People keep reimplementing the same thing to the same "80%" completion level so they look good to employers, but the software is abandoned quickly once it has served its purpose as a personal branding tool.
Step 2: Someone posts it on Hacker News.
Step 3: Project is immediately derided because other people have also been making new things.
But trying pin and dismiss the intention behind someone's open source project would be uncalled for, wouldn't it.