I think it’s perfectly reasonable to make something useless for fun, it’s an interesting idea.

But what I’d like to understand is why there are so many of the same thing. I know I’ve seen this exact idea multiple times on HN. It’s funny the first time, but once it’s done once and the novelty is gone (which is almost immediately), what’s the point of another and another and another?

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amne 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think it's just someone learning something new most of the time.

I have home made url shorteners in go, rust, java, python, php, elixir, typescript, etc. why? because I'm trying the language and this kind of project touches on many things: web, databases, custom logic, how and what design patterns can I apply using as much of the language as I can to build the thing.

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latexr 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Right. But the question is why redo the exact same joke? Why not come up with another twist (like the URL lengthener) or do no twist but be useful?

I’m not criticising the author or anyone who came before. I’m trying to understand the impetus between redoing a joke that isn’t yours. You don’t learn anything new by redoing the exact same gag that you wouldn’t learn by being even slightly original or making the project truly useful.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. You could make e.g. a Fonzie URL shortener (different lengths of “ayyyyy”), or an interstellar one (each is the name of a space object), or a binary one (all ones and zeroes)… Each of those would take about the same effort and teach you the same, but they’re also different enough they would make some people remember them, maybe even look at the author and their other projects, instead of just “oh, another one of these, close”.

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zulban 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If you don't need to design a new product, you can focus on execution.

You may want to learn about design and novelty. Some people just want to learn about execution.

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stronglikedan 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you're learning, it's better to recreate something exactly as it is, so that you have something against which to verify your output. Plus, not everyone is an idea person, and I'd wager that most devs are implementation people, not idea people.

	▲	latexr 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I’d argue that if you’re learning and are so inexperienced you need to recreate something exactly, you should instead recreate something real and useful—of which there are more examples—than one joke. Plus, I don’t think I’ve seen another of these which is exactly like this (just extremely close in concept), so the argument doesn’t hold.

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postalcoder 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A joke isn’t the best example because there are jokes that never changes but the delivery is a sign of mastery. The Aristocrats is like Bach’s cello suite for comedians.

	▲	latexr 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The Aristocrats is a special case where the setup is the joke instead of the punchline. The point is the inventiveness of the journey. If it was told with the same setup every time, it wouldn’t be funny.

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meken 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’ve been browsing this site for a decade plus and this idea was new to me. Maybe the author is in the same boat.

Edit: I see referencnes to shadyurl in the comments and I have heard of that, but probably wouldn’t have thought of it.

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latexr 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Fair. I’d think they would look for prior work beforehand, but that’s perfectly valid.

https://xkcd.com/1053/

Again, this was not a criticism, but a genuine question.

	▲	meken 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I can’t speak for the author, but this strikes me as the kind of thing you might not want to check prior work on. It just seems like a fun little project and sometimes seeing that other people have done it can be a bit demotivating.

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asynchronous13 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The author posted this project on reddit a few days ago where they mentioned their motivation: "I have a coworker who is constantly talking about the glory days of ShadyUrl, but that website has been down for several years at this point, so I figured I would create an alternative."

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abustamam 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I actually forgot that this had been done before until you mentioned it.

Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, they may have not seen it before, or was bored and just wanted to make a toy.

And it seems like many in HN are in enough a similar boat to me to have up voted it to trending, so at least some people found it entertaining, so it fulfilled its purpose I suppose.

It's a good question though, and I don't think anyone really knows the answer.

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victords 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A fun project doesn't need to be original, IMO.

URL Shortener is still one of the most popular System Design questions, building this project is a great way to have some experience / understanding of it, for example.

	▲	latexr 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> A fun project doesn't need to be original, IMO. I agree. But a URL shortener with a twist isn’t just fun, it’s funny. The joke—as opposed to the usefulness—is what’s interesting about it. But when the same joke is overdone, it’s no longer funny. > building this project is a great way to have some experience / understanding of it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46632329

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cubefox 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

One reason is that not all these websites manage to make equally "creepy" links, even though the basic idea is the same. I remember one version which was a lot more alarming than the current example, with links containing a mix of suspicious content hinting at viruses, phishing, piracy/warez sites, pornography (XXX cams), and Bitcoin scams. I don't remember that website, but the current case seems rather weak by comparison.

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latexr 4 hours ago | parent [-]

That makes it even more confusing. If you’re making something creepy, I can see the argument for “whatever exists isn’t creepy enough, I’ll do it better” but not the reverse.

	▲	cubefox 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's possible the current website is older, or that the creator doesn't know about better alternatives. (Also, they do produce rather short links, unlike some of the others, which don't pass as "URL shorteners". Though not sure whether that's relevant.)