It’s funny, my favorite useless projects have also mostly been compilers and game engines!
+1 to this mindset. I would go even further and suggest that useless projects tend to be morally superior to useful ones. A lot (not all) of the useful software out there ends up being used to make the world worse, but useless software can only ever inspire joy (in yourself and, hopefully, in others).
Personally, I got to the point where I realized that trying hard to make software that's useful can turn a side-project into something stressful, essentially a second job on top of my regular full-time job, which I just can't do, too much risk of burnout. Trying to turn something into a side-business adds a lot of constraints. You're not just playing anymore, you have to optimize everything towards the goal of making profit.
However, I still think you can enjoy working on things that are useful, to yourself and other people, and not for profit. The projects I'm the most proud of are projects I've shared that have been used and appreciated by many users online. You just have to keep the project small and simple, and keep your expectations low.
Agree. Something else: Useless software is also very educational.
I'm also into compilers and engines. I learned 3d programming by looking at small projects online. The "worse" the code, the easier to learn. If I had tried to follow the Unreal/Unity/Godot codebase I'd still be at the intro screen.
> useless projects tend to be morally superior to useful ones
people have claimed that crypto mining is useless too - but a lot of people also claim that crypto mining is morally wrong since it consumes vast amounts of electricity for "no reason".
I think there's no such thing as morally superior, and a project is never useless to any and everyone. A "useless" project is taken to mean useless to everyone else but the author (since it inspires joy - which makes it not useless).
So in other words, a project that's only useful for yourself is morally superior. However, that's just another way to describe selfishness. So by the transitive property, being selfish must be morally superior!
+1 to this mindset. I would go even further and suggest that useless projects tend to be morally superior to useful ones. A lot (not all) of the useful software out there ends up being used to make the world worse, but useless software can only ever inspire joy (in yourself and, hopefully, in others).