[beefpies]

You don't know anything about this kid. You definitely don't know that what they need in their life is discouragement. Don't conflate their childhood with yours.

If a 15 year old wanted to show me a project, and I wanted to help them understand what would improve it, I'd ask them questions and engage them in a Socratic process to lead them that direction.

I wouldn't tell them that their work was trash. That would either discourage them from doing more projects, showing their projects to me, or both.

[earthboundkid]

Who said it was trash? I said there are no new ideas, and it’s not ready for other people to use. Why would you conflate that with “trash”? That’s a perfectly normal, honest assessment.

I think you guys are expecting a 15 year old to be treated like a 5 year old. 15 is old enough to make real contributions to open source. Aaron Swartz is the obvious example, but lots of other young people make big contributions. It’s honest to say “good for you and keep working but this isn’t ready for the front page of Hacker News and if you think it is you will hold yourself back.”

[beefpies]

If you weren't hypercritical, why do you think everyone is reacting as if you were? Either you communicated poorly and came off way differently than your intended, or you aren't being honest with yourself about what you said and what it meant.