Linus Torvalds: What You Should Do As A Developer

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[@James-l7n3n]

I did the interview with Linus Torvalds back in 2007 when he said there may not be a kernel version 3.0, and back then I asked him about the whole NVIDIA deal. That was the interview which kicked off the meme about Linus being a "psychopath" for expressing his frustrations in a very forward way, and it was even quoted in Encyclopedia Dramatica years later. What fun times. I think it was one of the first more technical interviews that got into details about the core kernel like memory management and how it works, but written in a more friendly way for a general audience that might enjoy the details, like programmers and enthusiasts writing their own homebrew OSs. Back then we thought there wasn't much left to do, which is one reason he said there probably wasn't going to be a kernel 3.0. It would be just updates and patches to the 2.6 series kernel. How things have changed, and how they have also remained the same. Edit: Primeagen, you are absolutely correct about picking something to work on and it doesn't necessarily have to be different, because you want to, and it's exciting and interesting, and it can be HTTP 1.0 because you've never done sockets, and write a mini web server. Those projects are great, and it's these projects that make coding great, it's what keeps you interested and passionate, and absolutely can develop your skills to the next level.

[@yungifez]

Significant People like you just walk around the Internet with random usernames😂😂

[@realskyquest]

​@@yungifez true

[@entelin]

I think when it comes to advice to others it really depends on who you're talking to and what their goals are. I'm pretty confident that Linus would agree with what Prime is saying here, it just depends on what you're talking about. If the goal is simply learning and fun, then doing something you enjoy is paramount and it's usefulness to others just doesn't factor in. That said if you're talking about a business or more public oriented open source project then usefulness is really the primary concern. On the question of "being unique / different" Prime makes the point that most people cannot be unique. Well of course, but they are not really the target audience for the comment. Most people that do anything, and that includes programmers, just want to collect a paycheck and go home, this isn't advice for them.

[@rashidsuleymanov6479]

/

[@jatinchhabra1069]

is there a link to this interview?

[@JT-mr3db]

7:20 absolutely nailed it. Reinventing the wheel for the sole purpose of understanding something puts you in a different level.

[@yugsolanki4766]

That line note thing is actually genius. Also great advice Prime. Having yours and Linus's perspective combined definitely gave a better perspective on things.

[@Cybeonix]

Kinda like code comments, but just for you. Sounds great

[@Andrew90046zero]

I like it because it seems like the goal is to not be comments. It's meant to be like documentation, but it's seperate from the file itself. And it seems like you could even edit the note as it appears over the line.

[@odorlessflavorless]

I agree with Prime a bit more here. I have personally felt disdain and doom when my brain fails to arrive at what others want but I always felt good when I did what I wanted to do. I also feel that finding what others need comes with a lot of experience. So, yes, maybe creating for others is a good idea when one has years of experience under their sleeves

[@mohitkumar-jv2bx]

I think linus was coming from a purely OSS perspective and Primeagen was coming from a personal project that could help learn something new and it doesn’t have to OSS or useful to others. Both of these are kind of different points IMO But nonetheless, a nice video.

[@Mglunafh]

My thoughts exactly 💯

[@BennyDeeDev]

Ya Torvalds probably would agree with everything he is saying.

[@spiderico00]

Doing it! I am a bowler, so I created a stats app for myself, a PWA in 100% javascript, because I thought it would be challenging. I opened it up to the rest of the world a few weeks ago and it's doing great already. The project itself has been very fun. One thing I will say, once you open it up to the world, it becomes a different beast, just don't lose sight of why you created it in the first place.

[@PassifloraCerulea]

Good for you! Unfortunately the couple of times I got a PR or whatever on Github I found I didn't actually want others working on my special project 😅 I also have basically zero experience working with other programmers even for an employer which might be part of it, but I worry 'proper' OSS (rather than "here's my code, take it or leave it but don't bother me ever") may just not be for me. Sigh.

[@porky1118]

4:20 Open Source is NOT Democracy. Democracy is when the people vote about what's done, and then some solution is chosen which doesn't satisfy anybody. Open Source is multiple dictatorships. But if you don't like it, you can fork it. And if the dictator does something wrong, people might switch to a fork, a different dictator.

[@sandworm9528]

True, it's like a world where every country is a kingdom but there's no borders and infinite land

[@hawk_7000]

Fair, but this broader use of things being "democratized" in English has little to do with the core concept of democracy. Usually instead refers to reduced barriers of entry into some activity, like reduced cost of entry, etc.

