> hard to justify learning something because it's 'beautiful' or purely intellectually stimulating.
You might be surprised to find out that "because it's 'beautiful' or purely intellectually stimulating" is the essence of the 'Hacker' ethos for which this site is named.
The Y Combinator itself is something that fits this description quite perfectly. You will never use the y combinator in practice, and it likely won't help you to get a job ever, but it's a beautiful, wonderful thing to learn about and play with.
I'll be the first person to criticize PG on a range of topics, but to his credit he has been a great proponent of this ethos and it is no coincidence that this site is named after what would be now considered esoteria by many of the commenters in this thread.
It's predictable that the VC ethos of SV would undo that of the Hacker spirit that built it, but it's still sad to see.
> You might be surprised to find out that "because it's 'beautiful' or purely intellectually stimulating" is the essence of the 'Hacker' ethos for which this site is named
Is it? I thought hacking was more (Or at least also) focused on exploration and making things work [0].
A Y-combinator doesn't really seem to fall into "'beautiful' or purely intellectually stimulating" either [1]. It seems like something that has practical value, as it enables recursion.
I also don't think all these things are mutually exclusive. I find consensus algorithms to be quite fascinating and they also seem to have massive practical value, which is why I want understand them more deeply and perhaps implement one.
You might be surprised to find out that "because it's 'beautiful' or purely intellectually stimulating" is the essence of the 'Hacker' ethos for which this site is named.
The Y Combinator itself is something that fits this description quite perfectly. You will never use the y combinator in practice, and it likely won't help you to get a job ever, but it's a beautiful, wonderful thing to learn about and play with.
I'll be the first person to criticize PG on a range of topics, but to his credit he has been a great proponent of this ethos and it is no coincidence that this site is named after what would be now considered esoteria by many of the commenters in this thread.
It's predictable that the VC ethos of SV would undo that of the Hacker spirit that built it, but it's still sad to see.