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Comment by diskzero | Hacker News Reader

Some people find joy and satisfaction in developing systems. I don't have total insight on their plans, so I am not going to ask "What is the point?" I prefer never to ask "What is the point" to anyone unless somehow their efforts are providing a net negative to the human condition.

Sometimes the "point" is because it can be done. Sometimes the point is someone wants to learn about building an API and would prefer to do it with the Quran rather than with movie quotes.

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….? Or maybe there is a interesting and expected answer that provides a learning experience? It doesn’t hurt to ask.

> Or maybe there is a interesting and expected answer that provides a learning experience?

Then it should be phrased like that. It's obvious the original comment was phrased as a condescending question, especially since they tried to answer it themselves.

There's a difference between genuine interest and trying to show off how smart you are.

So quick to offense. it wasn't meant to be condescending, it was meant to be a serious technical critique of what appears to be a publicly advertised product.

> it wasn't meant to be condescending, it was meant to be a serious technical critique of what appears to be a publicly advertised product

Oh, I think everyone was confused because there was no serious technical critique. You made a flippant comment about disk space and network latency. Basic observations that anyone building this would have considered.

You can see from all the comments that everyone viewed you as condescending and unhelpful. You might want to revisit your writing style, since your intentions are not clear to anyone.

Judging by the other comments in this thread and the upvotes to my original comment, many people seem to agree with me also.

you are an unpleasant person to talk with

> you are an unpleasant person to talk with

I'm glad you picked up on my tone. I'd suggest not writing pointless criticism.

Them: "Hey, we wanted to build an API!" You: "What if you don't build an API, and just download a file? That's the same right?"

In this context I think it was fairly clear I was referring to HTTP API. If they want to utilize a sqlite client or query local data in some other way I think that makes sense. You could download the whole project as a project dependency, and build your app as an offline app. I wouldn't expect a Quran app to require internet connection.

You must be a joy to peer review at work.

It never hurts to ask. It also never hurts to learn the appropriate way to phrase questions that are genuine. For some reason, a pattern develops in some people where they think there is value is just asking why all the time. It is best to stop and think before firing of your "Why didn't you just use solution X". This rarely leads to constructive dialog and instead generates a low-value conversation a lot like job interview situations where poor interviewers are trying to set up a candidate with why questions just so they can unload some ego boosting bit of advice.

woah woah calm down... I wasn't trying to insult anyone.

"I wanted to build a fun, cool project." Is a perfectly valid answer.

I think there is value in people critiquing methods and designs for various systems. If I were building some new project I would want my peers to give me honest critique and constructive probing. I make mistakes all the time and would never learn from those mistakes if others didn't point them out to me.

> "liabd 1 hour ago [–] This is awesome and will enable a whole suite of apps to be build on top of it. Great work"

So even in this thread people are discussing adding this service as a dependency to their own applications. I think if you are building a project for yourself for fun that is one thing... but If you advertise it for public use, criticism is perfectly valid, and should be expected.

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