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I would say the difference here is that no one is going to read it and see the code. As much as people fantasise about reading code, few actually do it and thos

I would say the difference here is that no one is going to read it and see the code. As much as people fantasise about reading code, few actually do it and those that do are broadly wasting their time. Your welding example is flawed because because the welder is showing things as examples. He compresses the range of things the tool can do into a useful format and presents that to people, rather than just welding some metal together without commentary. If this project and the techniques used to create it were documented, it might be comparable. A discussion of the solution to a given technical problem can be interesting and would be the equivalent to what the welder when he discusses the capability of his tools.

deleted 3y ago
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babarock 3y ago
> I would say the difference here is that no one is going to read it and see the code. As much as people fantasise about reading code, few actually do it and those that do are broadly wasting their time. You'd be surprised how much this statement is wrong. A lot of people enjoy reading the code of the esoteric projects. Case in point, a bunch of HNers are upvoting this and commenting on it. It's not for you, fine. You're not interested. Fine. Shrug and move on, instead of writing half a dozen posts to let the world know you personally don't care much for it. PS: you say it's "wasting their time". I've been in software long enough to know that the people who are good at reading code make some of the best programmers on my teams. Friendly advice: Get good at reading code. Especially when it's clunky, weird and esoteric. It'll go a long way.
- James_K 3y ago
  Thanks for the insult, but I'm very adept at reading code. You know how I got that way? Not by aimlessly trawling through random projects, but by actually interacting with the source code. Picking a random bug on some open source project and solving it will yield ten times the benefit of just reading that project's source, with the added bonus that you achieve something productive at the end. Reading source code is a fantasy. Something that sounds good but falls flat in practice. Hence my almost certain claim that no one actually does it. I don't, do you?
  - babarock 3y ago
    Didn't mean to insult you. It's really meant as a friendly advice. I'm sharing experience. I do read code. A lot. I'm not the only one. I know many people who do. I know people who print source code on paper to read on their bus ride back home. Hell, I know people who read some of the most complicated source code you can imagine, annotate it, criticize it, and then blog about it[1]. It's very weird that you doubt it. Why would we lie? For karma and upvotes? I'm not sure I understand your point. We're literally in the comment thread of a post aimed at reading code and you're here arguing that we're not? [1]: https://kotaku.com/the-exceptional-beauty-of-doom-3s-source-code-5975610 https://kotaku.com/the-exceptional-beauty-of-doom-3s-source-...
  - sophacles 3y ago
    You sure to spend a lot of time trying to tell other people how to use theirs. Projection maybe? I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet if you stopped looking for insults in freindly replies and railing futily against the existence of things other people find interesting you'd be happer.

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babarock 3y ago

> I would say the difference here is that no one is going to read it and see the code. As much as people fantasise about reading code, few actually do it and those that do are broadly wasting their time. You'd be surprised how much this statement is wrong. A lot of people enjoy reading the code of the esoteric projects. Case in point, a bunch of HNers are upvoting this and commenting on it. It's not for you, fine. You're not interested. Fine. Shrug and move on, instead of writing half a dozen posts to let the world know you personally don't care much for it. PS: you say it's "wasting their time". I've been in software long enough to know that the people who are good at reading code make some of the best programmers on my teams. Friendly advice: Get good at reading code. Especially when it's clunky, weird and esoteric. It'll go a long way.

James_K 3y ago
Thanks for the insult, but I'm very adept at reading code. You know how I got that way? Not by aimlessly trawling through random projects, but by actually interacting with the source code. Picking a random bug on some open source project and solving it will yield ten times the benefit of just reading that project's source, with the added bonus that you achieve something productive at the end. Reading source code is a fantasy. Something that sounds good but falls flat in practice. Hence my almost certain claim that no one actually does it. I don't, do you?
- babarock 3y ago
  Didn't mean to insult you. It's really meant as a friendly advice. I'm sharing experience. I do read code. A lot. I'm not the only one. I know many people who do. I know people who print source code on paper to read on their bus ride back home. Hell, I know people who read some of the most complicated source code you can imagine, annotate it, criticize it, and then blog about it[1]. It's very weird that you doubt it. Why would we lie? For karma and upvotes? I'm not sure I understand your point. We're literally in the comment thread of a post aimed at reading code and you're here arguing that we're not? [1]: https://kotaku.com/the-exceptional-beauty-of-doom-3s-source-code-5975610 https://kotaku.com/the-exceptional-beauty-of-doom-3s-source-...
- sophacles 3y ago
  You sure to spend a lot of time trying to tell other people how to use theirs. Projection maybe? I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet if you stopped looking for insults in freindly replies and railing futily against the existence of things other people find interesting you'd be happer.