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Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#501

Post by charles_f »

sanderjd wrote: post #83
charles_f wrote: post #42

You need to support services that are getting deprecated until the very last user leaves. And believe ne, sometimes it might take several years more than the company would like to. As long as someone is using it, you're contributing to its stability, and it's not useless. See yourself as the orchestra on the titanic, playing to the best of their craft until the ship goes under. I worked for a full year on a service w…

Yep, focusing on automation and reliability for this being-deprecated thing seems useful. The goal is to increase the likelihood that it will keep running until people actually stop using it, without anybody needing to work on it. That's useful!

Never said it was the smartest investment, but it's not useless

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#502

Post by pythonaut_16 »

windowshopping wrote: post #455
all2 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linode is super cheap. I pay 6 or 7 bucks a month for a bottom tier VM.

I guess I just haven't done anything outside of a PaaS before and I'm a bit worried about unknown unknowns. I'm sure I'm probably up to the task but managing my own server is just new ground for me. I'll have to research how to ensure that the server is always up or recovers from an unexpected failure and restarts immediately.

Fly.io would probably work for your use case. Doesn't have the restart limit of Heroku and still has a solid enough free tier to run your app!

I'd be happy to help if you need anything! Whether hosting or just backend related questions!

Also depending on how hard coded your architecture is, maybe you can separate out the Magic specific data from the app itself? So the MTG specific data could just be loaded as a datapack?

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#503

Post by zzo38computer »

windowshopping wrote: post #352
mtrpcic wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge is that the level of complexity with rules interactions in MtG is absolutely enormous, especially if you want to allow the freeform format, which allows all sets and cards. Note: You can see all the rules here: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Comprehensive_Rules

Oh I didn't implement a rules engine, that would be impractical. It's a freeform platform that gives you all the tools needed to use every mechanic in the game, but it's up to you to actually follow the rules. No different from playing in person with real cards. It's sort of like a drag and drop sandbox with a lot of extra features around the edges. It's a vastly improved version of Untap.in.

If you do not implement the actual rules, then it can probably be made to support many other kind of card games too.

However, I would be interested to have a FOSS rule engine of Magic: the Gathering, preferably written in C, and licensed by AGPL3 or some compatible license. But, unfortunately there is no official FOSS implementation; if there was (at least of the rule engine; not necessarily the UI) (especially if literate programming is used for the rule engine), I think that it would be better since the rules can be made more precise.

I would want to ensure that the rule engine has no pictures at all (you can easily download pictures separately if you want them, anyways; so the rule engine doesn't need them and shouldn't have them).

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#504

Post by QuercusMax »

spacemanspiff01 wrote: post #237
QuercusMax wrote: post #214

I spent the better part of a year re-documenting a piece of medical device software that was going to be taken over by a different division of the company. We didn't build any new code, just documentation. This was originally supposed to take 3 months and was going to be done by a single contractor who was supposed to just update documents with new templates. When we were just a month from completing this project, th…

That does not sound that bad, does the new division now have great documentation for the product?

Nope! They decided they didn't want to do that kind of work any more, so it's all been thrown away.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#505

Post by john-tells-all »

froderick wrote: post #482

I wrote a bespoke scheme interpreter, then a virtual machine, a bytecode serialization format and a fun standard library. All in C. Totally useless for real work, not unique in any way, but really fun and great for learning. Sometimes useless shit is the best.

I love that kind of stuff!

In college I wrote an assembler, interpreter, and simulator for an 8-bit chip, the 8048. Got a four-credit "A" :-D

Later I read the C code for a Scheme interpreter -- Scheme 9 in Empty Space -- highly recommended! I bought the book. https://t3x.org/s9book/index.html

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#509

Post by rendall »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #404
Tijdreiziger wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to say with this little information, but it sounds like you might have chosen the wrong school for your goals? The database class at my uni was mostly relational algebra. Likewise, many other classes were mostly foundational theory (though we did have project-based applicative classes too).

It was the closest reasonably priced state school near to my home thst took transfer credits from my community College. I should have gone for copywriting The final nail in the coffin was me failing calc 3 twice so I don't think they were unacademic

> The final nail in the coffin was me failing calc 3 twice so I don't think they were unacademic

This failure also may be a sign that it was the wrong school. A course taught badly or indifferently can make a subject tedious or difficult, that when taught well is exciting and easy.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most useless project you have worked on?

#510

Post by TimJRobinson »

windowshopping wrote: post #90

I built the best site out there for playing magic the gathering online. It's way better than any other available option. I've never shared it with the magic community because I think wizards of the coast would just send me a cease and desist, so three years of work is just sitting idle. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Cockatrice has been around for a while without getting a C&D. They separate the game client from the card images to get around it. Could do similar.
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