[migrantgeek]

There's a lot of questioning about why someone would do this.

Why can't someone just write for fun? Does everything now have to be "disruptive" and commercially viable?

[stevoski]

A few years ago I wrote a Java decompiler. Not to actually decompile code but to learn how to use my weapon of choice (Java) at a deeper level.

I never finished. The only code I ever bothered decompiling was code I had written to test the decompiler. But I learnt a heck of a lot about how the JVM works, about Java byte code, and about some data structures and analysis. And I learnt exactly how the Java class file is defined.

It is something I'd highly recommend trying for your language of choice.

[paperwork]

This is something I have been trying to find the time to do.

Something like this is great to learn how the JVM actually works, and can improve the way you code Java. I always found it incredibly boring to read language/vm specs but building something like this makes the abstract and obscure, concrete (at least for a programmer's brain)

[phleet]

It's definitely totally fine to build these things for fun, but with a landing page like this, it seems like the author built it for some purpose beyond that, otherwise I don't see the point in presenting it in this form.

If the author wanted to learn _and_ get publicity, a blog post or at least including a "why" section that says "just for fun" on the landing page would seem suitable to me.

There probably is some interesting motivation for doing this, it's just not clear what it is.

[daenz]

> but with a landing page like this

You mean one of github's default landing pages for projects? http://i.imgur.com/nQgmrE5.png

[arjn]

Exactly, just do it for fun. Much can be learned and created that way.