Ask HN: Publish old projects even though the source code embarrasses you by now?

• ghostedit

  2 11 10.0 JavaScript

  Usability focused WYSIWYG editor

I have a 10 year old project on Github. I even have it on my resume. The code is nothing like what I would write today, but I think that's implied by it being 10 years old. And I'm personally quite proud of what I produced, even though I would do it differently now.

Project is a WSYIWYG editor (https://github.com/nicoburns/ghostedit) if anyone is interested. I wouldn't recommend anyone use it these days, but it could be interesting as a relatively small codebase to learn from if anyone is interested in how contenteditable in web browsers works.

• K-BOOM

  1 0 10.0 Pascal

  An Atomic Bomberman clone that runs on 80286, featuring video (1997).

Recently I dug out the source code for a game a friend and myself made in school in 1997. It was amazing to compile it, which it did flawlessly in a DOS/Turbo Pascal emulation. Playing it with my kids was an amazing experience. The code is definitely something I would be embarassed about from a readability/maintenance standpoint today. But on the other hand it can play back video on a 80286 processor :) And I believe everyone understands that you make progress over the years. So I can recommend it, go for it!

My game is available at Github here:

https://github.com/mrichtarsky/K-BOOM

• SurveyJS

  surveyjs.io featured

  Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.

  

• ancient-3d-for-turboc

  4 11 0.0 C

Nice! This prompted me to post my own code from the same era: https://github.com/pjc50/ancient-3d-for-turboc

I guess I should add screenshots.

• irooster

  1 3 10.0 Objective-C

  Turn your Mac into a $2,000 alarm clock

I just published the source code for the first app I ever built, all the way back in 2003: https://github.com/aaronbrethorst/irooster

It "turns your Mac into a $2,000 alarm clock."

I originally made it because I had endless amounts of trouble waking up for my morning classes in college, and found that the only alarm that could get me up was a subwoofer right underneath my bed. So I hooked a 2.1 speaker system up to my Mac, wrote a little app to start playing an iTunes playlist at a particular time, and ended up productizing it.

It was never a huge commercial success; I think the best I ever did with it was about $2,000 in sales one month after Apple featured it in a newsletter (different times!), but it taught me several important lessons about building a commercial software product that still guide me today.

Enjoy checking out my super janky code!

• transmit

  2 0 0.0 JavaScript

  Final Project for Distributed Web Systems (Fall 2016)

Back when I was in college me and a few classmates put together a site where you could share files with others using a link. Looking back at it, there are so many issues with the code, from just about every perspective. Up until recently i still kept it as an item on my resume, described something like "my first web app project, preserved with all it's bad code and questionable practices".

https://github.com/sgolovine/transmit

• trualias

  3 36 5.4 Python

  Mentally computable verification codes for email aliases implemented as a postfix tcp table or milter; uses asyncio.

If it has "artistic" or other redeeming value, go for it. Write a README or blog (or three) covering what's unique or important, or how it fits into some historical narrative. Just be clear with yourself on what you expect to get out of it, and how much work you're willing to put into feeding your pet.

I published something once which was three lines of code. It was useful; anyone could do it, but nobody did (a modem dialing script, of all things). The (often multipage) requests for releases to publish were an unexpected annoyance; I always tried to respond politely that I didn't feel it manifested the requisite originality to be a protected work, and that if they printed the email out and sent it to me with a self-addressed stamped envelope I'd sign it and send it back.

I publish https://github.com/m3047/trualias (checksummed on-the-fly email aliases) even though I consider the code far from perfect: it works, it defines a grammar (which I'm happy with), and it has (pretty comprehensive) tests for that grammar. The most important aspect in my opinion is the grammar and a working proof of concept. (To my bemusement it also has the most stars of any of my projects on GitHub, go figure.)

• lunchplanner

  2 0 10.0 JavaScript

  Discontinued (VERY old code I keep for self reference, this is supposed to be a joke anyway)

https://github.com/egeozcan/lunchplanner

I was having so much fun back then with this one. Meteor.js was a blast of productivity and I apparently couldn't have cared less about code quality. This is not embarrassing, there's no perfect code and we make different trade-offs all the time, not to mention the skill difference between you and your past self.

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com featured

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

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