I agree with the idea that many projects are just fun and stand on that basis, but the analogy doesn't work IMHO.
When you bake a pie, it gets eaten, so who cares if it's just like another pie, in fact it's probably great if it is. And the more people baking peach pies, the better!
The analogy should be with pie recipes. In that case, your pie recipe really should bring something different to existing ones. It doesn't need to be 'better' necessarily, but if it's essentially identical, there's no real point to the recipe, except for you to practice writing out recipes.
I guess that final “except” is the entire point? You do something even if it’s not original or different because it’s fun and good practice for you.
Because maybe it is the same recipe with the same ingredients but the end result can still be different. Maybe yours is handwritten and I like your calligraphy, maybe you’re more meticulous and you documented all the steps more in details.
It can still be the same recipe. It can still provide the same service and yet there might still be useful differences.
There's of course nothing wrong with re-implementing 'ls' in C with all the same patterns, and sure, that could be fun, and maybe even earn a slither of respect, but no-one is going to care about your project as something useful or interesting, quite rightly.
The article isn't just saying it's "absolutely fine" to make software for fun/practice, it's complaining about other people having utility-focused questions and evaluations. Assuming that "show it to your friend" is supposed to be an analogy for more general showing off, reactions like that are plenty reasonable. If it's software nobody is intended to use then that should be made clear up front.
When you bake a pie, it gets eaten, so who cares if it's just like another pie, in fact it's probably great if it is. And the more people baking peach pies, the better!
The analogy should be with pie recipes. In that case, your pie recipe really should bring something different to existing ones. It doesn't need to be 'better' necessarily, but if it's essentially identical, there's no real point to the recipe, except for you to practice writing out recipes.