Kenshi[0] is a great example
Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
251–260 of 375 posts
Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
#252The "Cat's Eye" reflector used on roads was invented by Percy Shaw [1] in the 1930s. It's arguably saved miliions of lives and is found all around the world. It is a design that's simple, passive, robust, cheap and very effective, making it one of the all-time great inventions [1] Richard Hollins Murray contributed to the idea
It also has the distinction of being the cheapest way that anyone can verify that human artifacts are on the Moon, by bouncing a laser off one of several retroreflectors left behind by the Apollo missions. You can't quite prove from there that humans were down there as well, but let's say it pushes the balance of evidence in the right direction.
There's a convincing chain of evidence that the retroreflectors were placed by humans, but while I can probably verify there are good reflectors there now, I can't verify there weren't good reflectors there before the mission. I didn't have access to lasers back then, when they were quite expensive and I wasn't alive.
Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
#253Excellent thread, thanks! Elasticsearch fits the criteria, I think.
Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is such a fascinating observation to me. Why has literature largely resisted team based creation? Writing teams exist for other mediums, but literature is almost exclusively written by a single creator who then loops others in after the work is completed.
A counterexample is The Expanse series [1]. Its author is listed as "James S. A. Corey", but that's actually a "pen name" for two people who work collaboratively [2]. But as you say, such examples are the exception. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._A._Corey
Seems like there are a good amount of two person writer teams though (in other mediums as well such as screenwriting). But teams of say 5 do not seem to be writing many novels.
Could be down to marketing - we like the idea of an "auteur" with a unique voice when we read a novel. Or it could be that having a consistent "voice" (or writing style I suppose) is a feature most people enjoy having in a novel.
Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it depends on how you view this. Almost all books are edited by someone professionally. So it's not the sole work of the author. They are also published and marketed and yada yada. If you say okay all that stuff and even editing doesnt count you still have huge best sellers that are team based works. All those book for sale at your grocery store? They sell massive copies and are not written by the author. Dou…
I'm pretty sure the only reason we don't recognize this, while we do with movies, is that there aren't rules governing who's credited and what their credit looks like, as there are with movies. You don't get "Story by X, written by A, B, & C, based on characters by Z", and instead one or maybe two names are on there—you do sometimes see a writer credit (separate from the more prominent "created by") on some of those…
You might be surprised about screenwriting - the rules are mainly just about the money. Script doctors could potentially be doing anything from some minor rearrangements to whole rewrites. A lot depends on how much they care that their name is or is not on the piece.
Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
#256I’m surprised Craigslist isn’t on the upper end of the comments section. It changed the way people bought things, even expensive things like cars, found jobs, dating…etc.
I always assumed Craigslist has a team behind it however even if it was created by just one guy?
Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also has the distinction of being the cheapest way that anyone can verify that human artifacts are on the Moon, by bouncing a laser off one of several retroreflectors left behind by the Apollo missions. You can't quite prove from there that humans were down there as well, but let's say it pushes the balance of evidence in the right direction.
There's a convincing chain of evidence that the retroreflectors were placed by humans, but while I can probably verify there are good reflectors there now, I can't verify there weren't good reflectors there before the mission. I didn't have access to lasers back then, when they were quite expensive and I wasn't alive.
Alright, granted: there is at least one sheep in Scotland, which is black at least on one side.
Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
#258I built the website builder N.nu myself in 2009. Still popular in Sweden today, 13 years later.
Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
#259List of video games supposedly developed by just one person: https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/the-14-best-games-developed... I say supposedly because I know Jonathan Blow paid someone to do all the art for Braid, and licensed all the music (I even saw him demo Braid before release with his programmer art at GDC back in 2008, it did not look anywhere near as pretty, so he made the right choice). But the artwork was so…
This does not go back very far does it. Must have been a fair number of iconic games written by a single developer in the eight-bit era. Lords Of Midnight by Mike Singleton springs to mind, as does Sandy White's astonishing Ant Attack .
I'm sure there's a bunch if you go back to early arcade days or Atari/NES, like you said. But I had a hard time finding them with a Google search.
Also if you count Flash/mobile games, there's a bunch there too. I would count in that instance. I released several Flash games back in the day where I did the code, sometimes art (sometimes I collaborated with an artist), sometimes I did the music too, and at least some of the sound effects (any that couldn't be generated with a synthesizer I purchased). And I released one game on iOS/Xbox 360 where I did everything as well.
But they were tiny games compared to behemoths like Stardew Valley.
Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?
#260For gaming the work of Chris Sawyer on Rollercoaster Tycoon is pretty interesting - entirely coded by him in Assembly. As far as I remember all of the art was also done by one guy (not Mr Sawyer). Extremely optimized programming.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/rollercoaster-tycoon/code-chris-saw...