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The story of Max, a real programmer

(incoherency.co.uk)
129 points surprisetalk | 2 comments | 30 Jun 25 12:57 UTC | HN request time: 1.298s | source
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andrewvc ◴[03 Jul 25 12:25 UTC] No.44454291[source]▶
It’s a fun trip down memory lane, but the real story today, the sadder story, is that there is no longer any use for simple little programs like this that scratch an itch.

They’ve all been solved 100x over by founders who’ve been funded on this site. It used to make sense to have a directory or cgi-bin of helpful scripts. Now it only makes sense as a bit of nostalgia.

I miss the days when we had less, could get less done in a day… but felt more ownership over it. Those days are gone.

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JadeNB ◴[03 Jul 25 13:08 UTC] No.44454640[source]▶
> It’s a fun trip down memory lane, but the real story today, the sadder story, is that there is no longer any use for simple little programs like this that scratch an itch.

> They’ve all been solved 100x over by founders who’ve been funded on this site. It used to make sense to have a directory or cgi-bin of helpful scripts. Now it only makes sense as a bit of nostalgia.

Why does it make more sense to learn the syntax for someone else's helper scripts than to roll my own, if the latter is as easy or easier, and afterwards I know how to solve the problem myself?

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1. newswasboring ◴[03 Jul 25 15:55 UTC] No.44456330[source]▶
Because time is finite and you probably set out to achieve something else which is now on hold. Nothing wrong with distractions but let's not glorify them :).
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2. JadeNB ◴[03 Jul 25 19:08 UTC] No.44458244[source]▶
> Because time is finite and you probably set out to achieve something else which is now on hold. Nothing wrong with distractions but let's not glorify them :).

That's true, but it was also true before. To the extent that solving a problem to learn the details of solving it was ever worthwhile, which I think is and was quite a lot, I'd say it's still true now, even though there are lots of almost-but-not-quite solutions out there. That doesn't mean that you should solve all problems on your own, but I think you also shouldn't always use someone else's solution.