[HN Gopher] It's okay to make something nobody wants
___________________________________________________________________
It's okay to make something nobody wants
Author : levi0214
Score : 421 points
Date : 2023-09-21 12:16 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (zhangluyao.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (zhangluyao.com)
| nsonha wrote:
| I think it's ok, great even, the urge to make something that's so
| strong that you do act on it.
|
| Having said a lot of people do software development for a living
| and they may depend on your project. So I think OSS authors do
| have the responsibility to word their motivation honestly, when
| they publish their projects.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > I think it's ok, great even, the urge to make something
| that's so strong that you do act on it.
|
| This has been my year for this. There's been a backlog of
| projects that I had to "code out of my system". None of them
| commercially viable, but all that tugged at me.
|
| - https://coderev.app : code review as interview (OSS)
|
| - https://turas.app : travel planning and story telling for
| well organized travellers (origin story:
| https://youtu.be/_SuT9TpJc2c)
|
| - https://youtu.be/ObwLR6Wxr6o : "ProtocolGPT" - ChatGPT for
| clinical trial sites (latest one I'm building).
|
| All three built between May and now. Built another project for
| fintech with another team.
|
| Sometimes I think I'm crazy. Turned down a few really good
| startups this year working on stuff I wanted to.
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| I understand what you are saying.
|
| But open sourcing some code does not equal some kind of
| agreement to support people using it.
| nsonha wrote:
| I didn't say anything about supporting, just not to mislead
| people.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I can't figure out what you're even trying to say.
|
| What risk of being misled is even possible in oss?
|
| There are junk oss put out by companies that want to claim
| they do oss for PR, but no one is misled by that. If the
| code is junk that doesn't do anything but say, shim a blob
| which contains the actual goods, everyone knows that, as
| there is no way to hide it.
|
| There are lots of crap oss, or high quality oss who's
| design goals I don't like, but none of that is misleading.
|
| There are oss where the original author changed their terms
| after some time, but then everyone just forks the last good
| version and proceeds from there.
|
| There are companies that try to steal oss, but the original
| thing they try to sell is still there.
|
| In no case is there any opportunity for misleading that I
| see, because regardless of anyone's thoughts or intentions,
| the actions are all in the open.
| nsonha wrote:
| It's very simple, just put the project up and note: "I
| make a thing the way I like it". Do not paint a picture
| of something that you've made for public interests and
| actively encourage people to use it. Like when you make a
| fancy website and docs and benchmarks to compare to the n
| projects (that people depends on) before yours.
|
| I personally would never use young OSSes, regardless of
| quality, but there are lots of gulible people in the
| software industry, not dissimilar to life in general.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I'm constantly ambivalent about this...
|
| Bear with me because it's not a perfect analogy, but it reminds
| me of this line from a Fleet Foxes song that landed exactly at
| the right (or wrong) moment in my life:
|
| > _I was raised up believing I was somehow unique ... now after
| some thinking, I 'd say I'd rather be a functioning cog in some
| great machinery serving something beyond me_
|
| I guess where I've landed is that I try to do both. I look for
| things to work on that are personally interesting to me, where I
| can also be "a functioning cog" working toward a larger positive
| goal far beyond myself.
|
| It's hard to strike that balance though! And I often wonder if I
| would be better off committing more fully to one or the other
| side of it instead.
| donatj wrote:
| I'd certainly hope so. The number of things I have built that
| apparently no one but me has a use for is very high. I have an
| entire ecosystem of products that only I use.
| fhd2 wrote:
| That's pretty much my approach for side projects: If it's not
| something I need and enjoy, I don't do it.
|
| Not sure about all that artsy "expression" talk. I also truly
| enjoy building products someone else needs and enjoys. When the
| guy who pays you is the guy who wants it, I find that similarly
| motivating, even if I myself will never have a need for what I
| built there.
|
| Now, I've also been in a different situation: Being hired by
| someone to work on products for other people based on research
| and data. I don't care, the guy who pays me doesn't care, it's
| all about economics: Extract the maximum amount of money from
| users with the least effort. That I find demotivating. I don't
| think it's because I can't "express myself". It's just working on
| something that's not primarily trying to be useful or enjoyable,
| it's mainly trying to get bought/used.
| hx8 wrote:
| I find the best products are those that are built with humans
| in mind. Who will be using it, how will they use it, why will
| they like it. Products/features that are following pure
| research/data tend to be missing a human element and rarely
| feel excellent regardless of their market performance.
| Manheim wrote:
| I started on a comment but ended up writing a post on my own. In
| my opinion, if your goal is to achieve mainstream success, the
| method may not be advisable unless you have ample resources for
| experimentation.
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/double-edged-sword-creative-i...
| levi0214 wrote:
| Hi, I'm the author.
|
| Originally I didn't want to post it here because I hardly ever
| post anything on HN and guess no one would read it.
|
| But the feelings were strong and I really wanted to tell people
| what I was feeling.
|
| After I posted it on HN that day, it sunk quickly, and sure
| enough no one read it, so I didn't go back to HN to check on it.
|
| Until this evening, when I got a text from a stranger saying
| thank you for the post. I was surprised and opened HN to find it
| was at the top.
|
| Thank you all for reading it.
|
| In a way I put this article into practice, I put my emotions in
| my product (article) and you extracted from it.
| drewchew wrote:
| Glad to be the bearer of fun news :)
| araes wrote:
| Thank you for writing the article (admittedly unnecessary due
| to the topic, probably a koan there somewhere...) [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan
| bsnnkv wrote:
| 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 vibrant community, and
| hundreds of people watching me develop it on YouTube.
|
| I created some incredibly important and impactful systems at
| $dayjob some years before I started komorebi. It was at a real
| low point in my life where I was struggling with depression, and
| I still _feel_ that when I look at the codebases and interact
| with those systems today. I wonder if others do, too. In some
| ways, I'm glad that those codebases and those systems are not
| public for others to see for that reason.
|
| I am however, very glad that komorebi is out for the public to
| see, because I built it in a place of joy, hope and serenity, and
| I believe that those feelings are there to be seen in both the
| codebase and the product.
| julianeon wrote:
| Nice work!
|
| One reason why I went 100% Linux was because I couldn't find a
| window manager equivalent elsewhere that was anywhere close to
| i3. And yours, to me, looks competitive with i3.
|
| The window manager has been the one killer feature that was
| just not available at the same level on MacOS or Windows. It's
| nice to see that changing.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I really like your interpretation of psychology on resultant
| codebases. Personally, I have very mild bipolar-like
| tendencies, and I find that I don't really get much done except
| in my "manic" phases. If I'm feeling more charitable to myself
| I call it an explore/exploit loop. I consider it one of life's
| many seasons, and don't mind the oscillations too much.
|
| However, while I've read serene code, my own code often reads
| as "manic" in my own estimation.
|
| I haven't found the state of mind where I would even attempt
| serene code: when I'm at peace, writing code seems like a waste
| of time when there's trees and bubbling waters outside, and
| good friends and family to share gentle laughs with. I
| genuinely enjoy coding, but I would like it if I could find
| that _serene_ mental space that also afforded productivity.
