[zackham]

This looks like a herculean effort over just the past few months. Congratulations on hitting this milestone and hopefully you can take a breather and tie up loose ends at a more comfortable pace. As much as HN has changed over the years I still think this is a place where there are a lot of people who can appreciate how you feel right now. Nicely done!

[chjj]

Thanks. This was definitely the hardest project I've worked on in my life. I fear I may have shaved a few years off my life with all of the all-nighters I pulled with this, so it's good to hear recognition for the work. :)

[spuz]

Very impressive work. Was there a deadline that you were trying to meet? What was the reason for the all-nighters?

[chjj]

No deadline. I just have a tendency towards obsession when I'm working on a project I'm very interested in. I tend to get into a kind of manic phase where I can't sleep even if I wanted to. There's no real telling when that phase will end. So I end up coding for an unhealthy amount of time. I don't recommend it to anyone.

[HappySweeney]

I have the same thing, self-diagnosed as monomania. I had to train myself to stop thinking about my obsession when not at it, and the condition eventually subsided enough that it doesn't completely screw up my life anymore.

nb: looking it up on wikipedia, it seems that monomania was a 19th century psychiatric diagnosis, and is no longer considered a real condition.

[johnnyApplePRNG]

When you really love working on something, sometimes you just can't sleep.

It's the most productive you can ever be imho.

[bertr4nd]

Truly an amazing output! Did you really do all this in 2.5 months? Seems I need to dramatically up my coding game!

[b20000]

congrats on your hard work. why did you choose C89 instead of writing this in C++11 or 17? just curious, no criticism.

[debo_]

Agreed! I'm confused by the number of comments that suggest this was a waste of time because other potentially similar implementations exist. There could be a hundred of these and I'd still be interested in looking at them.

[0des]

Disregard those comments. There will always be critics wondering why you don't just use floppies taped to a carrier pigeon instead of email. We are nerds.

[anonporridge]

When I was young, I was taught that Benjamin Franklin taught himself to write well by reading a work, and then trying to rewrite it from memory.

I imagine a similar principle is in play here.

There's value in rewriting what already exists and works, even if it will only ever be useful to yourself.