Why I prefer making useless stuff
I definitely identify with the author. A big mistake I made in the past was to assume that other software engineers are equally enthusiastic about these kind of projects, or the least bit impressed by them. I was asked for a job interview to prepare presentations on two projects I was particularly proud of. I chose a hobby Operating System kernel I&#x27;d developed from the ground up, and a fully-functional MIPS assembler I had written. The interviewers (senior developers within the company) really just did not <i>get it</i>. Responding with questions such as: <i>&quot;Is this going to make you any money?&quot;</i>, and <i>&quot;When do you expect this to be complete?&quot;</i>. They really couldn&#x27;t understand my motivations. I did these projects for no other reason than that I love programming, and I have never stopped loving learning about it. I have never needed to consider, or justify to myself <i>why</i> I did these things. I do them because I enjoy what I do.<p>I ended up pivoting to discuss some comparatively banal professional project migrating a mid-sized financial product to a new tech-stack, which managed to captivate their attention. I found this experience extremely disheartening, however important a lesson it was to learn. I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s changed my outlook in any way though, admittedly. I still work on the same kinds of projects, and I still think the best developers are the ones who do work on toy projects for their own enjoyment.