| jpcapdevila wrote:
| 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.
| pedalpete wrote:
| Lately I've been thinking more about the craft of creating than
| the outcome of what people want.
|
| This separation from creation to outcome is a nice feeling, and I
| think has let me be a bit more creative (though that has never
| been a big problem for me).
| wzyoi wrote:
| It's hard to imagine how many people are doing something nobody
| wants in a busy corporate environment.
| roody15 wrote:
| I find it fascinating. I cannot tell you how many complain
| about corporate structure, meaningless paperwork, and working
| on projects that are just money traps for consumers. When asked
| why do you work here ? Get the same blank stare.
|
| Somehow people appear to be easily influenced to end up working
| at corporations and on projects devoid of real meaning, passion
| or soul. Almost a depressed defeatist attitude like .. yeah I
| live in this overpopulated city that I don't like .. working at
| a corporation that treats people as cogs .. making a product
| that is designed to exploit others ... and ohh by the way I am
| kind of depressed.
|
| Hmmm
| salawat wrote:
| Otherwise, starve.
|
| As it turns out, access to finance is tightly controlled by a
| (relative to the rest of the poulace) small population that
| sets the tone for the rest. Essentially, thry make the on-
| ramps.
|
| You wanna change it? Good luck. Save up and do your best with
| the time you've got, because if it doesn't mesh with the
| overall tune, you're done.
|
| Easy to put the blame on the individual when you don't take
| into account the rest of the environment.
| zibzob wrote:
| I like the message, but I feel like the article doesn't support
| the headline. Instead, it seems to be saying that you should make
| something that you are passionate about, and in return other
| people will want it. I have not found that to be true personally,
| although I would like for it to be true.
| fhd2 wrote:
| I'd find it hard to believe it's not true. There's billions of
| people out there. Now, finding them, reaching them, that's the
| challenge.
| fourthark wrote:
| Seems like his point is the inverse: if you don't want it, how
| will anyone else?
| nullcipher wrote:
| there's plenty of people who cook for others when they don't
| like it themselves? like meat, eggs, seafood etc.
| sph wrote:
| The product of a chef is the cooking, not the cooked
| product itself.
|
| I often buy better ingredients than what's found at any
| restaurant, but I pay to sit at one because they're
| prepared, cooked and taste better when done by a
| professional.
| greffer wrote:
| Often (not always), you can clealy taste the difference.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I don't think any software I have been paid to work on has
| been something I personally want, but there sure are a lot of
| companies that want it.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| What about a more subtle take? Have you built things in the
| same way that you'd do it in a personal context? Had a
| feeling of "doing the right thing"? Put care into your
| work?
| Quentincestino wrote:
| I think the point is more about innovation and "creating"
| the need by solving problems people didn't even know they
| had
| emodendroket wrote:
| Because it solves a problem they have?
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| How will that happen? If I don't know anything about
| photography, and don't even like it much, certainly don't
| care about it, my photography app will be garbage.
|
| Precisely as so many apps are garbage.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Lot of more traditional software is something the coders
| don't need or even use, but they still provide real value
| think of something like inventory tracking in warehouse.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I think I am quite capable of developing understanding of
| a domain and building a tool to solve a problem in it
| even if I don't personally care that much about it.
| There's plenty of software out there solving problems
| it's hard to imagine much of anyone feeling passionate
| about.
| Borg3 wrote:
| I have quite a bit of tools/progs or game mods that pretty much
| nobody uses. Mostly because they are very niche and long dead OS.
| Same for games, nobody plays them anymore. Is this making me sad?
| A bit, because would be cool to share and play. But, from other
| side I have stuff I can tinker myself and play too.
| keiferski wrote:
| Good advice, and I'd take this a step further and say sometimes
| the thing you're making isn't wanted by anyone now, but will be
| by people in the future.
|
| My go-to example here is Nietzsche, who spent most of his life
| writing in obscurity. He actually had to pay to have some of his
| books published. Only after he became mentally incapacitated and
| died did his fame grow, and now he's generally considered one of
| the three most important thinkers of the era, along with Marx and
| Freud.
|
| Obviously making a little hobby web app is not the same as
| writing books about the future of Western civilization, but I
| think the lesson is: work on what you really think is important,
| not on what you've convinced yourself is important by listening
| to others.
| pdonis wrote:
| The article's title is a misnomer. (I can't tell whether that is
| intentional on the author's part or not.) The article describes
| making something _you_ , the maker want, because you find it
| interesting--but then says that other people will end up wanting
| it too, because they also find it interesting. So you're not
| making something _nobody_ wants: _you_ want it, and you 're not
| nobody, and others end up wanting it as well.
|
| What the article really seems to be advising against is making
| something, not because _you_ want it, but because you _think_
| others will want it. The article is basically arguing that that
| doesn 't work. But _why_ doesn 't it work? Because in fact doing
| _that_ ends up making something that _nobody_ wants! You don 't
| want it, and once you've made it, you find out others don't want
| it either.
| jpcapdevila wrote:
| This really resonates with me, I like the idea if product as
| container for emotions.
|
| But I think the author misses one point here:
|
| _> I believe the real skill in making products isn't some
| "making products" skill, but rather a skill in feeling your own
| subtle emotions._
|
| I believe there are high emotional, highly empathetic people that
| can talk to other people, understand their emotions and create
| something for them.
|
| This for me would be "making products skill". This is how you
| create products for things that you can't experience yourself
| directly.
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| > It's okay to make something nobody wants
|
| I tell this to my mom often
| aatd86 wrote:
| Lol :p
| ornornor wrote:
| I thought that's funny :)
| m463 wrote:
| I see the darker side of this.
|
| Lots of companies make things they want, but people should not
| want. And they let people take up the slack.
|
| But I'm thinking of things like email - that reads people's mail.
| and on and on...
| Nevermark wrote:
| They want to be the master of that software, not the user.
|
| Not surprising users don't want to be the users either!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I do it all the time. I'd say that 90% of the work I've done,
| over the last couple of decades, has lain fallow, died quietly in
| a corner, or been outright rejected.
|
| But that 10%...
|
| If nothing else, it's practice.
|
| But, whatever it is, we always need to power through the "boring
| bits," to make our dream a reality.
| stavros wrote:
| 10% is a good percentage, it's been 0% for me. Then again, my
| best art project has been https://imgz.org, which I knew wasn't
| really going to get used much by other people.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Your website lists an alternative method, not owned by you,
| for the service you provide.
|
| This deeply resonates with me for some implicit reason I
| don't understand. It comes off as respectable.
|
| Thank you!
| stavros wrote:
| Haha, thanks!
| efitz wrote:
| 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
| such enormous amounts of effort on such weird projects.
| sentimentscan wrote:
| I thought that this is something that wasn't done before
| (analysing google comments with ChatGPT) and that would be
| amazing. https://sentimentscanner.com Simple as that and market
| will verify.
