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Read less HN

johnmurray.io

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Re: Read less HN

#131

Post by tedks »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #94
tedks wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everything you've said in your comment is correct, but when did the alternatives become "be a mindless drone" and "be a mindless drone who reads hacker news?"

My point is to criticize the implied argument that keeping your nose down working on the problems in front of you is inherently more productive than spending some time on HN to trying to gain some wider perspective. That's probably a strawman attack, but the first line of my comment wasn't meant to be taken so literally, which I tried to signal with the emoticon.

I generally agree that gaining a wider perspective is valuable, but it's not clear that HN is the best way to do that, and the OP outlines a number of reasons which make sense to me why it would be a bad way to do that.

At the least, HN exists in a thickly-walled bubble. There's not a very wide perspective here.

Re: Read less HN

#132

Post by acjohnson55 »

GalacticDomin8r wrote: post #97
acjohnson55 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abo…

> Less time being a mindless drone, never leaving your lane? ;) So the way avoid being a mindless drone is to read articles and comments telling you how to act and think?

Sure! You don't have to agree with everything you read. I obviously don't!

Re: Read less HN

#133

Post by acjohnson55 »

joshjmb wrote: post #115
acjohnson55 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abo…

I definitely see the benefits here. But whenever I see a point like this I wonder: if you had replaced hacker news with a different activity, could you have formed a similar list of things you learned? Perhaps a longer list, or one of higher quality? Not trying to criticize you, just something I think about in these cases.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not arguing that HN is somehow optimal. I'm just saying that as a continual time investment, it's provided greater returns than the alternatives I've used in the past, with regards to staying on top of the scene in tech, startups, and tech-related policy.

Re: Read less HN

#134

Post by toomuchtodo »

michaelochurch wrote: post #86
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.

HN isn't to blame for this, but the current Bay Area, VC-istan culture really is toxic. I don't know how people can stay motivated with their 0.03% equity slices when some completely unqualified idiot gets his IUsedThisToilet app acquired for $4 billion just because he went to the right schools going back to preschool. It's sick. It's best to tune that shit out, but it's hard when people are young and impressionable,…

> The fundamental problem is that engineers are treated as a commodity in the Valley, and investor money is prized. It should be the other way; funding should be the commodity, and high-end engineering talent should be the seat of prestige.

I wish I could upvote this more.

Re: Read less HN

#135

Post by imns »

I'd also add http://web-design-weekly.com and (my newsletter) http://jobety.com to the list.

Web design weekly definitely provides quality web design related content. I've also talked to the curator and he's a very nice guy which doesn't change the quality of the content, but does let you know your supporting a decent person.

My newsletter Jobety provides web design and dev related jobs once a week. I sort through a lot of different job boards and pick out what I consider to be the best ones.

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