Heh. GP's comments reminded me of a time some months ago - I posted a project I made, and someone left a disparaging comment and then acted surprised that the comment wasn't taken as helpful constructive feedback.

Now that I check back, sure enough it's the same commenter :D

Presumably we're talking about this, from 8 months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24789536

in which the end of my final comment was:

"I know what the differences are - I've worked in this field for 20 years. I was just trying to give you a gentle smiley faced nudge to jump in on a "better" version of what you've already done in order to Make The World A Better Place."

It seems that this attitude rubs some people the wrong way, and I certainly apologize for that. I don't apologize for my belief that it's better when exploring new projects to find out as much as possible about what has been done before. I made the mistake of not doing that when I was younger, and my software has been the worse for it ever since. If you feel that you or others are immune from this, awesome, go for it, but give me room in the skeptics corner.

I can tell you want to offer helpful feedback and you are not trying to be negative, you are well intentioned and your advice comes from a place of knowledge and experience.

That said, I don't think "Show HN" should be considered a public academic peer review. The internet is full of enough negativity.

If you want to offer advice on HN, try framing it like this:

[GREAT WORK] I especially like [FEATURE 1..i] the [SOMETHING ELSE] is [WELL WRITTEN|WELL DOCUMENTED].

If you are looking to [EXPAND/EXTEND/DEVELOP] [FEATURE/DEPLOYMENT/APPLICATIONS] I recommend [BOOK|BLOG|PAPER]

> If you feel that you or others are immune from this, awesome, go for it, but give me room in the skeptics corner.

You are quite keen on feedback, so take the feedback offered by myself and others here into consideration. Communication skills are not a weakness, they are a strength.

[ You can see this comment was written in a positive, hopefully helpful manner ]

This is a lovely breakdown of positive, constructive feedback. I try to practice this online and in person, likely because of how much I personally benefit from the rare moments where I’m on the receiving end. I believe it’s important for us to motivate and inspire one-another whenever possible.

This is a nice formula. There's an argument to be had for learning the skill of inoffensive commentary. I prefer to recieve feedback in this form. Confusingly I also sympathize with the crowd who would rather state things in more forceful terms, in the name of being genuine and impactful... We tend to focus on things that are highly critical. I'd prefer if people felt happier after reading a comment of mine, and maybe see me as a friendly person...but I question the overrelience on pleasantry, I think it belies some insecurity.

> I don't apologize for my belief that..

Nobody here is suggesting it's bad to tell someone about prior work. They're suggesting it can be done without belittling the person's project.

(Also, in my case you were hardly just telling me about other projects. You said that my web app did something that can already be done in an existing native language/environment, so I should have "just" ported that whole language/environment to the browser instead of building my web app.)

some people just want to create, and that's ok. if you think they might be interested in something someone else has done, it's easy enough to say 'you might be interested in...'

no need to talk about 'better', etc.

pure DARVO :D

It might help you if you write for the reader, not just to output what's in your head - the added empathy will enhance your communication. Being right isn't enough, it's not just what you say, but how you deliver it.

I'm totally ignorant of lots of things. And if I tried to do stuff in those domains, it would probably be a shame that I didn't know what had been done before (though I concede there's some chance that it might not be).

It can be very rewarding to jump right into a new creative project (e.g. cellular automata, drawing, etc) without any knowledge of what's already been done before. When you approach a something from a clean state perspective, you won't have any references of what's what, and all of your discoveries will be the result of your own creative experimentation. If at some point you feel like you've reached a limit to discovering things, you will naturally become curious about what other people have done -- to see what else is out there that you didn't find on your own. Only then do you see the sort of stuff that's already out there, and it's way more exciting, because you appreciate it how difficult it was for others to reach unfamiliar states you didn't reach on your own.

That same bewilderment might not happen if you read about all the amazing things that already exist before you even get started. If you read or see too much of what's already been done first, you might just end up feeling starting from scratch is boring, because it isn't as interesting as the more advanced stuff other people had already done.

If you read or see too much of what's already been done first, you might just end up feeling starting from scratch is boring, because it isn't as interesting as the more advanced stuff other people had already done

This is pretty much my feeling in every side project idea I've thought up :D

You may not have intended to come across as rude, but you did.