🦥 Why You Should Build Something Useless (At Least Once)

Hello friends!

Welcome to this week’s Sloth Bytes. I hope you had a silly week.

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Why You Should Build Something Useless (At Least Once)

You know what’s interesting? Some of the coolest things I've learned about coding didn't come from building practical, useful apps.

Instead, they came from making stuff that's completely and hilariously useless. Seriously.

Let me explain.

Recently, in a moment of pure boredom (or inspiration?), I decided to build a clone of Wordle. I called it “Word Tuah…”

You can thank the discord for the name.

The difference is my version is packed with "brain rot" internet slang, so words like "rizz" "sus" "looksmaxxing" and "bussin."

Did the world need this? Absolutely not. Did I love every second of it? Absolutely yes.

Here's the wild part—it taught me way more than I ever anticipated, and this happens every time I make a “useless” project.

The freedom to experiment

When you're building something “useless”, there's no pressure to be perfect. My "Brain Rot Wordle" allowed me to review some React fundamentals while also being able to learn new things like adding sound effects, and framer motion animations.

It's amazing how much easier learning becomes when you're genuinely having fun.

Unexpected lessons along the way

I expected a simple project, but like most programming projects, it was more complicated than I anticipated.

Who knew that making sure people could type in words like “rizz” would make me a better programmer.

For example, I had a hard time trying to add animations whenever you type in a letter, because framer motion doesn’t support keyboard gestures.

This means I had to create some unnecessarily complex state logic to handle these animations.

🧠 Creativity boosts your coding skills

Building something dumb is a fantastic way to shake up your usual coding routine. It pushes you out of your comfort zone and makes you think creatively.

When you’re not restricted by practicality or usefulness, you allow yourself to explore new libraries, frameworks, or patterns you'd typically overlook.

You start asking questions you've never thought about and experiment in unconventional ways.

Real-talk takeaway

Not every project has to change the world or land you a job at Google. Sometimes, the best learning happens when you're laughing at your own creations at 2 AM.

So seriously, next time you're stuck, feeling bored, or don’t feel like programming, make something useless.

You'll learn more than you imagine and have way more fun doing it.

Sloths have occasionally been known to give birth to twins

The sad part is there’s only enough room on the female’s chest for one baby, so the weakest twin will be rejected.

Thank you to everyone who submitted!

triva03, bakzkndd, JamesHarryT, FRAIOLIenzo, porrrq, m0sh0, cre-w, E-Sieben, ariatheroyal, Fireboy086, Franspi-lol, RelyingEarth87, Puleesha, Raufirzaman, hmd37, FredericoSRamos1, Hfaerden, HighlandCuwu, jw123450, GabrielDornelas, Je-Carlos, and aviral-trivedi

Message from Space

You have received an encrypted message from space. Your task is to decrypt the message with the following simple rules:

• Message string will consist of capital letters, numbers, and brackets only.

• When there's a block of code inside the brackets, such as [10AB], it means you need to repeat the letters AB for 10 times.

• Message can be embedded in multiple layers of blocks.

• Final decrypted message will only consist of capital letters.

Create a function that takes encrypted message str and returns the decrypted message.

Examples

spaceMessage("ABCD")
output = "ABCD"

spaceMessage("AB[3CD]")
output = "ABCDCDCD"
# "AB" = "AB"
# "[3CD]" = "CDCDCD"
# Combine both = "ABCDCDCD"

spaceMessage("IF[2E]LG[5O]D")
output = "IFEELGOOOOOD"

How To Submit Answers

Reply with

• A link to your solution (github, twitter, personal blog, portfolio, replit, etc)

• or if you’re on the web version leave a comment!

• If you want to be mentioned here, I’d prefer if you sent a GitHub link or Replit!

First video done…

Go check out how I made word tuah (kinda.)

Second video on this week too!

Second one should be about studying, so stay tuned.

That’s all from me!

Have a great week, be safe, make good choices, and have fun coding.

If I made a mistake or you have any questions, feel free to comment below or reply to the email!

See you all next week.

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