[@Firefly445]

"the dictatorships of the working class"

[@less_than_savory]

almost like people are choosing the leader using some sort of voting system

[@diadetediotedio6918]

@@Firefly445 not even remotely.

[@dotprodukt]

What Prime was saying about trying to imagine having to pay for a compiler made me remember having to do just that when I was a kid. Bought a copy of Borland C compiler from a small local computer shop using babysitting money. I had gone to the store after school, and as I walked home, I knew the course of my life was about to change, but I also had no idea the depths of what I was about to get into.

[@muhammadmusakhan5202]

damn

[@zrodger2296]

I did a lot of coding in Turbo Pascal on my Dad's original IBM PC. While I did eventually mostly code in C, I wonder how things would have been different if I had gotten a C compiler and started in C much earlier.

[@jamesgphillips91]

as someone who was hired by tech and let go, now works in another industry but still codes... open source has a bright future. I see alot of passionate devs who are capable and out of work, we gotta do something :p

[@joelinman6455]

2 million developers worldwide sounds tiny when you consider we have coding LLMs created from such a small pool of minds is pretty wild if you think about it

[@opstube]

I think you forgot entire generations building up to that point, and all the math that's behind it.

[@YateyTileEditor]

"Hard to find a good C compiler in 2007" Youngster. I pirated Turbo C and ended up buying Borland C++ 4. and Borland C++ 5. I still have those shitty printed-on-toilet-paper manuals.

[@plaintext7288]

as a person born in 2004, printing man pages on paper is crazy

[@freezingcicada6852]

@@plaintext7288 Sounds BASED wdym crazy. Fucking LSPs wont let you find out what LNK:Error 69 or other dumb mistakes. Its not that much "mental overhead" flipping through a pages, skimming through something. Then a clunky; search. Open web page, scroll through. Clink related links. Rinse repeat or stay in documentation link hell.

[@PassifloraCerulea]

Also, this sounds like a Windows problem. In 1997 when I first installed Linux, there was GCC, totally free, ready to go and high quality. They were perhaps darker days for a free C++ compiler, but he didn't say C++.

[@ErazerPT]

@@PassifloraCerulea You had a free, ie command like only, version of BCC by that time. The OP was talking about times a lot further back down the road, where you either a) pirated or b) scrapped by with whatever you had found on some coverdisk. And just the term coverdisk will be enough to make some people smile and some more be baffled. And that wasn't just compiler, it was everything. Prime is totally right, people now are "spoiled" because they grew in a world where you had (decent) free options up the wazoo. Heck, you now live in a world where Windows gives you a watermark if you don't activate it, no key needed, VS has a "Community Edition", game engines are "free unless you're making lots of money", Blender is free (and good), etc... Heck, that the warez scene shrinks by the day pretty much tells a tale in and by itself.

[@PassifloraCerulea]

@@ErazerPT Of course Prime is right, and I myself got a paid copy of VB 5 the year before and a pirated Wacom C++ compiler offered to me the year after so I'm not totally clueless what you and OP are talking about. The point is I'm gobsmacked it still felt hard for Prime in _2007_ fully ten years after seemingly any new programming language, editor or other tool became a simple install command (or occasionally a source download & compile) away for me. There's a reason a number of us back then jumped over to Linux and never looked back (at least for programming).

[@dgo4490]

He made something that the growing tech industry needed so it doesn't pay "Microsoft tax" and boost the profit margins. FOSS is misrepresented as the "alternative" to "evil proprietary", but it is complimentary to it - it provided the second leg that "Big Tech" needed to stand. And what a gift to humanity Big Tech turned out to be...

[@AndrewMorris-wz1vq]

FOSS is thriving in the B2B market, but where it is championed as good thing to people is in the user space. Like a lot of things, corporations are right in maximizing their investments, they try to avoid spending time and money on things that don't improve their goals, and focus on putting towards things that do. Consumers on the other hand are more likely to get stuck in the rat race by not maximizing like this, and seeing buying a proprietary phone as a splurge, a treat for them to indulge in. It's a kind of learned helplessness too, a lot of people just don't know they can use FOSS apps, let alone know that they can modify it themselves.

[@DasSnek]

While I hate all big tech, FOSS preventing "Microsoft tax" likely means that Microsoft would have even more control at this point. A good tool can be abused by selfish actors. I don't think that means the tool itself is negative or that it should stop being accessible. Perhaps one could argue for stricter copylefting. Big tech existing is much more a result of how markets work, a lack of regulation and restrictions, as well as societal tendencies as @AndrewMorris-wz1vq has pointed out

[@dgo4490]

@@DasSnek Well, if it helps you sleep better at night, Microsoft most likely makes more money on FOSS than the sum of computer end users combined.

