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Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?

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Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?

#131

List 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…

> say supposedly because ... ... because they did not write the compiler for their game.

There are quite a few two-person teams for indie games, one artist and one developer (more often it's three people, but two people is common also). I doubt most people would consider those teams a "single person creation".

In Braid's case, it was one developer and he contracted out the artwork, just as much artwork as in those two-person teams. So is it really a single person creation? It either could or it couldn't depending on your criteria (if he made all the critical decisions, some might say he is, while others care more about people who can both code and do art, two different fields that it's rare to find one person that can do both of them well). That's all I'm saying.

Also a compiler is a tool, much like a hammer is to a carpenter. If you want to get that precise then there's no point asking the question, because short of "I found some pretty rocks on the ground and stacked them", there wouldn't be hardly anything that would count as a single person creation.

Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?

#133
post #7

Intermittent windshield wipers. Fantastically useful and co-opted by everybody who could (legally or not).

So, this guy owns the house next to a good friend of mine in Auburn California.

It is a vacation home of sorts - but its a very large nice house ~7,000+ SF very well kept grounds - but rarely seen there.

Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?

#134
The original Linux kernel was entirely Linus Torvald's work. Also the same applies for Git. GNU Emacs was Richard Stallman entirely. Most Linux tools we use e.g. cURL, wget etc, started out as one person effort for a very long time until they caught attention.

Another way to look at it: all the tools you use now are team efforts after a lone developer perfected it to a usable release, where people were largely impressed to pick it up further.

Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?

#136
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... because they did not write the compiler for their game. That's like saying a painting isn't a single person creation because the artist didn't make their own brushes from scratch. Maybe true technically, but splitting hairs to the point that it makes the conversation about something else entirely. I, pencil is an interesting essay, but it's not what OP is asking about, I don't think.

For sure. "And did you mine the sand and process the silicon for that computer? I don't think so."

hold on now, don't tell me you were using preexisting atoms to facilitate your art? I guess all great artists really do steal

Re: Ask HN: Single-person creations that have stood the test of time?

#137

Lululemon founder Chip Wilson was the inventor of Board Shorts (the shorts for surfers... he then went on to invent several other garments - then founded lululemon... His episode on how I built this is REALLY interesting.

Yeah, but did you ever see this interview in the Vancouver magazine the Tyee about how he named the company lululemon so he could hear japanese women pronounce it 'rururemon'?

Yeah he's an egotistical douche, but that tends to be normal in such businessmen...
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