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My simple GitHub project went viral
- apples_oranges 5y agoIt really makes sense to use one of these clones for creating new products IF license permits it and if they are implementing a lot of required functionality. For example making a website for campsites would probably be 90% finished if an Airbnb's clone's code were used. Just as we wouldn't think to implement Quicksort 10 or 20 years ago, because we have great, optimized reusable components, this is the next logical step: Focussing on building the 10% that differentiate the product instead of reinventing the wheel.
- staz 5y ago... wait, what? I use the sort function of a standard library because it has been written by seasoned devs, reviewed, rewritten; use known algorithms and practices; and being part of a well known standard library it has a chance of still being maintained, distributed and available ten years from now on. I don't know how you can even remotely compare that to an unmaintained code dump that someone made as a learning experiment over the week. I'm not dissing on theses kinds of code release, they are great to learn from, but I would find it a bit foolish to base your whole product on it.
- apples_oranges 5y agoMy point was about the general idea of reusing what has been done before. I agree with you that there are qualitative differences, no doubt about it.
- pronoiac 5y agoThey're often (or mostly?) UI mock-ups not clones. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26425233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26425233
- alexf95 5y agoReally loving this! As someone who also made clones of bigger software (usually with lesser functionality, because I was focussing on the main thing) I look forward into searching that list to find solutions of others.
- Tade0 5y agoThe other day I was searching for examples of large apps done using specific technologies(RealWorld is great, but not large enough), even entertaining the idea of buying something from Themeforest, but this is better.
- Webox 5y agonow it went viral and what is the real impact? It will end in one of many started github repos, you might rememeber it but most people don't need to look up a clone. While i like that we appreachiate small things, sometimes i do wonder if it would have saved more time if we wouldnt do things. I have to find a weekly hn newsletter system.
- alentred 5y ago> I have to find a weekly hn newsletter system. https://hackernewsletter.com/ https://hackernewsletter.com/
- Webox 5y agoIts not using the top voted per day but its handpicked :(
- mathisonturing 5y agoIs this still active? The current issue example links an issue from 2019
- nurgasemetey 5y agoyes, still active. At least, I got last newsletter last Sunday
- mattgreenrocks 5y agoTo many, virality is confused with impact. They won the game. No issues with what the author made. But chasing virality is empty. I don’t know if the author was doing that.
- jimmyed 5y agoNot sure how anyone can feel proud of "projects" like these. This is mostly janitorial work with zero coding, made viral by hordes of wannabe frontend devs. I wouldn't mention this project on my resume.
- alpaca128 5y agoIf you think "janitorial" work with zero coding is unimportant I assume you were never involved in any project that's a little too big for a single programmer doing everything. And what's so bad about making potentially interesting projects more visible?
- 5fnheluzdj 5y agoCompilations are derivatives of original work. There is nothing inherently wrong with compilations being more popular but the effort put into it is much less. Clicks don't take effort or other metrics into account. Thinking about this more deeply raises more questions: What is effort? Is it measured in time or competence needed? Is promoting less effort? How could it be achieved that the credit distributes adequately across original work and derivatives?
- enriquto 5y agoI hate hate hate doing "janitorial" work and thus I feel really happy when somebody does janitorial work in such a helpful and useful way. Not sure where this falls on the "proudness" scale, but it doesn't really matter.
- skun 5y agoThis[0] might be the reason why :) [0]: https://jacobian.org/2021/apr/7/embrace-the-grind/ https://jacobian.org/2021/apr/7/embrace-the-grind/
- plibither8 5y ago> hordes of wannabe frontend devs Classic HN gatekeeping, this is so unnecessarily degrading. Everyone starts somewhere, and like it or not, making clones is a very good way to learn about the basics of web dev. If they make a good clone and want to share it and get feedback, what's the harm?
- kuu 5y ago40k visits and only 1 donation. Not that I complain or that I think he deserves more or less, just interesting to see the ratio.
- Aachen 5y agoWell, from the post: > Last month (Mar'21), I made a simple project It's not like anyone's been using the product long-term or as if individual users incur a significant cost, and the author hasn't been asking to help with hosting costs or anything. I don't usually donate right upon finding a random fun project, unless I incurred costs (by doing a significant computation or if it sent a number of SMSes or so) for the person who hosts it. I donate to things like the Internet Archive or OpenStreetMap because they have real hosting costs, or the K9 mail client because there's a lot of coding that needs doing, I would like it to be done, and someone's offering to do it for crowdfunded money. Or sci-hub, because the owner gave up a lot to make it happen and I think it has had a net positive effect in the world. There are other projects I've donated to and more reasons I'd donate, but generally I don't find this weirdly low for this kind of project and also not representative of what you could expect if you do create something that'll require donations, provided it 'goes viral' to the same extent as this project.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 5y agoAnecdotal, but I have a niche calculator SPA that fluctuates between 1k-10k visitors per month. Most visitors are frequent fliers. My donation button (top center of page) has only been used once over the span of 5 years, even though it gets praised across various forums and communities within the niche.
- atxbcp 5y agoZero hosting cost, zero added value, why would you donate anything for a project like this ?
- zelphirkalt 5y agoSomeone put their time into creating it? Also perhaps because it is useful to people and if we ever hope to keep good content coming, without having to suffer through endless ads, we should support, what we deem to be good content.
- 29athrowaway 5y agoIn many cases, these clones only cover the UI, which is not trivial, but is just the tip of the iceberg. The real challenge in these systems is to make them work at scale. In part because their business model only works at scale. Something as simple as a "likes" counter is not trivial to do at scale.
