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Comment by ice109 | Hacker News Reader

what's with all these resources lately that are just a bunch of links? what value are you adding? you realize we have search engines now right? we don't need directories.

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Generally it's that all the resources are located in one place, and hopefully someone has actually looked at the links and decided they're of sufficient quality to include in the list. Having one place to look makes it easier for someone to read through things, rather than having to search and evaluate articles and resources themselves (especially as a new learner).

I agree with this, that the added value of lists like these is that it's "curated" - a person collected these links over time, gathered from various sources including search results, while filtering for quality subjectively.

Yeah. I've also seen complaints that some lists (including my own) have _too many_ links. Yes, I'd agree that a curated list with hundreds of links can still be overwhelming, but it's sort of a repeat of the Wikipedia "inclusionists vs deletionists" argument. I'm not trying to limit my list to the "top 5" articles in each subcategory or anything like that - I'm looking at each article by itself, and deciding if it's informative, relevant, and of value. I've also done refactoring on the list over time, adding new sub-categories, breaking out separate category pages, etc, to better capture the information.

It's still very much a "curated" list, it's just that I've done a _lot_ of curation :)

I think the structure and relations of this bunch of links are a kind of knowledge. And in this information-overloaded age, they are playing an increasingly significant role.

And in the age of artificial intelligence, a lot of problems require a combination of the works of machines and humans. Google can't provide a professional and insightful knowledge structure on its own. But more documents like this one maybe will help a new class of smarter production. Actually I myself am working on the similar production.

Additionally, unlike many extra-long "awesome list", I just pick one or a few links for each nested "category" which are the most mainstream and not outdated, based on the clear trends, public data, and experience. They are not trivial collections.

This one says 'Spellbook' though, so it's cooler.

What are you doing on HN, that's basically a link aggregator?!

the discussion

Those search engine rankings are determined to a large extent by directories.

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