[@DasSnek]

@@dgo4490 An impressive deflection

[@dgo4490]

​@@DasSnekI mean that the alleged "social betterment" motivation of FOSS is just marketing fluff. It was clearly designed with no safeguards to become a domain of unethical corporation and facilitate their predatory business practices. It's "freedom" as in "free market", which is "as much freedom as one can afford", it's immense power for the rich and close to nothing for average Joe - a vehicle of the amplification of inequality and exploitation of the downtrodden. What FOSS has done for the people en masse is some employment opportunity, till they train their AI replacement and get sacked in the name of profits.

[@Kane0123]

0:11 Is Flip jealous of Prime?

[@rawallon]

It does looks pretty good, super tidy for a yerba mate cup

[@Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaah]

Flip, take this guy out

[@bkr_418]

😂

[@avatar098]

You inspire me man. 9yoe and starting to feel that boredom at work. This made me want to build something. Anything. Thank you

[@jirihoogeveen3775]

When I have colleagues who have to learn to program. I'm always say, take something you really want to do. and try to program it. Best way to learn :)

[@Varadiio]

Very true from my experience as well, but it can be lonely. Non-coders do not enjoy discussing the code aspects of a subject they're interested in, and of course most programmers have little interest in your particular niche. Only once you've made something useful to others, do you get any peer recognition. This isn't specific to coding, but very frequently you will even encounter people who actively dislike your "kind of interest" in said subject. The fact that you think something is "wrong" with something enough that you must improve it, upsets purists. Purists are everywhere. Anyway, it's a great thing to do, but it can be very hard on social well-being as a new programmer. You do have to understand that it's only about your own growth, and nobody else's opinions matter for this process.

[@jirihoogeveen3775]

@@Varadiio True, but I think coding,/system engineering is a lonely job. But it is also the task of the experienced developer/engineer. To sense, which colleagues are struggling with something and to help them. I often do sessions with them

[@PieterWigboldus]

Open Source is indeed for yourself, to learn something, and make your own work easier. But always build with the intention that is can be used by others. That is not the goal, but will also help yourself if you check it again over a few months.

[@exception05]

AFAIK, Linus was working with Minix and decided to tune it's terminal and after some time specifically for this tuning he got to the kernel patching and rewriting Minix to Linux. So it's not even "find something that interesting to you", he was just fooling around and it's just happened and kernel development found him and dragged into Linux development. BTW I find it's interesting to build scalable game server and modify the engine to spread workloads across the server farm and separate processing of different parts other the big open world. One day I'll try to do that for fun.

[@almicc]

I remember my first experience with software, very first thing I ever did was write PHP and a little javascript straight into Notepad. I didn't even know, i just searched PHP and javascript online and read straight from documentation and forums, no youtube tutorials with setting up a development environment. felt so cool even with something so basic, that typing into a text file, changing the extension, and it can make the computer do work. i don't even understand how I ever got anything to work like that.

[@fuzzy-02]

I did that same thing back in middle school more than a decade ago! We'd write plain html into notepad by memory or referencing the class book, save as mysite1.txt, mysite2.txt etc then rename it and change the extension to .html It was fascinating to me as a kid that I ended up doing the teacher's work of helping everyone else! It was just basic rectangles and boxes but it sure was magical! I miss those days and wish more than id like to admit if current tech was simple just like back then

[@vgernyc]

I disagree with Linus in a positive way. Kernel 6.x has seen a multitude of compute optimizations for x86, ARM and RISC-V. It’s bee. 20yrs since we’ve seen this many CPU competitors too.

[@futuza]

I'm not sure that Torvalds IS saying that the project needs to be "meaningful to others", he never directly says that, that's the article's writer's interpretation of his following statement. All he says is that you shouldn't chase trends, and find something you find interesting and become good at it. Which is the same thing you're saying. That said, I think there is a slight adjustment required when making something for yourself, and that is that you should put in the effort required to share it with others. eg: document it, leave helpful comments, don't write just temporary code, and make it something that wouldn't irritate someone else if they had to work in your code base. If you're only focused on you, you might justify writing poor quality code or not document things. But yes, the problem with sharing it with others is ego chasing and doing it to try to impress someone else/build up your own pride, rather than just making something helpful and useful.

