[goatslacker]

Yes and no. Sometimes it's not about the destination but about experiencing the journey. From the post it seems like the author extracted the value they wanted to extract over the years. Knowing when to give up is difficult, especially when you've sunk a lot of cost into the project and feel like you have to finish it. The thing is, you don't have to and it's perfectly acceptable to put it on hold indefinitely.

In the end you'll still have all those experiences with you and that's what you paid for with your time.

[oldandtired]

The problem here is that the project was made public for others to use/view. If someone wants to do a private project that impacts no-one else, it is then completely up to them as to whether they continue or not as it their choice.

However, when one starts a project and says "look at me and the fabulous stuff I am doing" then it does not show them in a good light when they give up because they are now in the drudge work.

In a public situation, they are essentially saying that they are not worth their hire when the normal drudge work starts. I can understand stepping back from a project for all sorts of reasons, except for the reason that it is hard work to continue because drudgery.

Most of the work that most of us have to do is not exciting, not learning new things, not even interesting. It is just drudgery that needs to be done to get to the eventual goal that we started with. This is life.

The thing is that even drudgery work can be viewed in a very positive light if we continue to see it as essential for the final goal we started with. We will see the need for it and we work willingly towards the completion of it for the purpose of what we will achieve in the end.

The journey is a part of the destination and it is an essential part of the whole process. A journey without a destination and a destination without a journey are both meaningless without the other. Both are the two sides of each other.

[projektir]

This seems like a very strange perspective.

> The problem here is that the project was made public for others to use/view.

This literally doesn't matter if we're talking about someone's character, because whether it's public or not is irrelevant regarding the " they give up because they are now in the drudge work" point. Either that point is valid or it's not, but the public knowing about it is beside the point.

And I would say the point is not valid. Someone starting a personal project for a language and then discontinuing it is still much better off than someone not starting a project at all. I don't think most engineers share the perspective that this shows them in a bad light or something, this is honestly the first time I've seen this perspective in years.

> Most of the work that most of us have to do is not exciting, not learning new things, not even interesting. It is just drudgery that needs to be done to get to the eventual goal that we started with. This is life.

There's nothing good about this, nor anything good about reinforcing it. Godspeed to those who can avoid it.

The author of the language does not owe it to anyone to start, continue, or finishing any projects they have in mind, definitely not to anyone sitting around and judging them for daring to do something at all.

[oldandtired]

The point is that their character is reflected by what they do. If they say that the work they are doing is looking at a specific problem and when they get the answer then the work is completed, we can see that completion and can say they have achieved their purpose. If on the other hand they say their work is for a much broader area and then they say that they are giving up because it is just too hard, then they are saying something else about their character.

It is a matter of what expectation they are creating and what they say they are trying to achieve.

I don't have any problems with someone creating a language to see what they can achieve with it. If they find it not doing what they need, they can move on. However, they can ambush themselves by the creation of a project that they claim is bigger than what they may actually have in mind.

I have lots of partial language designs to test out specific ideas. Many are incomplete because they have shown that the specific idea I was testing is basically flawed. The information is available to those I discuss this with for them to investigate in their own way. They can see the lessons I have learned, especially about the failures I have come across. But they know well that the work done is both incomplete and was created to test out one idea or another and may or may not be of any use to anyone else.

My discussion point is that the author could have handled himself better without reflecting on his character. Essentially, to say it is now too hard to keep going because it is tedious, boring or just too much effort required doesn't reflect well on him. He could have handled that a lot better and still put everything into a close down mode.

> > Most of the work that most of us have to do is not exciting, not learning new things, not even interesting. It is just drudgery that needs to be done to get to the eventual goal that we started with. This is life.

> There's nothing good about this, nor anything good about reinforcing it. Godspeed to those who can avoid it.

My question to you - do you have a plethora of servants to do all your drudgery work? Who cleans your toilet, washes your clothes, cooks your food, sweeps your floors, mows your lawns, changes your children's nappies, and so on and so forth? Who writes your correspondence, enters your passwords, writes your code, drives your car in traffic?

Far too often, people are taught today to skip the tedious, the uninteresting and the hard boring work and someone else has to come along and clean up after them.

I am not judging that he dared to do something, I am highlighting that the way he has stopped his project reflects badly on him. Whether he starts a project or stops that same project is up to him. It is the reasons he states for that start or stop that reflect positively or negatively on him.