Then why would they blog about it... and then submit an article to Slashdot describing and linking to their own god dam blog.
Because other people like to see it, and it's really cool. Specifically, if you don't like this kind of thing, you shouldn't be on Slashdot. See also this.
If only the people who want to take on challenges like this put their skills to something actually useful....... There has GOT to be a better use of your knowledge and skills.
Sometimes people do things for fun........not because they want to please internet critics.
Once you get over the syntax, C++ metaprogramming is just like functional programming.
No, the syntax is the entire thing wrong with C++ metaprogramming. It clearly wasn't designed for things like this. To clear up any doubt about the syntax, check out this file. In addition the inscrutable error messages (although those have improved over the past decade).
If anyone likes template metaprogramming, I suggest they just use LISP.
That said, this project is really cool. Nice hack mattbierner.
reddit needs to pay its mods (say, a cut of ad revenue from their sub)
Or they could do moderating like slashdot does, which is superior to every other moderating system on the web.
Can't this same principle be applied on a smaller scale?
Yes, but are you willing to (roughly) double your internet bill to get that redundancy? If you are like most people, probably not.
This file will self-destruct in five minutes.