[@fuzzy-02]

Can you give me an advice on this? I'm a fresh graduate and I always listened to this advice of "start by building projects that are useful for yourself" but the problem is that I have never faced a tech problem... Its like, I don't have any niche need to build a useful little app for and I can't find a passion after 4 years of university. Sorry if I just dumped this on you, but I liked your comment

[@renanmonteirobarbosa8129]

You can be really bad at everything, that is a skill very few have

[@taylor-worthington]

I think what he meant was to do something "Uni-que" as in "Uni-x". . . . It's like when you could buy a telephone in any color as long as it was black. Do anything you want as long as it's Unix. If you do something you think somebody else wants, then that's closer to modeling a job situation. But as long as you can prove you can code, and you didn't kill your interest before you got there, then it might not be a that big of a deal either way. You never know, you might also literally inspire something new.

[@Falsechicken]

Oh god when you mentioned the frames from the Java docs I got a war flashback rofl. I instinctively winced as you described it.

[@pukkimi]

Maybe I would have started programming earlier, if there were an abundance of free tools that were platform independed. Oh, and decent version controls. I've been a programmer professionally for 17 years and it was my hobby since 2005. Before 2005 had already been studying for three years in university and my major was telecommunications programming. I had tried C and C++, but Java and using Eclipse changed everything.

[@porky1118]

7:15 Yeah, I created a Petri Net Editor. It's probably useless to many people, but it's useful to me.

[@ArturdeSousaRocha]

This. I write my personal projects for myself, out of need or curiosity. The ones that are public are the ones I think might be useful to someone else.

[@maxofcourse]

This may be one of the best videos I've ever watched in terms of advice...thank you

[@karamzing]

I don't think Torvalds necessarily meant that you need to create your own wildly successful open source project. You can pick an existing project to contribute to in a niche that interests you. Linux didn't remain a one man show for very long.

[@RichRick13]

For me, I'm usually creating something interesting or to solve a problem I'm having. Then I release it out in the world so that if someone else is interested or needs it, they can use it, not so much for validation

[@andreyashgaliev9372]

Creating meaningful stuff for others means being dependent on their point of view. I agree that it’s important to build something driven by inner core values

[@KyleHarrisonRedacted]

6:58 I agree. For Christmas break I’m making a database project. Is it for anyone else to use or find interesting? He’ll no. Will it be highly derivative? You bet your ass. Will be I be learning about deep optimization storage and retrieval techniques and what it takes to create a query language? I can hardly wait Will I use it for anything? Guess we’ll see eh? Either way, I don’t necessarily care, I’m making it for me and me alone. Like Minh Le and Jesse Cliffe, they made counter strike for themselves, they had no idea anyone else would give a shit about it, nevermind become a culturally defining phenomenon

[@ashwingurbuxani317]

Came for Linus' advice. Stayed for Prime's wisdom.

[@iasonmax3473]

I think this is a case that both sides are correct due to there unique perspective. Asses your situation and take the path that feets you better

[@t1nytim]

There's only 1 time I've built something for someone else, which was my grandmother, because she was always having issues with an app she uses every day, so I built one specifically for her to replace it. But otherwise, generally, I don't know how people get motivated to build stuff for others, I would just get bored. Don't get wrong, I think it's good that there are people who wanna build stuff for others.

[@muphoria]

everybody does indeed have a unique view of the world from which unique ideas will naturally come from. many will follow others while ignoring their own ideas. i completely agree with prime that you should just go for it, let the future decide whether it's useful to others.

[@rogerdeutsch5883]

5:34 The advice from Linus. Linus is attempting to help new devs to not get overwhelmed by all of the things out there. Instead of reading posts on X and seeing something new every day, go ahead and find something interesting and start building on it / with it. Build a thing you want and get absorbed by it.

[@75hilmar]

Thanks for reminding me how awesome raspberry pi is and also the whole nine yards thing 👍

[@notapplicable7292]

All my best creations came from things I personally wanted to do. If I dont care about something im making, it will be no better than mediocre.

[@CYB3Rsynth]

"Meaning" is a runtime assigned instance variable.

[@olbluelips]

6:20 I think there are countless good ideas out there, waiting to be captured. I think Torvalds is spot on tbh. Although it doesn’t necessarily have to be interesting to other people, if it’s a good enough idea, someone else is bound to like it 10:40 But it can be both! I think something that’s appealing enough to me will appeal to other programmers as well

[@StarOnCheek]

6:39 you are not disagreeing with him. You are looking at building projects from a different perspective. Linus is talking about how to make the next Linux, something that is useful and changes the world, you are talking about how to become a better developer and build a portfolio

[@RealViPdude]

vienna mentioned, lfg. nobody ever mentions us except

[@Varadiio]

When the Winged Hussars arrived? I'm sorry.

