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Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

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31–40 of 46 posts

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#31

I am a law student. I always had an interest for computers. It's been difficult to accept that I won't be studying CS. In those darkest of times advice from HN comments kept me afloat. I can't imagine any other place where a 19-year old computer nerd could get a personalized advice from Ian Murdoch himself, before he passed away. HN is a great place to learn about different fields of computing, get advice, find and r…

That's really cool! Have you ever considered taking coding classes or code camps to go along with your law degree?

I'm continuing to code, I never stopped. Nowadays I code for fun, experiment with different languages, contribute to OSS projects.

Coding is not an issue for me, it comes naturally. Of course I wish I had the ability to receive formal training and I secretly envy people who are able to study and contribute to the field of CS.

However, after years of resistance, I came to realize that I also like law. Rules of society and software engineering have a lot of common. Both in Law and Programming you think of edge cases, debug thinks, try to express yourself clearly.

What's most interesting is that in Law, I also heard people using principles, which I am familiar from computers.

For example in a moot court I attended, a catchphrase was that "if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it's a duck". Or when we prepare for pleadings our coaches always instructed us to Keep It Simple. Another example is when we wrote a memorandum, we started with constructing an outline (a.k.a top-down design :D), we constantly made reviews, argued heavily about restructuring (a.k.a refactoring :) ).

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#32

I work as an economist at my country's ministry of finance. Since my daily job is to write studies and reports about IT, HN is quite useful to keep in touch with what's happening. I like as well when people submit content about other topics, and I think I learned many things here unrelated to tech. Otherwise, I think the community here is great, and I really enjoy reading the comments and analysis of my fellow reader…

> I work as an economist at my country's ministry of finance.

Out of curiosity, do you feel that the ministry is actually making informed decisions or just acting as an executive branch while the decision makers are elsewhere?

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#33

There are intelligent people here and I have a general interest in technology and society. I whished there was a filter for all articles that are not about programming. It would easily make HN my favourite news aggregator (if it isn't already, I just need to skim a lot more). The only thing I might criticise about the folks here is some openes for a broader sense of humor :P and folks thinking tech can solve any prob…

http://www.taggernews.com/news/

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#34
post #13
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, none that keep me coming back like HN. There are definitely some decent communities within reddit if you are willing to wade through all the garbage that Reddit throws at you by default. I'm sure you are probably aware but pretty much every specific interest you might have, probably has a r/ and generally the more specific, the less trolling and the more focused the conversation.

Yea.. 4 years ago Reddit was much more like HN in this regard. It is a shame how bad it has become

HN includes a much more limited crowd. I would theorize Reddit is a more realistic reflection of our society (not that we want to focus on that, so I'm not saying it's any better, quite the opposite).

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#35
post #33

There are intelligent people here and I have a general interest in technology and society. I whished there was a filter for all articles that are not about programming. It would easily make HN my favourite news aggregator (if it isn't already, I just need to skim a lot more). The only thing I might criticise about the folks here is some openes for a broader sense of humor :P and folks thinking tech can solve any prob…

http://www.taggernews.com/news/

Great! I'd just need a filter function to checkmark which tags I want to see. (preferably whitelisting, not blacklisting, so I can see something tagged with "science, programming", but not with "programming" only when I subscribe to "science".)

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#36
I teach in places where there is almost zero education, heavy child trafficking.As i learn from HN, I try to teach them to kids(Remember that calculus made easy book? or those fun reads) They enjoy the true essence of learning and discovering the world from their own eyes.

I hope that someday these kids will become self learners and help other kids do the same. Even learning how to send an SOS signal from a phone can be a lifesaver for these kids.

That day is still far off but it is possible.And believe me,Kids are super smart and I am sure that my students will change their lives on their own. All i can do is give them that offbeat motivation.

And the crowd here is very good,Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#37

There are intelligent people here and I have a general interest in technology and society. I whished there was a filter for all articles that are not about programming. It would easily make HN my favourite news aggregator (if it isn't already, I just need to skim a lot more). The only thing I might criticise about the folks here is some openes for a broader sense of humor :P and folks thinking tech can solve any prob…

*"a lack of a broader sense of humor" I meant to write

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#38

I teach in places where there is almost zero education, heavy child trafficking.As i learn from HN, I try to teach them to kids(Remember that calculus made easy book? or those fun reads) They enjoy the true essence of learning and discovering the world from their own eyes. I hope that someday these kids will become self learners and help other kids do the same. Even learning how to send an SOS signal from a phone can…

you are a good person!

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#39
post #38

I teach in places where there is almost zero education, heavy child trafficking.As i learn from HN, I try to teach them to kids(Remember that calculus made easy book? or those fun reads) They enjoy the true essence of learning and discovering the world from their own eyes. I hope that someday these kids will become self learners and help other kids do the same. Even learning how to send an SOS signal from a phone can…

you are a good person!

Thank you.

There is nothing more satisfying than to see the spark of interest and wonder reignite in a child.

Keep up your good job people, I hope to pickup coding from where i left. I remember the good old days of basic and logo,They were fun to start programming with.

Re: Ask HN: Non-developers: What brings you to HN?

#40
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are a good person!

Thank you. There is nothing more satisfying than to see the spark of interest and wonder reignite in a child. Keep up your good job people, I hope to pickup coding from where i left. I remember the good old days of basic and logo,They were fun to start programming with.

:D
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