|
| Also it is nice to develop 5-10 times quicker then in
| scrum/jira ticket driven development. I couldn't believe that
| in Saturday I can do more then 1-2 weeks in my job. I of course
| understand that this doesn't scale to team, but yeah it is nice
| to feel that you can write good code so fast as a rockstar
| developer
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| "Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to
| make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower.
| Dance to the radio. Tell stories." -- Kurt Vonnegut, If This
| Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young
| MrVandemar wrote:
| > I understand passion projects and the article hints that
| might be the reason, but I just don't understand why people
| would spend such enormous amounts of effort on such weird
| projects.
|
| There's a great side-effect to these quirky projects. There's a
| Christian/Bible story called The Unmoved Rock. Essentially God
| tells some guy to go push against a huge boulder and he damn
| well near kills himself trying to move it over and over. After
| a while he complains and God points out that he never asked him
| to _move_ the rock, just to _push_ it, and now the guy is
| totally ripped and strong as an ox.
|
| Essentially, however useless or niche these things are, you
| yourself _grow_ with the making and crafting of them. You
| exercise and develop your creative thinking, and your problem
| solving skills.
| NateEag wrote:
| > There's a Christian/Bible story called The Unmoved Rock.
|
| Where did you learn this story?
|
| I'm curious, because it's a cute little
| anecdote/illustration, but I'm fairly confident it's not in
| the Protestant Bible, having read that several times.
| saberience wrote:
| Why do people play videogames? It takes up a ton of time and
| has no profitable output? Answer: they find it fun.
|
| Why are you judging people doing something they enjoy? You
| don't have any hobbies that aren't all economically profitable?
| tmpX7dMeXU wrote:
| Because they find it fun? Interesting? I don't understand how
| the opposite can be true. "Everything is a product" is a
| terrible mindset that too many people exhibit, especially those
| new to tech.
| barrysteve wrote:
| I would make an web app in brainfuck just for bragging rights.
|
| Not quite as good as Rollercoaster Tycoon in Assembly.. but
| close.
| matonias wrote:
| Fun and fun stimulates life!
| spfzero wrote:
| It's fun for them and they don't have the expectation that it
| will make money. And probably it doesn't, and that's fine, move
| on to the next thing. But once in a while, maybe it resonates
| with a greater need.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| 1) they do it as a hobby (and often it may be more productive
| than watching soccer or playing computer games or binge
| drinking)
|
| 2) they do this to explore/test technology XYZ
|
| 3) they are so talented and experienced that it does not
| require enormous amount of time
|
| 4) for promotion, bragging rights
|
| 5) some combination of above
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >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.
| [deleted]
| rodrigosetti wrote:
| I feel this resonates with mindfulness lifestyle: give your full
| attention to the present moment and the quality of your activity
| (and product) will show.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| 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.
| chronicsonic wrote:
| That's why I like the Saveitforparts YouTube Channel. He's the
| antimatter of those slick YouTube build channels, where
| everything is perfect.
|
| Just a laid-back bloke building stuff in his garage, without
| giving a shit what other people might think about it.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/@saveitforparts
| shrimpx wrote:
| YouTube influencer with 138k followers, I think he probably
| gives a shit.
| zpeti wrote:
| > This community especially can be very toxic to people that
| are starting out
|
| This isn't toxicity. This is normal human behaviour. Either you
| deal with it yourself internally or you will be suffering it
| forever.
|
| Maybe this is why childhood trauma helps sometimes at being an
| entrepreneur (I have first hand experience), being bullied made
| sure I didn't really care about negative feedback later on in
| life.
|
| My point is calling it toxic doesn't help. It doesn't help you,
| because you place your own self worth in someone else's hands.
| This is bad. Secondly, you'll never change this, because it's
| normal. People don't like new things, except for a few
| exceptions. You have to build something really cool or people
| won't care. Society just isn't some 100% love, accepting place.
| Sorry. Evolution didn't make it that way. Society doesn't have
| an obligation to you to be nice.
|
| But that's the whole point of this article too. Just build
| stuff you enjoy. Who cares what others think? Stop blaming
| society for your issues.
| [deleted]
| lc9er wrote:
| This is something I learned being in bands. Fame and fortune
| weren't in the story, but because we made the music we wanted
| to hear, I have an album and 3 EPs worth of music that I can
| listen to and enjoy, over a decade later.
| SyberShock wrote:
| > 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
| down viciously.
| csydas wrote:
| 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 they're
| able to -- I've also met the types you're mentioning, and I'm
| not sure that their way of handling themselves is a
| requirement or even characteristic for such genius.
|
| Bumping into such personalities when it comes to their
| subject matter of expertise might be a challenge, sure. They
| are sure of themselves, direct to a fault, and it takes a lot
| to get them to reconsider their point of view or even explain
| it sometimes as they tend to get pretty dogmatic about it. It
| can be tempting to associate this with their skill level in
| the subject matter, but I see the same boisterous bravado
| from the C-levels and VPs when they decide there is something
| they _must_ opine on without having any knowledge in the
| domain.
|
| In my experiences, those who just react "screw you guys I'm
| going home" when challenged aren't quite the superstars they
| present themselves as; the real superstars are far more open
| to their ideas being challenged because, in my experience
| again, they _like_ that sort of challenge. It's not earth
| shattering for their ego to be corrected, it's a moment of
| embarrassment, then a moment of appreciation as their mental
| model adjust and they begin to realize how many axioms
| they've held based of their previously incorrect logic begin
| to change/drop away, and they are unburdened by this
| correction, not harmed.
|
| That is to say, I'm not sure that it's at all related to the
| skill level or special geniuses, it's just too easy to fall
| into a perception for oneself of "smart people are always
| right and when someone challenges them, the only correct path
| is to assert dominance above all else"; I don't think you
| need to tie such behavior to any particular industry or
| skillset, I can guarantee you that this happens in virtually
| all spheres.
|
| With regards to the article, I think the author maybe has the
| start of a well developed idea that is marred by trying to
| associate it with success in the tech world; Steve Jobs may
| have bucked trends in the industry by going all-in on a
| nascent technology which ended up making Apple the household
| name for smartphones; I don't think it was out of any
| particular inspiration except that "this is coming anyways,
| and it's gonna make us a shitload of money"; Jobs might have
| known when he was wrong, but from the stories available,
| doesn't seem he was often humble about it.
|
| But I would propose don't associate that kind of toxicity
| with the field; there are a lot of things that encourage such
| behavior, sure, but I think a lot of this is just the same
| outdated/ineffective ideas of leadership and decision making
| that have plagued the world for some time -- it's quite fast
| to see that this is in just about any community that gets big
| enough, and it's not exactly a game we _have_ to play, it's
| just one we continue to play for whatever reason...+
|
| + Addendum: This is not to speak of workplace hierarchies and
| the ridiculousness that is the structure of a Corporation.
| From personal experience, such hierarchical power is
| absolutely a farce, the same in my mind as a pyramid scheme.