[@demolazer]

Linus is one of the most important people in world history. But no one outside of tech knows who he is.

[@defipunk]

GCC 2.95 came out in 2001. that was used by the European space agency for the longest time, so I call bullshit on having a hard time finding a c compiler in 2007

[@screamour]

I really enjoy building stuff. I even sometimes build my own version of things even if something already exists because I find it annoying to use or just because. I just built my own version of tail just because I find it annoying to do watch mode in tail and pretty print json. there's probably an existing and better version out there and I didn't search enough, but I enjoyed the process and I gain better understanding how things work.

[@raph151515]

I agree with Linus, maybe start an idea with something you'd enjoy building and using but along the way make it useful and meaningful to others. If your idea was to learn something, as a professional, making it for others as well make you learn better by forcing you to create something clean with good API / interface, good quality and relatable.

[@platin2148]

Not only multiple but the biggest compilers are opensource.

[@Lars_Paulsen]

If you're going to have a good time developing a new project, it should be something you want to make. If you want to make it, it's probably something others will like as well. It won't be interesting for the whole planet, but that's not the reason anything gets made. When you make something for yourself, you're going to have the drive necessary to finish it too.

[@mauricioprado6395]

we are all unique, doesn't mean we are all useful

[@jeezusjr]

Prime upgraded from swamp water to swamp shake.

[@user-lz2oh9zz4y]

If you build something meaningful to others as soon as the hype dies out you will stop liking working on it. This is also true for youtubers that stop doing what they like altogether to chase numbers, and then they burnout

[@jeremyheiler]

"For those looking to start new open-source projects, Torvalds advised finding a niche that is both personally interesting and meaningful to others." I agree that fun projects are a great way to learn, but they're not what he means by open source here. Linus is speaking about how you should approach open-source projects that you want to get more out of. While attaching a license to your toy project is technically "doing open source," there's more to it if you want the project to grow and attract users and contributors. If that's your intention, then your focus needs to be, as he says, personally interesting and meaningful to others. Everything else is just personally interesting (and there's nothing wrong with that!)

[@Lars_Paulsen]

Flagging a line in that way with a note would be meaningful to many other people, but it may not be for the same reason.

[@cheako91155]

I think bookmarks with descriptions should be a built-in.

[@toby9999]

Yeah, I grew up in that world where nothing was free. In fact, sometimes, there was no software. You build it, and you program it in machine code. I'm talking 1975.

[@fuzzy-02]

3:08 meme discovered

[@cheako91155]

It's really difficult to learn what others find meaningful, and even more difficult to get others to find things meaningful.

[@belogpolos]

Netbeans mentioned!!!!

[@brssnkl]

6:54 Question was about how to make a great OpenSource project. He talked about a lot of great devs work on Linux and how he couldn't have done it alone. He is not yapping about your hobby project telling you to drop it :D

[@bullpup1337]

Man Primeagen that little thing you built….that to me seems like your subconscious is screaming “I WANT TO USE EMACS”

[@t0mmy44h]

The differentiating strategy Linus is talking about is exactly what Nintendo does (when not copyright striking and suing people). The funny part is when the competition follows them off a cliff 😆

[@FizzleStudiosLtd]

holy fuck... netbeans... bringin me back to my youthful years.

[@AndrewTSq]

there was a lot of free languages when I grow up in the 80ies, but yeah many that you could get for a cost aswell

[@Diavolo199822]

Prime contradicts himself at 6:57. He states that all two million software engineers cannot be unique, but makes the assumption that building an open source project that only appeals to yourself does not necessarily have to appeal to others. If we are not unique, then you can safely assume the project must in fact appeal to others. That being said, follow your dreams because you're not unique and you're bound to succeeed haha.

[@kevinlkoehler]

I saw Linus at an early Linux Conference once where he had his baby daughter on his shoulder and he was chosing their food from the layed out smorgasboard.

[@mrKreuzfeld]

Plural of Linus is Linui :P

[@aleatoriedades975]

Driking chimarrão?

