People keep reimplementing the same thing to the same "80%" completion level so they look good to employers, but the software is abandoned quickly once it has served its purpose as a personal branding tool.

Step 1: Someone invests a bunch of time making something new.

Step 2: Someone posts it on Hacker News.

Step 3: Project is immediately derided because other people have also been making new things.

Just to clarify, I was explaining acgourley's position. This particular project is high quality.

If your trade is building things and you have nothing to show for it, then it's probably a good idea to have at least one thing you can point to.

But trying pin and dismiss the intention behind someone's open source project would be uncalled for, wouldn't it.