https://www.sideprojectors.com
Been running it for good 4 years now. Do a little bit of maintaining here and there. I first did it in a hackathon and won a 2nd prize, thought I'll run with it and it's fun. :)
Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
381–390 of 587 posts
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#382I just saw this thread, and honestly it is probably too late to get noticed by many, but I'm attempting to 'unsuck the web' with my project[0] by pinning "sticky" website elements where they belong - i.e. the website header shouldn't steal your screen real estate and scroll down the page with you. My project/uBO filter list removes the "annoying" elements noted above as well as other "features" of websites (e.g. soci…
This is great. I wonder though, how much could you achieve just by creating 1 blanket rule: change every instance on a page of "position: fixed" to "position: absolute" - layout and nav should be more or less the same, across the board, but nothing will follow you down the page!
Kryptonite would be sticky footers, but if you're on a site that uses those you should just close the tab anyway. :)
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#383I have a largish open-source portfolio, including a markdown parser, a regex engine, some music synthesis, and some more researchy stuff like a font renderer and a prototype of concurrent text editing using CRDT's. I'm lucky to be working at Google where I get paid 20% time to work on this, but the motivation is definitely not money. The biggest item in my portfolio is xi-editor, and I confess I'm wrestling with some…
>xi-editor
I read the github readme.md, and I'm wondering.
1. Why should want to switch if I already have a text-editor? 2. Reading through, there seems to be an emphasis on clean data structures and interfaces. Have you taken a look at Kakoune? Because your text editor seems to share quite a few design decisions with it. 3. So, there doesn't seem to be any mention of novel UI/control features even in the front-end. Is that a deliberate choice to emphasize the technical aspects as the selling point (or is it lacking/outdated in documentation), or are there just not any in the first place?
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
A) I'll toss out 1M because you asked for a number. B) Because if I build out my full ambition, it would be better by most objective metrics (speed, features, integration with IDE-like capabilities) than all the free editors out there, and I think there is a real demand for a better editor. I know what you mean about the struggle for traction. It is of course possible I'm massively mis-estimating the potential userba…
It is of course possible I'm massively mis-estimating the potential userbase. That is largely irrelevant. Do you have a marketing plan? Because "build it and they will come" tends to work poorly. If you have no marketing plan, your concerns about a sudden influx of 1M users is likely seriously exaggerated.
Does one need a marketing plan if it's not done for money?
While I'd never heard of xi-editor before now, I'm definitely among those who yearn for a "better" editor for (first off) MacOS... and I think there are many others, based on my totally unscientific assessment of the currently popular editors. I'm still on TextMate for a reason. :-)
So my point is, for certain things "build it and they will come" might work fine. If I ever find an editor I like enough to switch to then I will be singing its praises loudly on the Innernets.
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#385The reason I'm asking this question is because I realized something recently. I've been a programmer all my life. I used to love programming in Delphi, VB :P, Perl, PHP, Javascript, etc since school. I created all sorts of stupid things like Winamp plugins[1], Graphics software[2], Games, etc. It was programming just because i liked making the computer do things for me. But then somewhere along the line my projects s…
On the gamedev subreddit, it seems most questions are around how to market and get exposure for your game, SEO, making a successful kickstarter, etc. It's great to take a step back and just make something that people enjoy, even if it does not bring any income. Getting "fanmail" or seeing the # of hours someone has put into something you've made is a great feeling. As long as you have a day job that pays the bills, I…
I think /r/hobbygamedev was made in response to the whole "I don't want this marketing shit on my game development subreddit" .
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#386http://apimockery.com/ - API Mocking as a Service I built it to learn React and brush up my Go skills. I occasionally add new features. It makes $0 now, but I plan to earn 10$ a month before my amazon free tier expires :)
This is a great idea! Design could use some love, though.
Thanks for the feedback! The text below annoys a good deal of people as well, I should add 'improving design' to my big pile of todos :)
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#387130 Story - a daily microfiction challenge. https://www.130story.com/ I started this as a Twitter game a few years ago; it felt like a compact idea with a good hook. Earlier this year I automated it- so it picks its own words and collates the stories on the website itself (mostly successfully). It doesn't have a big following, but the people who play are passionate about it. Some people play every day, and the most p…
Great idea! I just contributed one. :-)
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#388I started http://hjson.org as a JSON for humans interface but I constantly run into the "I love it but I'll wait until it's used by more people" problem.
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#389The potential of AR is very exciting as I imagine it. I have been considering how I would like to see it implemented as an assistive instrument in my profession - k12 teaching. Teachers largely make traditional use of traditional tools in their lesson design and - especially - lesson performance. Sketching out needs and affordances is a fun kind of daydreaming for what-could-be, but it's not as serious a project as what others here are sharing.
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#390I created ezSQL way back. It's a database abstraction layer for PHP.
https://github.com/ezSQL/ezSQL
It ended up being used by Wordpress and I got a kick out of that.
Edit: It has been far surpassed by modern query builders such as Laravel Eloquent. However, it might be useful for hardware projects or other micro codebases that use sqlite, for example.