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Read less HN

johnmurray.io

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Re: Read less HN

#21

Post by plasma »

johnmurray_io wrote: post #10
fhd2 wrote: post #5

I can see how HN is bad for the author's well being, but certainly not for mine. I don't feel bad about reading other people's success stories. I don't feel any need to switch languages/frameworks when reading about new/hyped stuff. It's all just information, what you do with that is up to you.

Sure, but what is the opportunity cost of reading all of those posts and what are you really gaining from reading all of those "new technology of the month" postings?

Awareness.

I'm development lead on my startup and just being aware of new tech, other startups, problems with frameworks, algorithms,... all help me be better informed for my job.

Re: Read less HN

#22

Post by sillysaurus2 »

johnmurray_io wrote: post #10
fhd2 wrote: post #5

I can see how HN is bad for the author's well being, but certainly not for mine. I don't feel bad about reading other people's success stories. I don't feel any need to switch languages/frameworks when reading about new/hyped stuff. It's all just information, what you do with that is up to you.

Sure, but what is the opportunity cost of reading all of those posts and what are you really gaining from reading all of those "new technology of the month" postings?

This can be rephrased as, "What's the value to you of posting on HN?"

The value to tptacek can be denominated in units of "hundreds of thousands of dollars," for example.

I have to run -- I wish I could go into more detail with this comment. I'd talk about some other non-monetary benefits, like the ability to seek out a network, or to get feedback on weaknesses, or a bunch of other things.

Re: Read less HN

#23

Post by skwirl »

Segmentation wrote: post #7

Still not nearly as bad as Reddit. Subreddits have value, but look at the front page of Reddit. Zero value. On any given day, of any week, month, or year. Reddit's front page is 100% wasted time. I demonstrate this by asking to myself: Ten years from now what will Reddit's front page look like? Answer: The exact nonsense memes and image macros posted today.

I completely agree. I replaced (a good chunk of) my reddit browsing with HN browsing. I may burn excessive time here, but I feel like I'm at least learning/gaining something while I'm here. And the commenters here are actually intelligent and the top replies are generally decent and not "witty" one-liners.

But I don't work in the startup world. I don't get the stress of second guessing everything I do because in the same week opinions on all sides of an issue germane to startups have been heavily upvoted at different times. So perhaps that is key.

Re: Read less HN

#24

Post by [deleted] »

Segmentation wrote: post #7

Still not nearly as bad as Reddit. Subreddits have value, but look at the front page of Reddit. Zero value. On any given day, of any week, month, or year. Reddit's front page is 100% wasted time. I demonstrate this by asking to myself: Ten years from now what will Reddit's front page look like? Answer: The exact nonsense memes and image macros posted today.

[deleted]

Re: Read less HN

#25

Post by acjohnson55 »

johnmurray_io wrote: post #10
fhd2 wrote: post #5

I can see how HN is bad for the author's well being, but certainly not for mine. I don't feel bad about reading other people's success stories. I don't feel any need to switch languages/frameworks when reading about new/hyped stuff. It's all just information, what you do with that is up to you.

Sure, but what is the opportunity cost of reading all of those posts and what are you really gaining from reading all of those "new technology of the month" postings?

Less time being a mindless drone, never leaving your lane? ;)

I personally have learned quite a bit on HN that has led me to being a better programmer. A discovered Two Scoops of Django (https://django.2scoops.org/), Javascript Allongé (https://leanpub.com/javascript-allonge), and plenty of other things that have expanded my mind. The debate between promises, callbacks, and generators made me think critically about how I do asynchronous JS. The local love of functional programming has inspired me to dive in, and ultimately made me a better imperative programmer as well. And overhype of Edward Snowden's every movement aside, HN does a great job of surfacing stories about the intersection of policy and tech.

I also value a lot of the discourse that happens here. I think HN, even with its flaws, is a better community for discussion than Slashdot, Ars, or most of the rest of the sites covering tech.

Re: Read less HN

#26

Post by thebrokencube »

johnmurray_io wrote: post #10
fhd2 wrote: post #5

I can see how HN is bad for the author's well being, but certainly not for mine. I don't feel bad about reading other people's success stories. I don't feel any need to switch languages/frameworks when reading about new/hyped stuff. It's all just information, what you do with that is up to you.

Sure, but what is the opportunity cost of reading all of those posts and what are you really gaining from reading all of those "new technology of the month" postings?

Why not just for amusement? Or to just see what interesting things people have come up with? Why does everything have to be "only towards this goal", what happened to just doing things just for curiosity's sake?

Re: Read less HN

#27

Post by johnmurray_io »

plasma wrote: post #21
johnmurray_io wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but what is the opportunity cost of reading all of those posts and what are you really gaining from reading all of those "new technology of the month" postings?

Awareness. I'm development lead on my startup and just being aware of new tech, other startups, problems with frameworks, algorithms,... all help me be better informed for my job.

Exactly. Even a better reason to read curated content. You need to get awareness with what's going on in the tech community without sinking massive amounts of time. Do you really need to know about some lisp-variant someone implemented in 20 lines of Ruby.

Re: Read less HN

#28

Post by richforrester »

fhd2 wrote: post #5

I can see how HN is bad for the author's well being, but certainly not for mine. I don't feel bad about reading other people's success stories. I don't feel any need to switch languages/frameworks when reading about new/hyped stuff. It's all just information, what you do with that is up to you.

I'm with you. I'm here as a consumer. I skim most articles. I waste little time. Instead, I get a humongous wealth of information on a great variety of topics.

Also, one quick skim of the article list gives you a good idea of what's hot in tech. Even that has great value, and helps you decide what you should and shouldn't read.

About 10% of the time I jump into comments straightaway because they give you a good idea of the topic/validity of the article.

In short; consume, in moderation, with salt.

Re: Read less HN

#29

Post by themodelplumber »

>>The solution is not to read absolutely no news at all.

A question: What makes you think so? I've gone months and years at a time without reading any news; it's a fantastic feeling, and if something is really important you'll hear about it from a friend.

Just as "read less HN" may not be applicable to everyone, "you should probably keep reading the news" may not apply to others, or at least others may have had positive experiences quitting the consumption of news media.

Scary, I know ;-)

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