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Craft software that makes people feel something

(rapha.land)
311 points lukeio | 6 comments | 11 Dec 25 13:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.953s | source | bottom
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pedrozieg ◴[11 Dec 25 16:16 UTC] No.46233265[source]▶
There’s something refreshing about explicitly saying “this editor exists to delight me, and that’s enough”. The default script now is that every side project should either be open-sourced or turned into a SaaS, even if that pressure is exactly what kills the weirdness that made it interesting in the first place.

Some of the best tools I’ve used felt like they started as someone’s private playground that only later got hardened into “serious” software. Letting yourself park Boo, go build a language, and come back when it’s fun again is probably how we get more Rio/Boo-style experiments instead of yet another VS Code skin with a growth deck attached.

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mghackerlady ◴[11 Dec 25 17:51 UTC] No.46234633[source]▶
I'm very much for people open-sourcing their projects in terms of releasing the source code. Just don't accept patches or whatever, keep the repos closed
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mirashii ◴[11 Dec 25 18:09 UTC] No.46234840[source]▶
Unfortunately, and I think to great overall harm, GitHub does not let you disable many of the collaboration features. I was just having a discussion today with someone who would be fine open sourcing their code, but is uninterested in any contributions, questions, or community interaction. Since GitHub won’t allow that, their options are to host it somewhere themselves where nobody will see it, or just don’t publish it, which is ultimately what happened.
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matheusmoreira ◴[11 Dec 25 18:28 UTC] No.46235043[source]▶
> GitHub does not let you disable many of the collaboration

I wish they'd allow making issues and pull requests sponsor only. Could enable a business model.

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Yokohiii ◴[11 Dec 25 19:30 UTC] No.46236035[source]▶
It's weird that this thread argues to keep the fun in hobby projects and you ask for the exact opposite.
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1. matheusmoreira ◴[11 Dec 25 20:16 UTC] No.46236557[source]▶
It's precisely because of the hobby nature of my projects that I want this feature. Support and collaboration are a lot of work. I have trouble conjuring up enough motivation to work on my projects as it is.
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2. Yokohiii ◴[11 Dec 25 20:23 UTC] No.46236639[source]▶
Sponsors can have quite a bit more entitlement then the average github dude. But well, maybe if you lock it down for sponsors the stress level is overall lower.
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3. matheusmoreira ◴[11 Dec 25 20:33 UTC] No.46236744[source]▶
> Sponsors can have quite a bit more entitlement then the average github dude.

Is this some sort of unwritten agreement? When I was setting up my sponsor page, I explored the sponsor pages of other users for ideas. I don't think there were many sponsorship tiers with special features. Some people offered advertising space on the README, others offered access to an exclusive Discord channel, most just thanked the sponsor.

I'm still new at this so I wouldn't know. I only ever had one sponsor. Happened organically after my work was independently posted here on HN once.

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4. tacone ◴[11 Dec 25 21:32 UTC] No.46237459[source]▶
I found working with AI as the code buddy to be motivating (ironically). You get to chat about the project, ask opinions and in general have somebody do the work you don't find inspiring.

AI often doesn't do things your way, but if your doing something for yourself you usually care more about the goal than the technicalities. Also AI working on a hobby code base is less prone to overcomplication since it basically copies what you've wrote yourself.

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5. matheusmoreira ◴[11 Dec 25 22:01 UTC] No.46237820[source]▶
I had a similar experience. Just chatting about stuff, shooting ideas and concepts back and forth with the AI is quite stimulating. I get to be an obnoxious help vampire without draining other humans of their patience and motivation. It's like having a developer friend with infinite patience to chat with.

In terms of productivity it's having something of a mixed effect. It gives me very clear ideas and direction but at the same time everything just feels done afterwards. All that's left is actually executing the tasks which is... Boring.

I'm not sure I trust ChatGPT to do it for me like an agent. The examples it gives me are never quite right. It's probably a lot better at generating frontend javascript code than programming language interpreter code.

6. Yokohiii ◴[11 Dec 25 22:24 UTC] No.46238122{3}[source]▶
Oh my mistake I was thinking of individual donations, which may be implied as some premium service. I think a company/org sponsor should be more professional. In theory you can just cancel a sponsor if it doesn't fit. You can turn your back on on donations, but you somehow owe the donators forever.

Edit: https://pocketbase.io/faq/

Look at the bottom, just an example how sponsors/donors may affect you.