Live data from Hacker News

My simple GitHub project went viral

gourav.io

11–20 of 115 posts

Re: My simple GitHub project went viral

#12

It really makes sense to use one of these clones for creating new products IF license permits it and if they are implementing a lot of required functionality. For example making a website for campsites would probably be 90% finished if an Airbnb's clone's code were used. Just as we wouldn't think to implement Quicksort 10 or 20 years ago, because we have great, optimized reusable components, this is the next logical…

They're often (or mostly?) UI mock-ups not clones. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26425233

Re: My simple GitHub project went viral

#13
post #7

Not sure how anyone can feel proud of "projects" like these. This is mostly janitorial work with zero coding, made viral by hordes of wannabe frontend devs. I wouldn't mention this project on my resume.

I hate hate hate doing "janitorial" work and thus I feel really happy when somebody does janitorial work in such a helpful and useful way. Not sure where this falls on the "proudness" scale, but it doesn't really matter.

Re: My simple GitHub project went viral

#14
post #7

Not sure how anyone can feel proud of "projects" like these. This is mostly janitorial work with zero coding, made viral by hordes of wannabe frontend devs. I wouldn't mention this project on my resume.

This[0] might be the reason why :)

[0]: https://jacobian.org/2021/apr/7/embrace-the-grind/

Re: My simple GitHub project went viral

#15
In many cases, these clones only cover the UI, which is not trivial, but is just the tip of the iceberg.

The real challenge in these systems is to make them work at scale. In part because their business model only works at scale.

Something as simple as a "likes" counter is not trivial to do at scale.

Re: My simple GitHub project went viral

#16
post #7

Not sure how anyone can feel proud of "projects" like these. This is mostly janitorial work with zero coding, made viral by hordes of wannabe frontend devs. I wouldn't mention this project on my resume.

> hordes of wannabe frontend devs

Classic HN gatekeeping, this is so unnecessarily degrading. Everyone starts somewhere, and like it or not, making clones is a very good way to learn about the basics of web dev. If they make a good clone and want to share it and get feedback, what's the harm?

Re: My simple GitHub project went viral

#17
post #11

40k visits and only 1 donation. Not that I complain or that I think he deserves more or less, just interesting to see the ratio.

Well, from the post:

> Last month (Mar'21), I made a simple project

It's not like anyone's been using the product long-term or as if individual users incur a significant cost, and the author hasn't been asking to help with hosting costs or anything.

I don't usually donate right upon finding a random fun project, unless I incurred costs (by doing a significant computation or if it sent a number of SMSes or so) for the person who hosts it. I donate to things like the Internet Archive or OpenStreetMap because they have real hosting costs, or the K9 mail client because there's a lot of coding that needs doing, I would like it to be done, and someone's offering to do it for crowdfunded money. Or sci-hub, because the owner gave up a lot to make it happen and I think it has had a net positive effect in the world.

There are other projects I've donated to and more reasons I'd donate, but generally I don't find this weirdly low for this kind of project and also not representative of what you could expect if you do create something that'll require donations, provided it 'goes viral' to the same extent as this project.

Post reply on HN