| My reasoning for this is that despite my very fancy title and
| rapid rise to this title, I know that the title is only
| useful so long as the person I'm talking with is willing to
| give it power. My colleagues will absolutely "go over my
| head" instead of discussing items with me if they don't get
| the answer they like right away, and our clients will do the
| same. I think the sooner we can do away with such stringent
| and pointless hierarchies the better, as it's hard for me to
| see them as anything but a show to allow the people with real
| power in such hierarchies to get their way.
| barrysteve wrote:
| 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.
| csydas wrote:
| > 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.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Businesses and corporations need a heirarchy to withhold
| knowledge and information from outsiders and 'insiders
| hungry enough to be dangerous'.
|
| But the natural state for a heirarchy is in an
| institution, or a military, or a government.
|
| As soon as you make money, your final measure of
| existence, heirarchy is crippled (to varying degrees) as
| a concept.
|
| Heirarchy in a business is nearly identical as keeping
| people 'on a shelf' ready to be deployed onto the storm
| and stress of work. Businesses heirarchies are flatter,
| often chaotic and lose rigour and discipline, anytime
| someone sees financial benefit in bending the rules.
|
| A pure heirachy like something seen on a british navy
| frigate, or in a religious instution, is a better mental
| model for the concept. Business needs, flatten out what
| the ideal concept is capable of producing.
| csydas wrote:
| i get what you're saying, but i don't see those as true
| hierarchies either. they suffer the same issues and
| problems as described above.
|
| the simple idea of implicit authority because of rank or
| position does not seem to work as soon as there is an
| incentive to misuse it; i don't know what the answer is
| to this but i don't really subscribe that the majority of
| the hierarchies matter so much.
|
| the open source model of "just fork it if you don't
| agree" isn't great, but i would say it's a start.
| maintainers define the goal and purpose of the project,
| but if you don't like the rules, fork and go your
| separate ways. this is vastly simplified of course, but i
| think it better represents a model that would be
| reasonable for a hierarchy.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| "Consider the source" is always good advice.
|
| In interpersonal life, you have more to go on about the
| source. He or she is obviously an opinionated know-nothing
| loudmouth. Online, you either have to know the sender, or
| guess from the community.
|
| StackExchange is especially infested with those, so you can
| safely assume anyone trashing your idea is one of them.
| Reddit, too, pretty much. HN has some of those, but not
| everyone is like that.
| jordanreger wrote:
| well said
| davnicwil wrote:
| A negative reception to putting a product out there is actually
| a really great outcome. It shows you are doing something right
| if this happens.
|
| The expected and typical outcome is to be completely ignored -
| crickets. This is perhaps the main reason you should not fear
| shipping!
|
| I have a post which elaborates on this if it's interesting for
| anyone: https://davnicwil.com/negative-feedback-is-positive/
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Negative feedback is a signal, yet not a guaranteed good. It
| could also just mean someone stumbled into your product and
| found it fatally flawed. Sometimes one needs to hear hard
| things.
|
| Then again when building only for myself all feedback (or
| lack thereof) is irrelevant!
| chaos_emergent wrote:
| I totally agree with negative reception! It means that people
| give enough of a shit to _feel_ about your product. Which
| means that with more development - either in product or in
| market - you'll find people who love what you made.
| keiferski wrote:
| Unfortunately those two things often come together, in which
| the only bit of attention is a single negative comment.
| Social media sites (forums included) are optimized to reward
| criticism, no matter how small, instead of positivity.
|
| Supposedly this is because upvotes are intended to replace
| comments like "Great!" or "I really like this, good job." But
| obviously that doesn't work out in reality.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| I agree with you--particularly about shipping.
|
| I used to worry about shipping because I thought "you only
| get one chance to make a good impression."
|
| But as long as you use negative feedback to improve, you will
| always[1] get another chance! Statistically speaking, 0% of
| the world has seen your product.
|
| [1] Obligatory disclaimer that if you really fuck up, you
| don't get another chance. But that's super rare.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, I think if someone cares enough to leave negative
| feedback, they found it interesting enough to at least try
| it out, and they're (often) at least invested enough to see
| if their feedback has any impact or makes a difference.
| They will look again.
|
| The people who see your thing as useless and don't even try
| it are the people you never hear from.
| meiraleal wrote:
| > This community especially can be very toxic to people that
| are starting out, that aren't geniuses, that didn't make every
| perfect decision for their product.
|
| Start through another community then? It is nobody's fault if
| you can't impress people. But I find people being very
| welcoming here to bad ideas and half-baked products that are
| absolutely low quality and soon gets abandoned.
| davidhariri wrote:
| > Life is more enjoyable in a create-fail-learn loop than a
| consume-criticize-gloat loop.
|
| That's beautiful. Did you make that up? Brilliant!
| barrysteve wrote:
| I'd like to point out the opposite.
|
| I made a game with a group of well educated friends back in the
| mid 2000s. It was released (against agreements) when the core
| gameplay was roughly-in place, but all the art assets were
| 'programmer art'.
|
| It made the top ten worst Steam Greenlight games (on some dead
| blog) and attracted huge quantities of negative criticism.
|
| Even though it was never linked to my public reputation and I
| found it hilarious at the time...
|
| It did make me very hesistant and perfectionist in future
| projects and took out a certain amount of faith that 'it will
| work out'.
|
| I learnt a lot from the experience and I'm glad I did it. But
| gosh I wasted a lot of good juice and youthful exuberance on
| that.
|
| Failure is not 'free'.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| > It did make me very hesistant and perfectionist in future
| projects and took out a certain amount of faith that 'it will
| work out'.
|
| But that's because you still cared about others. And maybe
| didn't read enough startup/entrepreneur books or know enough
| people who did that. Once you know what _crap_ companies
| willingly release which go on to be successful, it will make
| you far less perfectionist.
|
| I had the luck of having a few family members in computing in
| the 70s when I was born, so I heard early on about Allen
| debugging/fixing the basic interpreter he wrote on a PDP for
| a processor he didn't have access to at the time on the plane
| for one of the most important meetings of Microsoft at the
| time. The absolute and total garbage Oracle released for many
| years when they started. etc. And those are _old_ stories,
| but this happens all the time; a lot of products that are
| launched by big or small companies are so full of bugs that I
| wonder sometimes if _anyone_ bothered to try them.
|
| I simply stopped caring about perfection as it drove me
| insane and no-one cares anyway. Even, in line with this
| article, even if I make something ONLY for myself, I rather
| just finish it and then change it over time then try to get
| it in a 'perfect state' from the start. It doesn't make me
| happy as perfection is not really something that's easy to
| define; especially in software, it is so incredibly hard to
| get to anything better than 'ok', that striving for
| perfection (Dijkstra like) will drive you completely bonkers
| and nothing ever gets released.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Thanks, you're spot on. I appreciate it.
| toast0 wrote:
| Hey, most games never get on a top ten list. That's an
| achievement!
| anonzzzies wrote:
| >This community especially
|
| Most communities have that though; they don't like others
| having success, they don't like talent/genius in others, they
| laugh at failure (both by large and small companies) etc.
