I've had the same experience with competition and I'd say a lot of other members of HN would too.
Competition is too much of a motivator for me and my competitive personality. As soon as a competitive element is introduced to exercise it completely takes the fun out of it.
But Google didn't start life that way - they were born a search company. That's what I find so interesting about Facebook at present, here they are, investment in hand and a world of opportunity. From here on in they can choose their own path and focus on whatever they like - just as Google have had the opportunity to do.
As the size of the consumable increases so does it's shipping cost and difficulty. Which in turn might imply that fewer people would buy a TV online, than say a piece of clothing or a DVD. This is turn would force consumers to overpay for their TVs, not many high street shops can compete on price. This inflated price is in turn passed on to the 2nd hand buyer when the original purcahser experiences regret for the high price they paid.
I've just moved my personal blog from a hosted Wordpress solution to a self-managed virtual server running Octopress. It's not for everyone but it's lightweight, static (fast) and allows markdown editing which I love.
There's no harm in admitting that you don't know what you're doing, heck it's a healthy attitude to take. It's when you head down the other path and don't acknowledge you're ineptitude or need for education/learning that things start to go wrong.
I spent the passed weekend moving my blog off Wordpress to Octopress mostly for performance reasons. Wordpress has become a fantastic feature-loaded CMS. But a blog really doesn't need much of the functionality nor complexity that comes along with it. There's something beautiful and simple about blogging in static HTML.
I recently interviewed for a developer position that did not include a formal interview. Instead I spent the day working with the company on a small task. Come the end of the day I was asked to describe the design/implementation of the solution a do a short code walkthrough.
As hiring processes go it was easily the most enjoyable and beneficial (from my perspective) that I have experienced. Not only did it provide me with an opportunity to prove my ability but it also gave me an insight into the company, their working environment, my potential colleagues and the work they do.
Obviously a day is a large time commitment but if the hiring company can obtain enough assurance from a CV/personal recommendation that a developer is capable then it's an extremely beneficial process for both parties.
Code Formatting - when working in a team on a shared code base it'll aid productivity greatly if you establish a set of formatting standards and stick by them. Ideally you can translate this to an IDE template and automate formatting.
- Were you not aware of Cocos2d / Unity when you started? Or did you think you could do it better?
I was aware of it, although not to the extent that I am now. Awareness wasn't the reason for the decision however. The decision was a mix of naivety and a desire to learn as much as possible about game design/development. Writing my own engine was therefore a bit of a self-learning process. It certainly was beneficial but not a process I would repeat or recommend for a commercial/releasable game - especially for indie devs.
- What sort of feedback did you get and how did you go about getting it?
Prior to release I pestered friends, family and strangers. I would make a concerted effort to mention what the game in conversations (if the other person reciprocated with interest). This often led to a description of the concept, mechanics and a short demo/play test. I did this from day one - when there was literally a ship on screen with a control pad. Immediately I was told that the controls were too sensitive - but as I alluded to you become blind to these things when you spend your days play testing your own game.
- Are you not planning to develop any more games? (Based on your first sentence.)
For me the process was about two things - 1. the challenge and 2. the experience. Games are difficult and they involve some fairly complex design/coding problems, that was the attraction for me. I don't have a particular affinity/interest in games development - so I'm not sure I would jump into another game immediately.
I would however love to remake the game using a framework and with some more polished graphics. I actually really enjoy playing it and think the concept works well. Unfortunately my own decision to custom design the engine has potentially hindered the enjoyability and limited the functionality.
I'm not actively developing any more, but I've actually just released my first indie game so I speak from experience.
- What is the concept of your game?
It's an asteroids clone with a bit of a twist. The asteroids can be one of a number of colors and the player has to switch bullet colors to match their target asteroid. Hit an asteroid with the wrong color bullet and it spawns more.
+ Use frameworks -
I handcrafted my engine from scratch. My maths/geometry isn't bad but implementing the physics and rendering took me much longer than any other aspect of the development. And for what gain? I learnt a bit about maths/physics but it's not useful to me. I would have been better off using a library (cocs2d, unity, etc.) and pouring my time into gameplay.
+ Finishing is the hardest part -
Adding features and tweaking control systems, that's fun! Coding menus, creating icons and writing app descriptions, not so much. I left all the dull stuff to end. I spent my last week of development writing emails to app review sites and creating promo images/videos. I suggest that you plan ahead and do some of the dog work as you go. It'll make completing much easier.
+ Feedback is Critical -
find a diverse range of testers, old, young, gamers, non-gamers and let them play your game from day 1. They are the most vital source of feedback you will find. NEVER rely on your own judgement - you're your own worst critic.
+ Enjoy the process -
build a game you enjoy playing and believe in.
Hard work alone is often not sufficient. The real solution is to work hard but also to work smart. You need to find a balance between slogging just to get things done and innovating to reduce the slog required in the future. This applies not apply to physical tasks but also to learning. When learning a new skill/subject it's easy to expend a lot of effort reading whole books and articles without taking the leap of getting your hands dirty and applying your learning, but without doing so you can't build the neural connections required to learn.
If you're going down the Wiki route I'd highly recommend Atlassian's Confluence. It's the easiest to setup and most user friendly (for non-techy types) Wiki that I've come across to date.
I can't speak for Django but I've just begun learning Rails as my first web framework and its been a pleasure to use. It's DSL is incredibly expressive and offers great power with little effort. Aside from the expressiveness the TDD integration and conventional project structure are big wins too.