I appreciate you sharing your explorations. Novelty is overrated when it comes to learning.
I'm still trying to understand what this means.
I must admit to being aesthetically offended by any dismissal of novelty, but this is clearly an emotional reaction and I recognize that.
I agree that making an implementation of an existing thing can be a useful way to learn about it's structure. I really don't think that novelty and original work (i.e. a hacking exploit and it's writeup) are opposed to the previous sentence.
What does it mean to oppose novelty and learning?
> I really don't think that novelty and original work [...] are opposed to the previous sentence.
So I don't think you disagree with your parent comment.
As an example making tic-tac-toe or a calculator or bubble sort are all tried and true exercises which you can find plenty of prior art on to compare and contrast your solution with.
Perhaps too many people don't try something because "it's been done to death".