Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It's okay to make something nobody wants

zhangluyao.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 208 posts

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#131

Post by sanderjd »

ryukoposting wrote: post #127
hermannj314 wrote: post #81

I wasted a lot of my life being too scared to make something out of fear. This community especially can be very toxic to people that are starting out, that aren't geniuses, that didnt make every perfect decision for their product. Life is more enjoyable in a create-fail-learn loop than a consume-criticize-gloat loop. I wish I'd learned that sooner.

We need more spaces where young, passionate folks can get some encouragement and support. It can be really hard to find that, especially when you're inexperienced.

This is something college is good for, FWIW. Everyone is expected to be young and inexperienced and it's set up to build experience at a reasonable pace, with supportive external validation.

I always feel like the "school is useless" meme ignores all this stuff.

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#132

Post by jpcapdevila »

bsnnkv wrote: post #31

This article resonated with me a lot and had me reflecting on my journey writing komorebi. I started writing komorebi because I had recently migrated to Windows and was really struggling without a tiling window manager. I didn't know anything about Win32 APIs when I started, or much about Rust either, actually. Fast forward to today, and komorebi is sitting at 35k downloads, supported by a huge Discord server, a vibr…

I think what you have experienced is very real. Code (and most forms of expression) are a way to externalize your state of mind.

I've seen it with my own emotional states but also with coworkers when they are going trough a rough time.

This is also why it is difficult to understand others ppl code. And it gets easier as you build a relation/get to know them better. The better you know someone, the easier and faster you can understand their code.

I feel like that is why coding standards, code reviews etc make a codebase more maintainable. You strip the code emotions away or at least reset it to a common level across the team.

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#133

Post by sanderjd »

spencerflem wrote: post #12

That's not making something nobody wants - its making something one person wants a lot :) On a less happy note, there are definitely jobs I've had where I felt like nobody wanted what I was making and its kind of miserable

Yep, it is really hard to keep putting sweat and tears into something that isn't resonating.

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#134

Post by barrysteve »

csydas wrote: post #118
SyberShock wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This community especially can be very toxic to people that are starting out, that aren't geniuses The toxic ones are especially cruel to people that have special genius. And the toxic ones usually consider themselves the deep well of genius. Anything that threatens that perception incurs ire. You can find this in places where there is a, "pecking order" and someone who comes along with a new inspiration gets beat d…

I can understand how this conclusion is reached, but I would position that it's less about the specific skill in any given subject and more just about a person's own perception of what is and is not appropriate for interpersonal actions. I know a lot of incredibly smart and gifted people in the programming sphere who are the most gregarious and kind persons you might ever meet, ready to help on just about any problem…

Steve had the kind of ego-less pride that has existed in the US since time immemorial. He pushed his image much more than normal, though.

The power in heirarchies, is not the title, but the relationships between 'brothers' inside it.

Titles are closer to recognition of your 'mission' or 'role' in the organization.

Being part of a heirarchy in name only, being part of a heirarchy only for the title, is a slippery slope downwards.

Commitment to dogma, commitment to the mission, has no direct relation to competence. It can help, it can hinder, the person's ability matters more.

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#135

Post by layer8 »

Though I wish that big tech would make a little more of what I actually want, instead of drifting towards enshittification. Which I guess is some sort of self-expression for big tech, but probably not in the sense TFA approves of.

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#136

Post by fuzzfactor »

efitz wrote: post #6

Lately i have been wondering about the weird projects that people make- the “I built a web application framework in brainfuck” or “I built a text based bitmap image editor” or “I loaded an LLM on a Speak’n’Spell” kind of projects (I made up all of those but see similar on HN every day). I understand passion projects and the article hints that might be the reason, but I just don’t understand why people would spend suc…

>Products seem to be made for users, but I think this might be an illusion; they are more like a medium for self-expression.

>You can’t be devoid of emotion and expect users to experience emotion after using it.

IOW, art.

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#137

Post by sanderjd »

langsoul-com wrote: post #75

Interesting how this is only really a problem today, 10-20 years ago most of what we built and shared was things we wanted to build. Things that were cool, and awesome. But now we have to explicitly say it's OK that what we build isn't a unicorn start up idea. Not feasible for a global business. Hacker news comments always include how the idea can't be a business or is pointless, impractical etc. Is it because money,…

Isn't this just your bubble growing up over the years?

Like, a decade or two ago, most people were trying to make a living, and that's true today too. But perhaps the people you knew and heard from a couple decades ago were younger and less focused on that than they are today.

I was pretty into passion projects and stuff in college, but I'm not very interested in those things now. They were just a better use of my time then; they really aren't a good use of my time now.

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#138

Post by sanderjd »

fasterik wrote: post #120
langsoul-com wrote: post #75

Interesting how this is only really a problem today, 10-20 years ago most of what we built and shared was things we wanted to build. Things that were cool, and awesome. But now we have to explicitly say it's OK that what we build isn't a unicorn start up idea. Not feasible for a global business. Hacker news comments always include how the idea can't be a business or is pointless, impractical etc. Is it because money,…

We should be wary of nostalgia for an idealized past that never existed. If you look at the semiconductor industry in the 1960s, the personal computer revolution in the 1970s and 1980s, and the dot-com boom in the 1990s, there was always a mix of motivations for working on technology.

Yep, I don't think "people weren't trying to make money in tech 20 years ago" really passes the smell test.

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#139

Post by csydas »

barrysteve wrote: post #134
csydas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand how this conclusion is reached, but I would position that it's less about the specific skill in any given subject and more just about a person's own perception of what is and is not appropriate for interpersonal actions. I know a lot of incredibly smart and gifted people in the programming sphere who are the most gregarious and kind persons you might ever meet, ready to help on just about any problem…

Steve had the kind of ego-less pride that has existed in the US since time immemorial. He pushed his image much more than normal, though. The power in heirarchies, is not the title, but the relationships between 'brothers' inside it. Titles are closer to recognition of your 'mission' or 'role' in the organization. Being part of a heirarchy in name only, being part of a heirarchy only for the title, is a slippery slop…

> The power in heirarchies, is not the title, but the relationships between 'brothers' inside it.

I would disagree to an extent -- for those in the brotherhood, yes it's about the relationships; for the rest, it's about the title(s). The hierarchy exists as an exclusionary barrier ensuring those outside it respect the hierarchy, while those inside play with the hierarchy of the brotherhood.

From my experiences across many businesses, this is an accurate representation of hierarchy and titles; they are a tool of force against those without the title, except for those who are close with someone else within the hierarchy who is willing to forgo the hierarchy and mission/purpose of the org. It's wildly inconsistent, prone to errors and really bad decision making, and it's quite hard to unravel for virtually anyone who wants another way of doing things.

Re: It's okay to make something nobody wants

#140

Post by jmmv »

I like the article. Reminds me of when I started working on EndBASIC. People, especially close friends, would joke about it and ask why I wasted time on such a project.

I didn’t have to justify myself but I found it useful to spell out some of the reasons: https://jmmv.dev/2021/01/why-endbasic.html

And you know what, every time this project has gotten some broad attention, it has been well received just as the original article says :)

Post reply on HN