I fully agree with the benefits of communicating one's result, if only for feedback and getting independent verification or validation - but a paper is only a g

I fully agree with the benefits of communicating one's result, if only for feedback and getting independent verification or validation - but a paper is only a given way to reach this goal. If your area of research is obscure or quickly evolving, a journal might not be the best place to share your results, while giving a presentation at relevant conferences, where people working on similar topics will get exposed to your result, is better. But even this is secondary. I loved doing research, but I was even more interested in the end result - having something working and useful. Not publishing might have damaged my "profile" in several places where the amount of dead trees is the only thing that matters, but it's all a matter of priorities - and I'm not sure I'd have been happy to work in a place where the end result is only an afterthought. Maybe that's why I'm reading HN :-)