Invisible Stars

I’ve starred 1,400 projects on GitHub, but I don’t remember most of them. They left no impression because I never actually used them.

Starring costs nothing: I see something interesting, click on the star button, then move on. I get the satisfaction of discovery without the work of understanding.

I’ve confused collecting with learning.

I want to change that.

I’m adding a page to my site for the projects that genuinely interest me. For an application, I’ll include my own configuration. For a library, I’ll build a small application with it — I’m calling these gadgets. The goal isn’t to build something polished. It’s to understand the tool by using it.

For example, I starred nob.h, a single-header C build system. I’ve been meaning to try it with tmtheme, a little CLI tool that generates .tmTheme files. The idea: replace tmtheme’s current build setup with nob.h and document the process on the page — what worked, what didn’t, and what the final configuration looks like.

No more invisible stars. Just things I’ve actually touched.