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoA compilation of "at scale" code examples would be very useful to see as well. The first repo that comes to mind to start at would be Sentry's backend.
- empiko 5y agoThis is a really click-baity title (My simple GitHub project went Viral). It should be edited.
- nindalf 5y agoIt's the title of the original post and it's factually correct. What would your edited version be?
- Aachen 5y agoThis "it's the original title" policy that gets thrown around a lot seems counter-productive to me by now. Someone will post an actual description of what's significant about a release, but then it gets edited to "ObscureName 1.2" which leaves you wondering: what is this? Should I care? Is it a software tool, a hardware product, can I eat it? Is it even news, a significant milestone that makes this a viable product that I'd like, or is 1.2 a version interesting for nostalgia? It tells me absolutely nothing, but yay it's the original title? Similarly here, it tells me every little about what the post is going to be. There's a bit of what happened, but also it's a writeup of what it is and how it's made. A better title might be "How I made an Open Source Clones List go Viral on GitHub" - just off the top of my head, you can probably do better, but it would already help you figure out whether you're interested in what it has to offer before having to click.
- themulticaster 5y agoWell, the original title policy really is an official HN rule. On the other hand, I totally agree that titles consisting only of ObscureName are not very informative. From the current front page: 1. "Bernie Madoff Dies in Prison" - who's Bernie Madoff? 2. "Deno 1.9" - what's Deno? Is it edible? 3. "Yamauchi No.10 Family Office" - I have absolutely no idea what to expect Instead, why not write: 1. "Bernard Madoff, Mastermind of Giant Ponzi Scheme, Dies at 82" (original Bloomberg title, explains who Madoff is) 2. "Deno 1.9 (A secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript)" (short description taken from the official homepage) 3. I still have no idea what this is, maybe someone can enlighten me
- harias 5y agoI usually check r/selfhosted and awesome-selfhosted repo on GitHub[0]. [0] https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
- toastal 5y agoWhy did you change my scrollbar though on this site? :|
- hunter-2 5y agoWait, why is Woocommerce listed as a clone of Shopify!
- aheckler 5y agoI made a PR to correct this: https://github.com/GorvGoyl/Clone-Wars/pull/64 https://github.com/GorvGoyl/Clone-Wars/pull/64
- jerrygoyal 5y agomerged. Thanks. power of collaboration.
- dbrgn 5y agoThere are a lot of weird "clones". I wouldn't say that Matomo is a Google Analytics clone, until recently it didn't even have an import function. I wouldn't say that Bitwarden is a LastPass clone. It's simply a different end-to-end encrypted server based password manager, there are a few of them.
- JackFr 5y agoHate to pick on a typo, but I had to laugh. “Scrapping Reddit” is exactly how I added two hours back to my day.
- abacadaba 5y agowe have code with "scrapedData"ish variables everywhere, I still have to double check the p's every time i make one ;)
- jerrygoyal 5y agoauthor here. lol, Grammarly didn't pick this. (En is not my native language). Thanks for informing, fixed it.
- blunte 5y agoWow! You have just made me aware of a potentially good use of Grammarly. Until now I had assumed Grammarly was for people who should have learned to write better in school. I wonder if there's a Dutch Grammarly? :P
- dbrgn 5y agoNote that Grammarly is essentially a keylogger. The content you're typing gets sent to their servers. It doesn't work like your typical client-side spellchecker. Their business model may be OK, it's just something that you need to be aware of (and a lot of people I've talked to aren't). From the privacy policy: --- We collect this information as you use the Site, Software, and/or Services: - User Content. This consists of all text, documents, or other content or information uploaded, entered, or otherwise transmitted by you in connection with your use of the Services and/or Software. For more information about how we care for and protect your User Content, please see our User Trust Guidelines.
- zikzak 5y agoThis is what holds me back. Thanks for helping other see this.
- j10c 5y agoNot the clones. Its more like a clickbait title. And its not a project or product but just a listing,it could have been better as a blog post.
- ausbah 5y agocool I guess, but this just another "list of X" repo with a bit of scrapping code behind it. I'm sure it's useful to a degree for some, but I don't see the practical value of something like this
- grawprog 5y agoNot only that, but I remember when this was on HN not long ago, the list is made up of random things. Some are full pieces of software, many of the 'alternatives' are actually just front ends with limited functionality or wrappers around websites or APIs. The list never really makes it clear. I also remember some of the links were broken and overall it was pretty pointless.
- ExcavateGrandMa 5y agoThe essence of being not so original in what you do...
- PinguTS 5y agoMaybe I'm ignorant, but what's the difference to e.g. https://alternativeto.net/ https://alternativeto.net/ Or should be more better rephrased: It's a open source clone of AlternativeTo.
- erikbye 5y agoSo what? List posts are about the least creative, effortless and worthless content on the Internet. The bar for what is considered achievements is constantly lowered. HN no longer gets interesting submissions, just drivel.
- btilly 5y agoAt least list posts are a step above pointless complaints. If you think that HN needs better submissions, you can submit things yourself. Or spent time looking through new submissions and voting up the ones that you like. Then show up and leave thought-provoking comments on articles. All are more productive than complaining about someone creating yet another list that was interesting enough for thousands of people to star.
- erikbye 5y agoI have submitted plenty.
- cbHXBY1D 5y agoJust wait until your project gets copied and then goes to the front page - I've had it done.
- sergiotapia 5y agoThis is just a compilation readme, not a real code project like I thought. dev.to bait
- cambalache 5y agoThis guy spammed his links compilation page all over the internet and now he writes an article how to his surprise "it went viral" (4000 stars). The definition of chutzpah.