps understand the size of the problem/product.

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