When I hear that "it only took me x time", I typically wonder how much of the work is original ingenuity compared to successfully 'gluing' an app together with pre-made libraries. It's more impressive to me when you say "Look at this desk I built in two weeks from trees in my backyard" than "Look at this IKEA desk I assembled in 4 hours" if you'll pardon the crude analogy.<p>To be fair, both can be equally impressive, and there is no reason to reinvent the wheel unless you can make it better.
It just depends. When I see that it's a real-time chat room built on top of node.js, it doesn't really interest me. A chat room is basically the Hello World of node.js/socket.io, and I think I built my first one in a matter of hours. But, other things usually entice me to click the link. I think I click just about every Show HN link that I see, though. :P
I'm more concerned with what it is, not how long it took. I am a firm believer in "build half/launch early" etc, but to me greatness is measured on an absolute scale.
I generally wonder whether they mean a 24 hour period, or ~24 hours spread over several evenings and weekends.<p>The second option wouldn't include the extra dozens of hours mentally solving any problems in the shower or on the way to work...