7 ms·

People that worked on the same idea for decades

63 points by sebg 14d ago

fuzzfactor 14d ago
Yes? Growing up in a retirement community you would be foolish to ignore the fact that some things don't start getting good for the first few decades. Most everybody else doesn't have such overwhelming examples, and fail to realize it until much later in life, if ever.
srl 12d ago
"Few paintings have lasted the test of time as the great wave of Kanagawa. It took Kanagawa 40 years before he drew the wave he is most known for." The painting is by Hokusai. Kanagawa is a place.
- sandymcmurray 12d ago
  He also made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.
- badlibrarian 12d ago
  He doesn't do much better on the other example. Term-frequency saturation is the important part, and he ignores the 1972 paper by Karen Sparck Jones.
bananaflag 12d ago
In fantasy: J R R Tolkien Janny Wurts M A R Barker Ed Greenwood
giraffe_lady 12d ago
A couple software examples off the top of my head are Richard Hipp with SQLite and Matthew Ahrens with ZFS. Both almost incomprehensibly sophisticated projects executed well over decades. Neither are anything like a solo effort in the way these examples are, and it's hard to say what they'd be like without the long individual involvement.
techteach00 12d ago
Ted Nelson!
roncesvalles 12d ago
Darwin took 21 years to publish his findings on evolution. In fact he couldn't finish the actual book that he had set out to write and published a summarized abstract instead, which is what we know as On the Origin of Species.
- stevenwoo 12d ago
  Plus he would have kept working on it until Alfred Wallace wrote him a letter about coming up with his own idea independently so it was publish together or get beat to the punch.
pcrh 12d ago
People who...
croes 12d ago
I guess Chris Roberts and Star Citizen will join that club
jll29 12d ago
Software Richard Stallman: GCC and Emacs - both massive pro?ects and still going strong. Linus Torvalds: Linux OS kernel Science Geoffrey Hinton: scaling neural networks Books Donald E. Knuth: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (vol 4c of 12) Buildings misc. architects and builders: (most) cathedrals (Cologne, Barcelona, ...)
- WCSTombs 12d ago
  Knuth didn't write SICP, it's by Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman.
  - phkahler 12d ago
    Knuth wrote TAOCP.
    - defrost 12d ago
      Knuth is writing TAOCP.
      - glimshe 12d ago
        Knuth will likely not finish writing TAOCP. :(
fnord77 12d ago
the title kind of implies there would be more than just 2
- jujube3 12d ago
  Check back in a few decades, and he'll have added some more.
CM30 12d ago
Surprisingly common in fangames and mods. Mushroom Kingdom Fusion started in 2007 at the latest, and it's not going to be done for a year or so at the earliest. So, 20 years, maybe 30 if you count predecessor projects. Brutal Mario started in 2006 at the latest, and ended in the 2020s as far as I recall, so about 14-15 years. Of course, the 2006 demo was technically demo 6, so we have no idea when the first 5 versions were created since they seem to be gone forever. Super Mario Star World is a remake/sequel to the Mario 64 hack Super Mario Star Road, which was made for Super Mario 64 DS instead. It seemed to start out as a sequel in the Super Mario 64 engine in 2013, then ended up as a Super Mario 3D Land mod a few years later, got retooled as a Super Mario 64 DS hack a few years after that and is currently in development by a new creator after original creator SKELUX got cancer and moved onto other projects. In other mediums, I guess there's the Thief & the Cobbler. Started in 1964, got an unfinished/messed up release in 1993, and a better recuts in 2013 and 2023.
- embedding-shape 12d ago
  Video games in general have lots of people working on their games for decades too. UnReal World is from early 90s, was released on Steam in 2016, and AFAIK still gets updates. Nethack is even older (late 80s?) and also still get updates, I guess there might be bunch of MUD with single creators who still churn out updates too. Dwarf Fortress is quite old too for still gaining in popularity.
  - CM30 12d ago
    Oh video games in general can have crazy development times, whether it's through an open beta/development process or a closed one. Dwarf Fortress is a good one for sure, as is Star Citizen. Also Duke Nukem Forever, and Beyond Good & Evil 2 (the latter has somehow passed the former's record for longest recognised game development time at 20 years compared to 14). Super Mario Bros X is arguably getting up there too, started in 2009 by Terraria developer Redigit, and now in development by a new group as of 2026. And while a Doom fan needs to check this, I remember the mod Mordeth started before Duke Nukem Forever was announced, and the later episodes ain't done as of 2026.
interroboink 12d ago
I'm reminded of an old talk by Rich Hickey [1] (he created Closure, initially in semi-isolation over some years). > When was the last time that you thought about something for an > entire hour? ... Howabout for a whole day? ... or over the course of a > month? ... or a year? These are tremendously valuable moments, if you > get to have them at all. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc
RRWagner 12d ago
Myself, Roger Wagner,HyperStudio, 1988...1998...2008+
- orsenthil 11d ago
  Wow!. Nice to meet you.
chubot 12d ago
I think Charles Babbage is a special case -- IIRC his son also picked up his work, after his death. So he actually worked on it for "generations", by having a child who also worked on his ideas :-)
hatmatrix 12d ago
Don't most researchers fall into this category?
- colechristensen 12d ago
  Not so often the "same" idea but a related or rather narrow field.
flobosg 12d ago
Somewhat related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_experiment
devld 12d ago
Infinity project (game) https://gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2262302-a-retrospective-on-the-infinity-project https://gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2262302-a-retrospective-on-t... started in 2004. It's not the same exact game, but the developer seems to work on something similar: https://www.inovaestudios.com/Battlescape https://www.inovaestudios.com/Battlescape The journal / blog is very interesting btw.
keymasta 12d ago
For scifi: Frank Herbert and his son for the Dune series
soupfordummies 12d ago
Is there just two examples or is the page not loading for me? Shelby Foote’s Civil War history and Robert Caro’s LBJ biography come to mind. They also make me think I may have to work on READING them for decades.
orsenthil 11d ago
The quote by Hokusai is beautiful. Algorithms books and material by Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne is 40 year effort too. Computer Networks, Operating Systems, Distributed Systems from Andrew Tanenbaum, same.

