Someone posted this quote by Linus Torvalds just some days ago:
Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small trivial project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way useful first, and then others will say "hey, that almost works for me", and they'll get involved in the project.
It certainly is. I think what's bothering LastTrain, though—and is definitely bothering me—is the kneejerk dismissal of personal projects because they're not sufficiently innovative/useful/etc. As far as I can tell, it wasn't even the VanadiumOS author who shared it here in the first place.
I've noticed, and I'm not the only one, that HN has developed a particular reputation in the tech community. A number of people I know don't actually like having their work show up on "the orange site" because of that Comic-Book-Guy culture.
Just seems counter to the spirit of hacking to judge somebody's experiments through the lens of a VC pitch.
You didn't. But the root comment here was kind of dismissive.
And it's a reaction I've seen on here before, so I guess I'm a little sensitive to it, maybe because my personal projects are the kind that would attract similar criticism if they ever showed up here.
To csilverman in the sibling reply: it's strange that you're reading the original comment as a criticism at all. I don't see anything negative towards the posted work, just a tangential thought spurred by it.
Constructive criticism is good but the gist of the comment I was replying to was basically “this is a stupid waste of time”. I’d like to see less of that it just stifles good conversation.
