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Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

358 points ofalkaed | 2 comments | 11 Oct 25 22:16 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

Just curious and who knows, maybe someone will adopt it or develop something new based on its ideas.
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AnonC ◴[12 Oct 25 06:05 UTC] No.45555674[source]▶
Sandstorm: it seemed quite nice with a lot of possibilities when it launched in 2014, but it didn’t really take off and then it moved to sandstorm.org.

The creator, kentonv (on HN), commented about it recently here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44848099

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goku12 ◴[12 Oct 25 09:31 UTC] No.45556786[source]▶
The actual problem with Sandstorm wasn't the era in which it was released. It will probably have the same problems even if released today. The problem was its application isolation mechanism - especially the data isolation (I think they were called grains). The mechanism is technically brilliant. But it's a big departure from how apps are developed today. It means that you have to do non-trivial modifications to web applications before they can run on the platform. The platform is better for applications designed to run on it in the start. It should have been marketed as a platform for building web applications, rather than as one for just deploying them.
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1. kentonv ◴[12 Oct 25 14:24 UTC] No.45558442[source]▶
Agreed. The best apps turned out to be the ones written for the platform. And many of those took people an afternoon to write, since the platform handled so much for you. Porting "normal" apps into Sandstorm felt like it defeated the purpose.

If I did it again I wouldn't focus on portability of existing apps. Especially today given you could probably vibe code most things (and trust the sandbox to protect you from AI slop security bugs).

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2. goku12 ◴[13 Oct 25 18:48 UTC] No.45571945[source]▶
+1. Thank you for that fantastic effort! I followed the project since its earliest public announcement. I had high hopes for it, until it became clear that the porting was going to prove troublesome.

I'm not a big fan of the contemporary app hosting architecture, as it feels needlessly complicated. But if this entire discussion thread is any proof, it's that people rarely choose the most elegant ideas around. Instead, decisions are very often based on marketing clout.

Still, I hope that your concept finds its rightful purpose and mindshare in the future. It's encouraging to hear that it's a fantastic app framework. It would be such a shame to squander such a big advantage. Perhaps, that's the reason why your collaborators are so adamant about keeping it alive.