63 points by sebg 14d ago

Yes? Growing up in a retirement community you would be foolish to ignore the fact that some things don't start getting good for the first few decades. Most everybody else doesn't have such overwhelming examples, and fail to realize it until much later in life, if ever.

srl 12d ago

"Few paintings have lasted the test of time as the great wave of Kanagawa. It took Kanagawa 40 years before he drew the wave he is most known for." The painting is by Hokusai. Kanagawa is a place.

sandymcmurray 12d ago
He also made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.
badlibrarian 12d ago
He doesn't do much better on the other example. Term-frequency saturation is the important part, and he ignores the 1972 paper by Karen Sparck Jones.

bananaflag 12d ago

In fantasy: J R R Tolkien Janny Wurts M A R Barker Ed Greenwood

giraffe_lady 12d ago

A couple software examples off the top of my head are Richard Hipp with SQLite and Matthew Ahrens with ZFS. Both almost incomprehensibly sophisticated projects executed well over decades. Neither are anything like a solo effort in the way these examples are, and it's hard to say what they'd be like without the long individual involvement.

techteach00 12d ago

Ted Nelson!

roncesvalles 12d ago

Darwin took 21 years to publish his findings on evolution. In fact he couldn't finish the actual book that he had set out to write and published a summarized abstract instead, which is what we know as On the Origin of Species.

stevenwoo 12d ago
Plus he would have kept working on it until Alfred Wallace wrote him a letter about coming up with his own idea independently so it was publish together or get beat to the punch.

pcrh 12d ago

People who...

croes 12d ago

I guess Chris Roberts and Star Citizen will join that club

jll29 12d ago

Software Richard Stallman: GCC and Emacs - both massive pro?ects and still going strong. Linus Torvalds: Linux OS kernel Science Geoffrey Hinton: scaling neural networks Books Donald E. Knuth: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (vol 4c of 12) Buildings misc. architects and builders: (most) cathedrals (Cologne, Barcelona, ...)

