Well hopefully my current thing, a streaming markdown renderer for the terminal (https://github.com/kristopolous/Streamdown) hasn't also been a waste of time

Why would anything be a waste of time?

the answers to that question are hugely variable and depend on the objective and defining waste. if one values learning intrinsically, like most of us here probably do, it is pretty hard to come up with a waste of time, even taking the rare break from learning.

But it seems self-evident where constraints like markets or material conditions might demarcate usefulness and waste.

Even the learners who are as happy to hear about linguistics as they are material science I presume do some opportunity cost analysis as they learn. Personally speaking, I rarely, if ever, feel like I'm wasting time per se but I always recognize and am conscious of the other things I could be doing to better maximize alternative objectives. That omnipresent consciousness may just be anxiety though I guess...

I build things I cannot find.

Every project I do is an assertion that I don't believe the thing I make exists.

I have been unable to find a streaming forward only markdown renderer for the terminal nor have I been able to find any suitable library that I could build one with.

So I've taken on the ambitious effort of building my own parser and renderer and go through all the grueling testing that entails

either that or "waste of time" is a meaningless phrase