If I spent my weekends flipping burgers instead of kayaking/backpacking/etc, I'd have more money too. But why on earth would I want to do that? This person clearly has some source of income sufficient to let them "waste" hundreds of hours, I don't think they need to be in a rush to dig up more money.

It is actually partially his work (though probably it evolved as such later), see the Singapore Airlines ad campaign from his site:

https://www.lucaiaconistewart.com/singapore-airlines

But yeah I agree, this kind of tedious repetitive work is nothing for me either. I need to do hobbies I can learn from. While this would have been incredibly educational (about aircraft design, construction, project management etc), it also contains a lot of highly repetitive work like building hundreds of the same seats. No thanks.

But anyway I wanted to say that hobbies aren't aways perpendicular to jobs or making money. I've used many things I've learned from hobbies in my job, and in fact my job is pretty much my hobby. And even with unrelated hobbies you can sometimes pull them into your work (as he did here). IMO this is the ideal way to go, yet for a lot of people unfortunately not achievable in this society :(

But kudos to him!! Wow, it looks amazing.

On today's episode of "Stop Liking Things That I Don't Like"

I've been spending the last couple of years doubling down on learning Swift, and the Swift ecosystem. It's been 14 hours a day, seven days a week.

And I haven't been paid a dime.

All the while, I have been told that I'm "wasting my time," "you should be learning React Native and Javascript," and that "Apple is a dead company." etc. ad nauseam

Since I've been hearing that same refrain (substitute "Windows" for "React Native," and "C" for "JavaScript") for the last 34 years, it doesn't phase me that much.

The simple fact of the matter is, I can afford to take the time to do it, I really like Swift, and I really like developing for Apple systems.

Maybe it will result in some kind of lucrative stuff; maybe not. I don't care.

I spent over 30 years, writing software that other people used as toilet paper. I'm doing what I want.

This guy is doing what he wants. Good on him.

One of the nice things about art, is that it is something other people enjoy; maybe, even more than we (the artists) do.

I think it's great.

I also enjoyed this[0], a couple of years ago.

[0] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1757088830996244

Since we are sharing: I've spent the last couple of years, on and off, building a physics engine from scratch. Pretty hard considering I'm not a mechanical engineer. Lots of fun though.

Excellent! You should do a "Show HN," when you are done.

What language are you using? What is your destination platform?

UPDATE: I just looked at your HN handle. Questions answered. Good show!

>>What language are you using?

Java

>>What is your destination platform?

Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android

I have not run Java on iPhone (that I know of). Do you know if it will pass the App Store review?

I'm first transcoding the Java code into Objective-C code with a Java to Objective-C transcoder that I wrote for fun. Google has their own Java To Objective-C transcoder, though I've never used it.

Cool. I wrote a Pascal-to-C++ transcriber in the late 1980s. It was mostly done with RegEx, on a command line.

What a nightmare.

You have cool hobbies.

Awesome! Thanks.

I think Apple removed their restrictions on programming languages long ago. If you can get it to run on the platform, you can use it, AFAIK.

No. Apple doesn't natively support Java on iOS, but there is an app called Pico[0], that supposedly acts like a Java IDE.

It doesn't seem to be a particularly popular program, but it's the only one I've seen that does it.

I don't know if this[1] ever bore fruit.

The transcoder Java->ObjC isn't a bad idea. The languages have a lot of similarities.

[0] https://apps.apple.com/in/app/pico-compiler-java-compiler-jd...

[1] https://www.infoworld.com/article/3407781/a-plan-to-bring-ja...

Enough that Apple offered Cocoa bindings in it for a while!

At one time, I think that Steve Jobs wanted Java to be a native language for Apple development, but it ended up getting sidelined by Objective-C.

Developers had a difficult time, adjusting to ObjC. It’s very different from C, whereas Java was familiar to almost everyone.

Seriously. This is one of the most tired criticisms out there. It has existed since I got into technology 25 years ago. "Wow, you sure spent a lot of time doing that, and it's just a game!" -- Said most everyone in high school trying to get me to stop writing C code and hacking on my MUDs [edit: to do my actual school work]. Turns out it was pretty darn important I got into C and MUDs, without it I would not be in tech most likely :)

Person A: Look at this cool thing I did. Purely because I wanted to.

Person B: Wow you sure spent a lot of time on that. Surely you could be doing something more productive.