| Really one of the best lessons in life (often learned at a
| higher age) is to give two shits about what anyone thinks about
| whatever you do.
|
| Just building stuff (fail/success doesn't matter so much) is
| more than by far most will ever do; they are mostly jealous of
| people who get anything done at all.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Once someone does become an established leader however people
| seem to be ok with it.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| Until they fail again, then everyone points and laughs.
| It's a shame as we are losing a LOT of cycles on this kind
| of toxic nonsense.
| duxup wrote:
| Bad code, bad products are better than none.
|
| And you might be surprised how bad it is or isn't....
| ryukoposting wrote:
| 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.
| sanderjd wrote:
| 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.
| sirodoht wrote:
| I relate. "Make something you will enjoy making" -- I tried to
| instill the essence of this in a coding event I organised
| recently, but I don't think I was successful. Maybe I should have
| sent this blog post to people instead -- "It's okay to make
| something nobody wants" -- a new mantra.
| [deleted]
| Narciss wrote:
| I think my recent project https://consciousness.social fits into
| the category of making something for the pure pleasure of it. But
| the medium of self-expression is the web, not the platform
| itself.
|
| It's like saying that the painting you are splashing color on is
| a medium of self-expression. I would rather say that painting
| itself is the medium.
|
| >> Different expressions, conceived by various minds, undergo a
| form of natural selection, with the surviving expression being
| the one that resonates most with users. <<
|
| I mean "survival" is a relative term. A painting may not survive,
| but the ideas encapsulated within that painting may come to
| inspire others to paint in a particular way. Does that mean that
| the initial painting survived? In some black and white
| definition, no. But look closely, and you may see some form of
| survival.
|
| That's why I wouldn't necessarily see the most successful
| projects as those who attract the most attention. They may be
| obviously successful, but if something gives you pleasure to do
| and you "put your entire being" into it, it may be successful in
| more subtle ways that may not be obvious to you or anyone,
| really.
|
| A friend of mine recently said that one of the books that I wrote
| changed the way he looks at the subjects the book was broaching.
| He asked me how many people I knew that were influenced by the
| ideas in the book. I replied that if it changed the view of even
| one person, then it's enough for me, more than enough.
|
| The most successful projects are those that change lives for the
| better...even for just one person, even in a non-obvious way. And
| you're right, can't see such things getting made without at least
| a bit of feeling.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Bookmarking this to return to whenever I feel down on myself.
| I've been working on a side project for _way_ too long, and I'm
| scared to publicize it because I don't know whether it's a
| terrible idea that everyone will hate.
|
| But all I know is that _I_ don't hate it; I find it super
| interesting.
|
| https://matry.design
| makk wrote:
| That looks pretty sweet! I can immediately see how there could
| be a companion framework that turns those descriptions into
| clickable prototypes, and how translation between designer and
| product people becomes really smooth. I love it!
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Thanks! Yeah that would be pretty cool, I've been toying with
| the idea of adding behavior, but for various reasons I'm
| really trying to keep the language static. You could
| definitely build a framework on top of the language to
| support click events.
| foreigner wrote:
| Cute sentiments, but I also like to eat.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Don't be discouraged, the world needs drones too! :)
|
| Some of us have a primal urge to create something new,
| something we personally appreciate, regardless of whether that
| intersects with our job.
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| Yea like.... I've been "following my heart" or whatever for
| over 15 years... sure, I made some cool shit, and some people
| really like it. But it doesn't pay. I need money.
| swayvil wrote:
| To invent something objectively novel and significant. To
| spend a fair chunk of your life on that quest. And to get
| zero monetary compensation for it. To be ignored that way.
| It's educational.
| nullandvoid wrote:
| "A life well lived is a series of personal obsessions shared
| without expectation of an audience."
|
| Source - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34034857
| DonHopkins wrote:
| The Church of the Subgenius has the concept of the "Short
| Duration Personal Savior" (ShorDurPerSav):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22518739
|
| DonHopkins on March 8, 2020 | prev | next [-]
|
| I've seen people on hn describe themselves as "serial
| specialists". (However, nobody admits to being a "parallel
| generalist".)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22337342
|
| >I'm a generalist too, or as someone else put it - a serial
| specialist. You could just stagnate until you retire. That's
| basically what I'm doing, but for slightly different reasons.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22335697
|
| >Something i learned about myself a little bit farther in was
| that I wasn't a generalist so much as I was a serial specialist
| (once you haven't touched something you used the be good at for
| seven years, can you still claim to be good at it? Turns out I
| can't).
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4317080
|
| >Going for knowledge just because it sounds cool isn't going to
| be a motivator strong enough for success. Find stuff you're
| interested in and dive into those. The way to become a well-
| rounded person is to become obsessive in many things (possibly
| not simultaneously) that are unusual in some way. In fact,
| learning anything will feel like specialization, and in fact
| being a serial specialist is probably the most viable way to
| become a "Renaissance man" today.
|
| >Note that the first thing that came to my mind when I read
| your post was: "To be a true Renaissance man, you need to have
| been dead for 400 years". I won't write it here :)
|
| The Church of the Subgenius has a similar concept called the
| "Short Duration Personal Savior" (or ShorDurPerSav, the proper
| Tibetian term):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10045688
|
| >Wow; just wow. Thank you for filling that gaping hole in my
| education with Dick Tuck [1] [2]! My new short duration
| personal savior [2].
|
| Speaking of favorite ShorDurPerSavs: John Gage [4], who was Sun
| Microsystem's "Science Officer" and turned the Sun logo 45
| degrees on its corner, had the honor of serving his country on
| Nixon's enemies list [5] -- a distinguished achievement that L.
| Ron Hubbard falsely claimed about himself!
|
| "I didn't hide what I did. I never tried to be malicious. It's
| just the difference between altering fortune cookies to make a
| candidate look funny and altering State Department cables to
| make it look as if a former President were a murderer." --Dick
| Tuck on the difference between himself and Nixon's Watergate
| operatives.
|
| "The people have spoken, the bastards." --Dick Tuck's
| concession speech following his loss in the 1966 California
| State Senate election.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tuck
|
| [2] http://hoaxes.org/tuck.html
|
| [3]
| http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/goods/shordurpersavs/X0012_...
|
| [4] http://www.zdnet.com/article/suns-gage-looks-ahead/
|
| [5] http://www.enemieslist.info/enemy.php?ID=463
|
| http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/goods/shordurpersavs/X0012_...
|
| >From: Purple Kitty <pkitty@netcom.com>
|
| >-= SHORT DURATION PERSONAL SAVIORS - A LESSON =-
|
| >BEGINNER LEVEL - CLEARED FOR ALL BOBBIES - BEGINNER LEVEL -
| CLEARED FOR
|
| >Shockingly, some Bobbies are still unclear as to what a Short
| Duration Personal Savior is. The concept of the Short Duration
| Personal Savior (or ShorDurPerSav, the proper Tibetian term) is
| a new one-- traditional religions tend to emphasize "unwavering
| servitude" over convenience. But is absolute devotion to one
| savior always best? Buddha is a wonderful role model for
| certain aspects of life, but when that po'bucker shoves you out
| of the way as he walks by, don't you wish that you worshipped
| George Foreman instead, if only for the next few minutes?