WCSTombs 12d ago
Knuth didn't write SICP, it's by Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman.
- phkahler 12d ago
  Knuth wrote TAOCP.
  - defrost 12d ago
    Knuth is writing TAOCP.
    - glimshe 12d ago
      Knuth will likely not finish writing TAOCP. :(

fnord77 12d ago

the title kind of implies there would be more than just 2

jujube3 12d ago
Check back in a few decades, and he'll have added some more.

CM30 12d ago

Surprisingly common in fangames and mods. Mushroom Kingdom Fusion started in 2007 at the latest, and it's not going to be done for a year or so at the earliest. So, 20 years, maybe 30 if you count predecessor projects. Brutal Mario started in 2006 at the latest, and ended in the 2020s as far as I recall, so about 14-15 years. Of course, the 2006 demo was technically demo 6, so we have no idea when the first 5 versions were created since they seem to be gone forever. Super Mario Star World is a remake/sequel to the Mario 64 hack Super Mario Star Road, which was made for Super Mario 64 DS instead. It seemed to start out as a sequel in the Super Mario 64 engine in 2013, then ended up as a Super Mario 3D Land mod a few years later, got retooled as a Super Mario 64 DS hack a few years after that and is currently in development by a new creator after original creator SKELUX got cancer and moved onto other projects. In other mediums, I guess there's the Thief & the Cobbler. Started in 1964, got an unfinished/messed up release in 1993, and a better recuts in 2013 and 2023.

embedding-shape 12d ago
Video games in general have lots of people working on their games for decades too. UnReal World is from early 90s, was released on Steam in 2016, and AFAIK still gets updates. Nethack is even older (late 80s?) and also still get updates, I guess there might be bunch of MUD with single creators who still churn out updates too. Dwarf Fortress is quite old too for still gaining in popularity.
- CM30 12d ago
  Oh video games in general can have crazy development times, whether it's through an open beta/development process or a closed one. Dwarf Fortress is a good one for sure, as is Star Citizen. Also Duke Nukem Forever, and Beyond Good & Evil 2 (the latter has somehow passed the former's record for longest recognised game development time at 20 years compared to 14). Super Mario Bros X is arguably getting up there too, started in 2009 by Terraria developer Redigit, and now in development by a new group as of 2026. And while a Doom fan needs to check this, I remember the mod Mordeth started before Duke Nukem Forever was announced, and the later episodes ain't done as of 2026.

interroboink 12d ago

I'm reminded of an old talk by Rich Hickey [1] (he created Closure, initially in semi-isolation over some years). > When was the last time that you thought about something for an > entire hour? ... Howabout for a whole day? ... or over the course of a > month? ... or a year? These are tremendously valuable moments, if you > get to have them at all. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc

RRWagner 12d ago

Myself, Roger Wagner,HyperStudio, 1988...1998...2008+

orsenthil 11d ago
Wow!. Nice to meet you.

chubot 12d ago

I think Charles Babbage is a special case -- IIRC his son also picked up his work, after his death. So he actually worked on it for "generations", by having a child who also worked on his ideas :-)

hatmatrix 12d ago

Don't most researchers fall into this category?

colechristensen 12d ago
Not so often the "same" idea but a related or rather narrow field.

flobosg 12d ago

Somewhat related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_experiment

devld 12d ago

Infinity project (game) https://gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2262302-a-retrospective-on-the-infinity-project https://gamedev.net/blogs/entry/2262302-a-retrospective-on-t... started in 2004. It's not the same exact game, but the developer seems to work on something similar: https://www.inovaestudios.com/Battlescape https://www.inovaestudios.com/Battlescape The journal / blog is very interesting btw.

keymasta 12d ago

For scifi: Frank Herbert and his son for the Dune series

soupfordummies 12d ago

Is there just two examples or is the page not loading for me? Shelby Foote’s Civil War history and Robert Caro’s LBJ biography come to mind. They also make me think I may have to work on READING them for decades.

orsenthil 11d ago

The quote by Hokusai is beautiful. Algorithms books and material by Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne is 40 year effort too. Computer Networks, Operating Systems, Distributed Systems from Andrew Tanenbaum, same.