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I don't like how this article wants you to waste time getting tripped up and frustrated with basic problems just for the sake of figuring it out on your own. Th

I don't like how this article wants you to waste time getting tripped up and frustrated with basic problems just for the sake of figuring it out on your own. There are major companies doing research on wheels in a variety of contexts and constraints (trains/planes/automobiles). The folks involved all likely have engineering degrees which taught and challenged them in more effective ways than just having them sit down and reinvent wheels on their own for 4-8 years. >You should reinvent the wheel because it’s fun. Passion is great, but it can wax and wane because we're humans, and that's where discipline keeps you moving forward so you don't drop out of reinventing wheels and waste all of that time you invested because it stopped being fun one day. Discipline means you block out some time, do a wheel iteration knowing it'll suck to do and it isn't fun, then forget about it. Only the luckiest people constantly have fun with a subject and then actually contribute to the state-of-the-art.

throwaway71271 4y ago
> folks involved all likely have engineering degrees which taught and challenged them This is part of the wheel :) people dont challenge things enough, for example the keyboards we use, the most accessible area is around the thumbs, and we have one giant button there, instead of 4-5 super nice buttons, this leads to carpal syndrome and all kinds of issues, and yet, now in every school they teach computer classes and touch typing to 10-13 year old kids, who cant reach backspace without twisting their wrist 45 degrees, and in the same time on windows ctrl+h just does not work in 99% of the apps. So those kids will grow up and rarely think about using a different keyboard. It is not that easy to break out of the "dont reinvent the wheel", as "the wheel" is beaten into you since you were 5 years old.
KineticLensman 4y ago
> I don't like how this article wants you to waste time getting tripped up and frustrated with basic problems just for the sake of figuring it out on your own. It does make the point that some novel and useful wheel applications have arisen very recently in the wheel's overall history, e.g. putting wheels on luggage. Clearly, finding something new to do with a wheel is quite a challenge, but in general developing a new application for an existing thing can be very profitable. There's a commonly quoted observation that taking an existing product to a new market is much simpler than taking a new product to a new market.

throwaway71271 4y ago

> folks involved all likely have engineering degrees which taught and challenged them This is part of the wheel :) people dont challenge things enough, for example the keyboards we use, the most accessible area is around the thumbs, and we have one giant button there, instead of 4-5 super nice buttons, this leads to carpal syndrome and all kinds of issues, and yet, now in every school they teach computer classes and touch typing to 10-13 year old kids, who cant reach backspace without twisting their wrist 45 degrees, and in the same time on windows ctrl+h just does not work in 99% of the apps. So those kids will grow up and rarely think about using a different keyboard. It is not that easy to break out of the "dont reinvent the wheel", as "the wheel" is beaten into you since you were 5 years old.

KineticLensman 4y ago

> I don't like how this article wants you to waste time getting tripped up and frustrated with basic problems just for the sake of figuring it out on your own. It does make the point that some novel and useful wheel applications have arisen very recently in the wheel's overall history, e.g. putting wheels on luggage. Clearly, finding something new to do with a wheel is quite a challenge, but in general developing a new application for an existing thing can be very profitable. There's a commonly quoted observation that taking an existing product to a new market is much simpler than taking a new product to a new market.