|
| >Well, you can! The Church of the SubGenius heartily endorses
| the concept of disposable saviors, or ShorDurPerSavs. Choose
| your messiah to fit the situation. If peace and compassion are
| what you need right now, follow the teachings of Gandhi. Later,
| when you need to cut a business deal, emulate the wisdom of Sam
| Walton. When you need a witty remark on the spot, let Samuel
| Clemens into your heart to inspire you. And when you need Slack
| in your life, sell your soul to "Bob".
|
| >"Bob" is the most frequently invoked of our infinitely varied
| Short Duration Personal Saviors, with good reason. He has Slack
| --he IS Slack. He symbolizes the "easy life", where one follows
| the Path of Least Resistance and gains Slack effortlessly. But
| no one is expected to worship "Bob" 24/7! If you're trying to
| get that PC to work, choosing "Bob" as your ShorDurPerSav will
| hinder you far more than helping you! "Bob" couldn't use a PC
| if he wanted to (though he sold more of them last year than IBM
| and Packard Bell put together)! Read through Stephen Levy's
| _Hackers_ and let the TMRC be your ShorDurPerSavs! There ARE no
| limits!
| bobse wrote:
| Only if you paid for it with your own money.
| [deleted]
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| ...if you have other sources that can defend you from the bills.
|
| The obvious needs to be stated.
|
| That said, yes! Learning by genuine curiosity is what can bring
| to express the best in ourselves.
| franze wrote:
| I created https://qrpwd.franzai.com/ as an anti-product ignoring
| how website, tools or even common sense should work
| samjohnation111 wrote:
| [dead]
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Of course it is - there is no duty to be useful. But it's even
| better (funner, more fulfilling, more likely to make you money)
| to make something that some one specific person you know wants.
| Could be you, could be a partner or a close friend/relative -
| doesn't really matter, as long as it's someone you know well.
| spencerflem wrote:
| 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
| Aeolun wrote:
| I have that feeling trying to improve dev practices in a shop
| that had none. _Years_ of effort and we're barely at the point
| my previous place was at before I even started there.
| pydry wrote:
| It's interesting how many companies are so utterly
| uninterested in investing in speeding up development but so
| keen on measuring it.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Why care? The only reason I point stuff out at my current
| company is because I don't want to get on a performance
| improvement plan because of their dumb work forecasting
| solutions
| matkoniecz wrote:
| I can imagine caring about something like that if it was
| impending something important (say, it was about developing
| software that is part of court system/curing cancer/doing
| something that I consider personally important).
|
| Or they are paid specifically for that, or they just spend
| they work hours on that.
|
| Hopefully they are not spending unpaid overtime on that
| (unless they consciously volunteer to help with something
| important, not with widget marketing)
| Aeolun wrote:
| > Hopefully they are not spending unpaid overtime on that
|
| Dear god, no. I'm paid for it.
|
| It still feels like nobody (except my boss) wants what
| I'm selling.
|
| Which isn't exactly true either, but people certainly do
| not embrace change.
| Jensson wrote:
| If he can spend time at work doing things he likes to do
| then why not? He could have spent that time churning out
| features instead, but now he got to clean up a codebase,
| some people like doing that sort of thing.
| tempestn wrote:
| Caring about your work and work environment can make time
| spent working a lot more fulfilling. Which isn't to say
| every company or every manager inspires such sentiment, but
| if you can find a way to care about your work, and/or find
| work that you care about, it's definitely more pleasant
| than just doing the minimum to collect pay.
| sentimentscan wrote:
| Nothing is worse then when you care, and apparently all
| the code written/test/work done 3 months by team goes
| straight to the trash, no explanation. Simply some exec
| in this large thought that it should go to trash,
| couldn't even give me a reason. I quickly quit after
| that.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Believe me, it's far worse when everybody working on it
| thinks it should go in the trash, but everybody is still
| working on it because some exec in this large org thinks
| it still has promise year after year.
|
| I've been on both sides of that, and while I appreciate
| execs that know how to give a project room to breath and
| find their footing, I also appreciate execs that know
| when to tear the bandaid off.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Because caring IS the entire point. I think you'd be better
| served to ask "Why do?"
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| bills to pay.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Ugh. I feel you. I left my last job in large part because I
| concluded that I had done as much as I ever would be able to
| in terms of improving things. Staying would just have led to
| increasing frustration. Better off leaving when I could feel
| good about the improvements that I made.
| rendall wrote:
| That can be a thankless task, but the successes are
| rewarding.
| ozim wrote:
| That is basically 90% of business line software that is built
| to support workflows and processes.
|
| Employees don't want the process, company wants process.
| Everyone building these is miserable and usually requirements
| are to actively make user lives miserable instead of easier.
| timrobinson333 wrote:
| Maybe I've been exceptionally lucky (although I've been very
| conscious to only work for SMEs which I think has a lot to do
| with it), but I always try really hard to figure out what the
| user/customer is actually trying to achieve, then what's the
| best way to get there using the resources available,
| regardless of any incumbent processes or strategy. To my mind
| this is the best of both worlds - I've got the satisfaction
| of making something great and the customer gets their life
| made easier.
|
| As I've gone through my career I've focused less and less on
| some specific language or technology stack that is the
| flavour of the day, and I get my satisfaction from
| engineering a robust solution from whatever is the must
| appropriate technology in that specific case.
| [deleted]
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yep, it is _really hard_ to keep putting sweat and tears into
| something that isn 't resonating.
| pphysch wrote:
| Yes, exactly. 0 to 1 is the largest growth% you will ever
| achieve. And you can get it for free.
|
| Besides, our tastes aren't all that unique.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| :) I'm making something nobody wants right now and it's going
| great. It's giving my life the most purpose it's had in a few
| years. It's a financial disaster, of course, but trading money
| for personal fulfillment is a sweet deal IMO.
|
| (and a shameless plug...)
|
| https://ant.care/ if you want to derp around with a digital ant
| colony for a bit. The nest devolves into a mess after a couple of
| days tops right now.
|
| If you think you've got ideas on how to improve the
| tunnel/chamber/nest expansion logic, or if you're better at
| implementing sand fall physics in Rust/ECS than me, I'd love to
| chat!
|
| Discord: https://discord.gg/Ckm6m4A2 Code:
| https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants
| wsve wrote:
| This is extremely cute and I'm glad you shared this :)
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| Glad you liked it! Thanks for taking a look.
| coolhand2120 wrote:
| This is awesome!
