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Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

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Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#301

Post by embedding-shape »

codingdave wrote: post #229
dang wrote: post #177

Yes, we need to do something about this and tomhow and I are talking about it - it's not clear yet what. Raising the quality bar would likely cut down on quantity as a side effect, and that would be a nice solution. One idea that a user proposed is a review queue where experienced HN users would help new Show HN submitters craft their posts to be more interesting and fit HN's conventions more.

What I see is new users who are trying to share something without having yet understood HN. I get the impression that they think of "Show HN" as no different than "Show and Tell", and that putting the label on their post is communicating the message of "Here is something I want people to see", instead of "Here is something you can try out". So while I understand that new features on HN are few and far between, a quic…

> What I see is new users who are trying to share something without having yet understood HN.

From their perspective, HN is another place to post and get views on their project, part of a check list for their "launch" or whatever, not everything comes from within the ecosystem.

Some posts their projects then never reply to any of the comments, while for me (and many others I bet) half the reason of posting a Show HN is because I'm looking for participating in discussions about my thing and understanding different perspectives thinking about it too.

> I want to believe that most new users mean well, they just need better explanations.

Yeah, so far the only thing I know of is the "Please read the Show HN rules and tips before posting" blurb on the /show list, and the separate pages. Maybe some interstitial or similar if the title prefix-matches with "Show HN" could display the rules, guidelines and "netiquette" more prominently and get more people to be aware of it.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#302

Post by seanmcdirmid »

reconnecting wrote: post #55
sixtyj wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have talked with some friends who are long-time programmers (20+ experience). Even they (all) admit that they use Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Google Antigravity or AI Studio - you name it. So in future everything’s gonna be “agentic”, (un)fortunately. Everytime I write about it, I feel like a doomsayer. Anthropic admits that LLM use makes brain lazy. So as we forgot remembering phone numbers after Google and mobile…

OK, let's say there are two categories of software now. One is where the human has a complete mental map of the product, and even if they use some code generating tools, they fully take responsibility for the related matters. And there is another, emerging category, where developers don't have a full mental map as it was created by an LLM, and no one actually understands how it works and what does not. I believe thes…

> And there is another, emerging category, where developers don't have a full mental map as it was created by an LLM, and no one actually understands how it works and what does not.

Are the tokens to write out design documentation and lots of comments too expensive or something? I’m trying to figure out how an LLM will even understand what they wrote when they come back to it, let alone a human.

You have to reify mental maps if you have LLM do significant amounts of coding, there really isn’t any other option here.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#305

Post by PaulHoule »

gitgud wrote: post #289
zero_shift wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the great benefits of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge. One of the great drawbacks of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge. It used to be that ShowHN was a filter: in order to show stuff, you had to have done work. And if you did the work, you probably thought about the problem, at the very least the pro…

> so projects are built whether or not they're good ideas Let’s be honest, this was always the case. The difference now is that nobody cares about the implementation, as all side projects are assumed to be vibecoded. So when execution is becoming easier, it’s the ideas that matter more…

The appearance of execution is much easier, quality execution (producing something anybody wants to use) might be easier, maybe not.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#306

Post by fastasucan »

onetimeusename wrote: post #147
marginalia_nu wrote: post #10

I don't actually mind AI-aided development, a tool is a tool and should be used if you find it useful, but I think the vibe coded show HN projects are overall pretty boring. They generally don't have a lot of work put into them, and as a result, the author (pilot?) hasn't generally thought too much about the problem space, and so there isn't really much of a discussion to be had. The cool part about pre-AI show HN is…

I think that's a fear I have about AI for programming (and I use them). So let's say we have a generation of people who use AI tools to code and no one really thinks hard about solving problems in niche spaces. Though we can build commercial products quickly and easily, no one really writes code for difficult problem spaces so no one builds up expertise in important subdomains for a generation. Then what will AI be t…

>So let's say we have a generation of people who use AI tools to code and no one really thinks hard about solving problems in niche spaces.

I don't think we need to wait a generation either. This probably was a part of their personality already, but a group of people developers on my job seems to have just given up on thinking hard/thinking through difficult problems, its insane to witness.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#307

Post by godelski »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #176
nativeit wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to see any of these that wouldn’t have been far better off self-hosting an existing open source app. This habit of having an LLM either clone (or even worse, cobble together a vague facsimile) of existing software and claiming it as your own is just sort of sad.

I actually came to this realization recently. I'm part of a modding community for a game, and we are seeing an influx of vibe coded mods. The one distinguishing feature of these is that they are entirely parasitic. They only take, they do not contribute. In the past, new modders would often contribute to existing mods to get their feet wet and quite often they'd turn into maintainers when the original authors burnt o…

Even before vibe coding blew up I think this problem existed, but was slowly increasing. Vibe coding accelerated the problem.

I think "good for you, you built a mod, but now I'm searching through 1000 entries that are all the same things and mostly shit".

I think it's like many popular forums or Reddit communities. The shitty comments float to the top and all the replies are some meme or "me too". It doesn't help anyone else and it feels masturbatory.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#308

Post by [deleted] »

fainpul wrote: post #129
zero_shift wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the great benefits of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge. One of the great drawbacks of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge. It used to be that ShowHN was a filter: in order to show stuff, you had to have done work. And if you did the work, you probably thought about the problem, at the very least the pro…

People who got "enabled" by AI to produce stuff, just need to learn to keep their "target audience of one"-projects to themselves. Right now it feels like those fresh parents who show every person they meet the latest photos / videos of their baby, thinking everybody will find them super cute and interesting.

[deleted]

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#310

Post by plagiarist »

pesus wrote: post #285
yoyohello13 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes 'gatekeeping' is a good thing.

It often is. The concept of "gatekeeping" becoming well known and something people blindly rail against was a huge mistake. Not everything is for everyone, and "gatekeeping" is usually just maintaining standards.

Ideally the standard would just be someone's genuine interest in a project or a hobby. In the past, taking the effort to write code often was sufficient proof of that.

AI agent coding has introduced to writing software a sort of interaction like what brands have been doing to social media.

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