[@Rignchen]

I think netbeans has the same place in prime's heart that Python has in mine. It's important for us because it's what really threw us in the programming world, but God, we don't want to go back there ever

[@Hyperboid]

Developer, I remember you're *_this._*

[@pyajudeme9245]

At least there was already decent internet in 2007. haha I don't remember how I got my first C compiler (1997), but I am sure that it wasn't easy.

[@jikaikas]

u should interview the guy

[@kamertonaudiophileplayer847]

Real time Linux looks promising.

[@fuzzy-02]

I loved programming, but now after graduation I cannot find anything im interested in... I feel like I lost my entire passion, and I also feel absolutely because theory heavy classes and tutorial hell of monke ctrl c, monkey ctrl c

[@zxuiji]

I disagree prime, your line note thing would be useful to any dev. Think how many times comments have broken up code too much and made it more confusing as a result. Being able to add notes to the line of interest would be more effective in such scenarios. Dunno how you did it without an extra file but I'm guessing it involved meta data

[@brssnkl]

There was a video recording of the Q&A. You didn't have to read all that :(

[@robincamarasa5096]

I actually think I want the small flag plugin :)

[@fuzzy-02]

Am I crazy or is Prime drinking from the cup cut out every time

[@marinbivol8787]

You got good at blabbing now. Meaningful for me is pretty much any project ever. Then other people come along and say, heh, that's cool, let me borrow some of this.

[@portal-jx5pu]

All because you don't want to put personal comments in the code, I understand... I sometimes use temp comments, but always forget to delete before pushing 😆

[@sjoervanderploeg4340]

We shared floppies with MASM and C compiler? It was pre-2000 and I was just a teen, we used QB45 and Pascal/Delphi! All pirated from some BBS obviously.

[@mr.k8660]

7:14 That's so true No one is gonna be find usefull my hello world program

[@senoraraton]

Wow... I went to the site and with an Ad-blocker its soooo much less content than it appears.

[@RickySupriyadi]

does linus just boldly stated his concern about open source codes getting more AI synthetic codes circulating into open sources, rather than genuine programmers? sorry my brain process this information differently.

[@slebetman]

Isn't OpenSearch a fork of Elasticsearch? Now it's governed by the Linux Foundation? That's actually good.

[@derekw6811]

I started using Linux for the free compilers

[@actually_it_is_rocket_science]

Eclipse was my netbeans but for c.

[@gruntaxeman3740]

Good C complier in 2007? Uh, GCC was good...1993. And it is still used a lot.

[@ptf42069]

it's still so hard to install visual c++ compiler. curse that compiler

[@streamdx]

Can’t find good C compiler in 2007? Ohh, come ooooon! Gcc and msvc was already pretty decent in 2007

[@EarthStarz]

No idea why this is coming up on my feed. My answer is to develop more Windows games maybe? We are struggling atm

[@skinforlife95]

still waiting for a foss CMC lathe...

[@HartleySan]

Completely random, but I've noticed that whenever the Primagen highlights a paragraph of text, he almost always skips highlighting the first and last characters in the paragraph. Is that intentional?

[@charlesbcraig]

NetBeans rocked my socks

[@deionutz]

retro Symbian C++. Active object. RunL();microkernel; european OS (or was it British?)

[@vpetryniak]

I really wanna see Prime’s wife Curious how does she look like

[@ccj2]

I just think this is too nuanced and subjective. Just focus on what you think is interesting. Chances are it can eventually become important. For example I’m doing Casey’s Computer Enhance course, somewhat because it’s needed but mostly because I just want to learn this stuff because I’ve always been curious and never had the time to look into it.

[@johnlovell8299]

zig? ALL YOUR BASE...

[@johnlovell8299]

Netbeans!

[@rbaron7352]

But even linus first modified minix. Not really unique.

[@RemotHuman]

I agree you should do stuff for yourself and you can find life satisfaction from that. But if you choose to chase being successful, i wonder if that mindset would do more to help the world? Because that is a value of mine as well. are there really only so many github stars to go around? I would say yes in theory but maybe we're not at that limit yet. if your project becomes successful it's not necessarily going to take away from another project being successful, it will just make the people discovering it discover both your project + what they would have discovered anyway. Well maybe that's true anyway. If there are limited stars to go around then you can only help the world by your project being better than what would have been there anyway. if there's not limited stars than your project just has to be a net good compared to 0. I guess the truth is probably in the middle. ;If there are only limited spots on the top, then working on projects more is still good for the world if those projects have a chance to get to the top and those projects are better for the world than what's already at the top.

[@nevokrien95]

I am angry that prime is right