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| My friend studies ants. I will share this with him
| neontomo wrote:
| I didn't quite understand the ants behaviours, like moving sand
| around, but thoroughly enjoyed this simulation. Cute.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| I'm glad you found it cute and enjoyable! I completely agree
| their behaviors need a lot more love, but I am ready to give
| it! :)
|
| The actions of the workers are just probabilistic for now -
| they lack any true motivation.
|
| The queen ant has an instinctual goal of creating a
| sufficiently spacious nest that is sufficiently deep
| underground. When she achieves that goal, she stops movement
| and begins giving birth to ants. Those ants then dig out the
| nest further.
|
| I am trying to figure out how to make the digging more...
| inspired? Something like "If ants keep finding themselves
| surrounded by other ants underground then they need more
| space and should consider digging" or "If an ant fails to
| find a place to put food then it should consider digging"
|
| I think that both of these things have a prerequisite of
| having tunnels/chambers built more effectively, though. I've
| played around with some rules like "Don't dig dirt if there
| is air on the opposite side of the dirt" in an attempt to
| prevent the nest from turning into a giant pit, but this
| doesn't result in tunnels and chambers, just delays the
| inevitable pit-like behavior.
|
| In the future, there will be an "outer world" which has the
| more classic "ant follow pheromone trails to find food"
| mechanism. You'll see ants disappear out the sides of this
| view and see them explore from a top-down view. The outer
| world will get covered in fog each night and push all the
| ants back to their nest for sleeping and eating. Just trying
| to get to the point where they sensibly store food before
| expanding into that.
|
| .. and if that was more info than you were looking for, sorry
| :D Just excited to talk about my thing.
| araes wrote:
| If you have never looked at Dwarf Fortress, I recommend you
| take a look. https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
|
| Note: Dwarf Fortress is enormous, like trying to look at
| those 7000 item long Factorium expansions while not going
| crazy, and I suggest it not as discouragement. Simply ideas
| about those types of goal based behaviors.
|
| Much of the behavior is based around creating caverns of
| various types, and then sending workers to find resources,
| gather resources, process resources, and then use those for
| even greater complexity tasks.
| neontomo wrote:
| I wish I could help you figure it out, but I don't know
| much about these types of algorithms. Possibly, they
| already exist and you can plug them in. I know there's a
| lot of work done on maze-generation in games, maybe you can
| think of the tunnels as a maze, and pre-generate a path
| they will take, and update that model as other ants
| interact with it. Anyway I love the enthusiasm and wish you
| luck!
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| Thank you! And yes, I agree. I was looking at uh
| https://github.com/mxgmn/WaveFunctionCollapse and
| wondering if that were applicable here :)
|
| Have a good day!
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| aka 99% of music produced in a given day worldwide.
| [deleted]
| orasis wrote:
| I'll push back on this. I think most of us want some external
| validation that what we're creating is useful and valuable.
|
| I spent 2 solid years working on https://improve.ai and it's
| gotten very little uptake. It's taken a long time to emotionally
| get over putting that much blood, sweat, and money into something
| that almost no one values.
|
| Going forward I will be failing much faster and not giving my
| life energy to products that aren't showing traction.
| vax425 wrote:
| Yep, I do that.
|
| https://www.etsy.com/shop/DigitalHorology
|
| Nobody is buying, but I love making weird clocks.
| phforms wrote:
| I think I get what the author trying to say. In my years as a
| graphic designer (mostly print), I intuitively knew when
| something "felt right", and when that happened, I often have made
| something that I am still proud of today. It may have not been
| for everyone and it may have been hard to sell to clients (who
| often prefer what they have already seen in successful examples),
| but I didn't care, because I saw the value in it and often a few
| other people also did.
|
| Those were the projects that I redesigned multiple times, because
| the previous approach just didn't "feel right". I invested a lot
| of research into that feeling, it was somehow addictive (and
| sometimes equally frustrating) to me.
|
| As a developer, I now have a similar experience with personal
| projects that grew out of my own curiosity. When doing something
| for clients, I often feel myself torn between what feels "right"
| to me and what the client actually wants or prefers. It may often
| not be what they really need, and I know that, but this is why I
| must have my personal projects, because client work often feels
| unfulfilling to me (however, it is fulfilling in a different
| way).
| Animats wrote:
| _" I think it's okay to make something that nobody wants. All you
| need to do is to make sure you've fully expressed your emotions
| in this product."_
|
| Having hobbies is fine, but it's not a business model.
| nmg wrote:
| You're right. Having hobbies IS fine. Totally agree.
| chrismsimpson wrote:
| This smacks to me of peak late stage capitalism. Not everything
| ought to be about profit and growth. The world already has too
| much unwanted, useless mass produced surplus/crap.
| whartung wrote:
| A fellow I knew would build boats. Sailboats. I don't know much
| about boats but I'd say that these were something like 25-30
| foot boats. These were not dinghies.
|
| He started from raw plans, build the hull ribs, layer on the
| fiberglass for the hull (he bought his resin in 50 gallon
| drums). Now, of course, he has to sand and finish the
| fiberglass.
|
| Once he got to that point, he'd build a rig around the hull out
| of wood that allowed the hull to rotate in place around its
| axis with a hydraulic Jack. He did all of this alone.
|
| Once upright, he'd have about 5000 lbs of lead delivered to be
| placed and secured in the keel. At this point he gets the top
| parts of the hull and deck in place so he can weatherproof the
| interior.
|
| The interior is all hardwood. Mahogany and such. His two car
| garage was a dedicated woodworking and cabinetry shop. The boat
| was in his fenced backyard.
|
| When it was all said and done, 4-5 years later, a truck and a
| crane would come, lift it out of the backyard, and take it to
| the local harbor, 30 miles away.
|
| Then, he'd sell it, start over, and make another.
|
| He didn't sail.
|
| I know he made at least 3 of them. I'm sure he profited on raw
| materials, not so sure on time, certainly not on time/value of
| money.
|
| He was a software developer by trade. He wrote accounting
| systems.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Software is a winner takes all market mostly. The best
| software of its kind captures almost all of the users. While
| making physical items is not. There will be loads of other
| people better than you, but it doesn't really matter because
| those other people will be sold out / too expensive / not
| local.
|
| So even if you are far less talented than most, you'll still
| find a good market at the right price.
| rsa4046 wrote:
| Great, uplifting story, thanks for including it.
| spfzero wrote:
| But it's your chance. It may or may not become a business
| model. That's the risk. You take a risk to get a chance to make
| a profit.
|
| It's impossible to come up with a business model that does not
| depend on chance.
| izzydata wrote:
| Indeed. Also less peoples hobbies should try to be a business.
| It's ok to do something for fun.
| [deleted]
| mberning wrote:
| This is the arthouse philosophy of software and I'm totally in
| support of it.
| viksit wrote:
| my takeaway from this piece was a bit diff than what seems to
| have been talked about so far.
|
| clearing out externalities and understanding your own emotional
| response to a product- whether you've built it or not - is likely
| hard to learn, and is intuition driven.
|
| and it is understanding this response that allows builders to
| create things that evoke a similar emotional response in others.
| cloudquelle wrote:
| Personally, I've always been convinced that having this kind of
| ability is what enables people to make the difference between a
| _very good_ and a _truly great_ product.