I find people that make this comment tend to not really understand or appreciate hacker "culture". We learn through experimentation and scratching itches. Maybe its not directly applicable to real world skills. Maybe it is. The process is what makes a good hacker. This person surely learned a lot about engineering and design in doing this project. Most importantly they wanted to do it.

Many people fill their time with bullshit on the Internet these days. I personally wonder what cool projects and other "pointless" things people could be creating if they weren't stuck on social media and consumed content.

Not at all, just puzzled why people do things like this that don't seem to better their situation.

Unless he's doing exactly what he would really want to do with his free time, in which case it is optimal.

People said the same thing for those who invented email, the World Wide Web, tcp/ip, and other technologies.

Nobody saw the value in it at the time of doing it. That’s the thing about having true creative vision, to also have the conviction to do those things that nobody else sees the value of doing.

I mean, why does anyone have any hobbies? Why do people build model layouts, or models at all? Why read/write for fun? Why keep small gardens? Why do photograhy? Why do people still run their own dark rooms? Why do people write software in their spare time? Why do people cook?

This strain of thinking that every spare minute must be accounted for and be in the service of improving one’s circumstances is something all too common in tech.

We’re not ants.

It's also a very narrow idea of what someone's "circumstances" are. Physical and mental well-being are part of your circumstances as well, and hobbies often cater to one or both of those.

> Some people would counter that money is not everything, which I mostly agree with. But it can be traded for time

Yes, it can be traded for time to spend on things you enjoy doing -- such as your hobbies.

Let people have their fun. Not everything in life needs to be optimized to death. My hobbies are completely unrelated to my job but they make me a much fuller and happier person. As a side-effect, everything else is improved.

If you're worried about this person's impact, think about how many people saw this and were impressed and possibly inspired? I was.

We have a much different effect on the world than we realize. The things we think are important may not be and the kind word or small bit of advice we gave without a second thought may have changed someone else's life. The human experience is too complex to be measured in spreadsheets.

I disagree, what if not time is worth optimizing? It's the only thing you can't get more of.

edit getting down voted by the immortal apparently...

What bigger optimization of time could there be other than spending it doing something you love doing? You can't put it in a bank.

But to what end and for who's benefit? What is the point of the optimization of your time?

For your own benefit mostly. If you want to spend some time for the benefit of society at large, so much the better. But at least you should care about your own benefit.

It just makes me think of the story of the fisherman: https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the...

Your replies seem to indicate that he should spend his time doing "productive" things instead; that would be more "optimal". I guess I'm tired of this race-to-the-bottom mentality where we spend so much time "optimizing" our productivity that we optimize the joy out of life. Productivity is a good thing, but I'm not convinced it is the greatest good.

That’s the kind of thinking that has achieved... nothing of importance.

Do you have any hobbies at all?

Wow. What a selfish perspective. It's art. It made this guy happy. It makes me happy knowing it exists and the complete write up about it. How much is that worth. I can tell you my happiness is worth more than zero. Can't speak for the artist, but willing to guess it is more than zero as well. Who are you state where this individual's time is better spent?

I have no objection to that. But it's this really what he would most want to do with his free time, or just something he did to pass the time?

I would rather spend time with friends and family, play games, read books, travel, etc.

I'm drawing attention to the opportunity cost inherit when you choose any one thing to spend your time on - you can't spend it on anything else, so make it something truly important to you.

If that happens to be building models, so much the merrier.

>I would rather spend time with friends and family, play games, read books, travel, etc.

That's you. Lots of people are perfectly fine without the need for family/friends 24/7. The site clearly stated he had been working on the project since 2008, so they could spend a few weekends here & there on the project and still have plenty of time left for doing whatever else makes you (specific you not the royal one) approve of his endeavors. I might suggest you might have more free time yourself if you just accept things not in your control rather than worrying about how someone else does things you might choose to do differently. I'm suspecting that this is not the only example. You haven't mentioned your hobbies. Let's see if we approve of how you spend your time.

Do you have this same criticism of the people that peruse this site? Or those watching Netflix? But reading books is ok - see how arbitrary that is?

We don't all share the same values, and it's pretty arrogant of you to suggest that yours are universal.

I'm sorry you got downvoted, I agree with you. If only this serious amount of effort was directed towards something meaningful the world would be much greater.

This is so backwards. Many people seem to fill their time with social media and other pointless activities. These types of hobbies and projects are a missing, and critical, component to staying fulfilled and happy while avoiding many of the traps of modern technology. If a person gets fulfillment out of it no one here should be judging them. It is no different than reading for enjoyment.