| nologic01 wrote:
| > people can't make something they don't like and hope others
| will like it
|
| There are implicit assumptions here about what "making" and
| "liking" means in this context. The vast majority of stuff that
| gets done and used is rote (think preparing daily food) and
| doesn't involve likeability in critical ways. It simply requires
| usability and maybe the absence of dislikeability.
|
| Now if you want to invent a new dish, the calculus changes and
| becomes a mix of hopeless inertia (people don't easily change
| tastes) and stochasticity (except when they do).
|
| What is more important imho is that whatever you do is a
| concrete, articulated something. That is what is usually
| expressed by the "what problem does it solve?" question. While I
| don't think that casting everything as a "problem" covers all
| bases, the idea is that people like having their problems solved.
| An ugly solution is still a solution.
|
| But even those are partial considerations. People also just like
| stuff that other people like (fashion) with little intrinsic
| justification besides being part of a group.
| langsoul-com wrote:
| 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, wealth and status is becoming the number 1
| thing on everyone's mind now?
| jelling wrote:
| Yes. The people involved in tech changed to a non-trivial
| degree over the last 15 years.
|
| I grew up in a family that made software and I've been a
| professional myself for over twenty years.
|
| The post-2008 cheap money era brought a huge influx of people
| that, at best, were not technology enthusiasts or tinkerers. A
| similar thing happened in the dot com era but a lot of those
| people got pushed out by the crash. We'll see what happens this
| time.
| sanderjd wrote:
| 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.
| fasterik wrote:
| 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.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yep, I don't think "people weren't trying to make money in
| tech 20 years ago" really passes the smell test.
| analog31 wrote:
| It could be that what we're making is different today. When I
| was a teenager, there was no Internet. The thing we made, was
| the thing we made.
|
| Today, what we're making is the _exhibition_ of the thing we
| 're making. I'm guilty of this, thinking about the blog that
| I'll write about something, when it doesn't even work.
|
| And is it wrong? I wouldn't enjoy playing music nearly as much
| if I didn't have a chance to perform in public once in a while.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| An inspiring take, but like all things, it's a balancing act.
| There is great satisfaction in making things people want. The
| fact that you get money for this biases everything that way, but
| as plenty of academics and experimental artists will tell you, it
| can also be soul crushing to make things no one wants.
| szundi wrote:
| Not with the help of investors' money of course
| xwdv wrote:
| What's with the sappy, weepy tone here?
|
| If someone made a household cleaning detergent or some vitamin
| powder that nobody wanted, would we still be saying these
| products aren't really for users, but rather are just another
| medium of self expression?
|
| Is it okay for them to still exist? Sure, it's also okay to be a
| _loser_. Seen through a capitalist lens, the point of a product
| is to serve a useful purpose. If nobody wants or needs it, it
| doesn't suddenly become a work of art representing an extension
| of its creator - it's just a shitty product.
|
| The market is a conversation, and if you're not making something
| people want, you're not connecting with others, you're just
| babbling to yourself. Software always seems to be held to some
| different standard, but it really shouldn't. Code is cattle, not
| pets.
| firewolf34 wrote:
| Cattle and pets both exist. You want cattle? Make cattle. You
| want pets? Make pets. Why the absolution?
| xwdv wrote:
| Cattle don't make good pets.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Good luck making something as big as cattle if you can't even
| make dogs, or mice.
|
| Good luck avoiding burn out, making nothing but cattle all day
| long.
|
| Sometimes, making a peacock will get you laid. Sometimes,
| making a dove will being you peace of mind.
|
| Sometimes making a turtle will teach your child how to make
| (eventually) cattle too.
|
| The market sure is a conversation, and I'm impressed by
| developers that can create cattle AND peacocks, doves, turtles
| and dogs.
|
| A guy that makes only what the market wants, is kind of boring?
| Or have I overstated it?
| xwdv wrote:
| A guy that consistently makes what the market wants sounds
| pretty exciting for the market.
| layer8 wrote:
| 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.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| Close to home. I may be the only customer of my current project.
| My hope is that I'm just "early" and not "too early".
| uwagar wrote:
| its a sad state of affairs that a persons 'utility' is by how
| 'useful' they are in service of others.
| QuadrupleA wrote:
| Is that so sad? Sounds kind of altruistic.
| danjac wrote:
| Altruistic to whom? How many big companies with turnover in
| the millions rely on the unpaid work of volunteer open-source
| developers?
| [deleted]
| lemper wrote:
| One of few things that I hold pretty tight is that I don't put
| any expectations out of others approvals when it comes to self
| actualisation. if people find it repulsive, that's fine. when
| they find it ok, that's also fine.
| yafbum wrote:
| Making something _you_ like, and not some BS trying to
| triangulate the needs of some hypothetical user, is a very
| enjoyable way to go about a career in design and engineering. I
| 'm lucky to be in that boat and have the ability to work on
| something I personally use as well. It makes so many things easy:
| I can have an insight from using the product myself, build a
| solution for it, ship it, and in general users share the same
| insight and appreciate it.
|
| However, as I enjoy this, what often gives me pause about it is
| thinking about fields like medical device development, or
| services for the poor, where most people working on the product
| aren't in the market for that product. I don't think the same
| ethos applies as well there and it probably means that to
| accomplish something meaningful in these domains, a hefty dose of
| cognitive empathy is necessary, as well as checking one's own
| insights regularly to make sure we're not imagining things.
| greffer wrote:
| > you create something not because "I think they might need
| this," but because "I find this so fucking interesting."
|
| This is a fantastic insight.
|
| I also find that it's what often gets overlooked in open source
| projects that start as somebody doing something on the side as a
| hobby. Don't create and publish open source projects to please
| others. Build something that you like to have yourself. When
| publishing it, do it as an invitation to others to try it out and
| perhaps give you feedback (crowdsourcing bug triage and extension
| ideas), not to make others happy. The trap is that others will
| start feeling entitled, start demanding things, and if you give
| in, you violate the insight I quoted above. And if you start
| losing interest, don't cling on to the project, but be open to
| some other maintainer adopting it. Don't waste your time
| maintaining something you are not internally interested in.
|
| The same is true also for users of open source projects. Be aware
| that whoever did this and published it for you to use did so
| originally because they like it and want to use it themselves.
| You can't demand things from somebody like that. If you do, you
| actually make it more likely that they lose interest.
| sandreas wrote:
| hehe, that's how I made `m4b-tool`[1] - a command line tool
| written in PHP (!) using external tools to merge audio files to a
| single iTunes compatible m4b file.
|
| It started as one single simple script and now has grown into a
| maintenance hell of a thing, but I still use it on a weekly basis
| :-)
|
| Unfortunately atm I cannot even afford the time to redirect the
| github sponsoring income to charities[2], but by the end of the
| year, this might change.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/sandreas/m4b-tool
|
| [2]: https://pilabor.com/projects/github-sponsors/
| jmmv wrote:
| 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 :)
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