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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

#81

Post by holistio »

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…

We never really have a complete mental map.

"Oh, this library just released a new major version? What a pity, I used to know v n deeply, but v n+1 has this nifty feature that I like"

It happened all the time even as a solo dev. In teams, it's the rule, not the exception.

Vibing is just a different obfuscation here.

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

#82

Post by hypercube33 »

mchaver wrote: post #38
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 see a lot of projects repeated: screen capture tool, LLM wrapper, blog/newsletter, marketing tool for reddit/twitter, manage social media accounts. These things have been around for a while so it is really easy for an LLM to spit them out for someone that does not know how to code.

Agreed. I'm over here working on Quake 2 mods and reverse engineering Off world trading company so I can finish an open source server for it using AI.

Thing is I worked manually on both of these a lot before I even touched Claude on them so I basically was able to hit my wishlist items that I don't have time to deal with these days but have the logic figured out already.

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

#83

Post by sarreph »

greatgib wrote: post #13

An additional factor missing in the post I think Is AI. Before, projects were more often carefully human crafted. But nowadays we expect such projects to be "vibe coded" in a day. And so, we don't have the motivation to invest mental energy in something that we expect to be crap underneath and probably a nice show off without future. Even if the result is not the best in the world, I think that what interest us is to…

It's reasonably clear from the second sentence in the post that the uptick in submissions can be largely attributed to AI-assisted projects.

> The post quickly disappeared from Show HN's first page, amongst the rest of the vibecoded pulp.

The linked article[0] also talks at length about the impact of AI and vibe-coding on indie craftsmanship's longevity.

[0] - https://johan.hal.se/wrote/2026/02/03/the-sideprocalypse/

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

#84

Post by numpad0 »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #20
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…

One thing about vibe coding is that unless you are an expert in what you have vibe coded, you have no idea if it actually works properly, and it probably doesn't.

Worse yet, if you're not an expert(with autodidacts potentially qualifying), your ideas won't be original anyway.

You'll be inventing a lot of novel cicular apparatus with a pivot and circumferencrial rubber absorbers for transportation and it'll take people serious efforts to convince you it's just a wheel.

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

#86

Post by reconnecting »

holistio wrote: post #81
reconnecting wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We never really have a complete mental map. "Oh, this library just released a new major version? What a pity, I used to know v n deeply, but v n+1 has this nifty feature that I like" It happened all the time even as a solo dev. In teams, it's the rule, not the exception. Vibing is just a different obfuscation here.

There's a difference between not knowing the internals of a dependency you chose deliberately and not understanding the logic of your own product.

When you upgrade a library, you made that decision — you know why, you know what it does for you, and you can evaluate the trade-offs before proceeding (unless you're a react developer).

That's not a fog of war, that's delegation.

When an LLM generates your core logic and you can't explain why it works, that's a fundamentally different situation. You're not delegating — you're outsourcing the understanding, and that makes the result not yours.

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

#87

Post by dummydummy1234 »

dgellow wrote: post #39
conartist6 wrote: post #31

The small indie developer ain't dead yet, and from where I sit you could drive a star destroyer through the gaps in what software has been built so far. It's only that you can't claim any of the top shelf prizes by vibe coding

Vibe coding as a term is really annoying. At what point does a project stops being considered vibe coded? If I spent a year iterating on a design and implementation using Claude code, in a domain I’m an expert in, will that still be considered vibe coded?

I view it as do you have a full mental model of the code base.

If you do then not vibe coded.

For me, I have different levels of vibes:

Some testing/prototyping bash scripts 100% vibe coded. I have never actually read the code.

Sometimes early iterations, I am familiar with general architecture, but do not know exact file contents.

Sometimes I have gone through and practically rewrote a component from scratch either because it was too convoluted, did not have the perfect abstraction I wantet/etc.

For me the third category is not vibe coded. The first 2 are tech debt in the making.

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

#88

Post by hluska »

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…

That sounds exactly like using a new library. The absolutists miss so much and contribute so little.

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

#89

Post by Nextgrid »

nkrisc wrote: post #47
wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #4

I am a major advocate for AI assisted development. Having said that, it used to feel part of an exclusive club to have the skills and motivation to put a finished project on HN. For me, posting a Show HN was a huge deal - usually done after years of development - remember that - when development of something worthwhile took years and was written entirely by hand? I don't mind much though - I love that programming is…

> I don't mind much though - I love that programming is being democratized and no longer only for the arcane wizards of the back room. Programming has long been democratized. It’s been decades now where you could learn to program without spending a dollar on a university degree or even a bootcamp. Programming knowledge has been freely available for a long time to those who wanted to learn.

There's a difference between documentation and LLMs. An LLM can be your own personal tutor and answer questions related to your specific code in a way no documentation can. That is extremely helpful until you master the programming language enough.

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

#90

Post by elcapitan »

airstrike wrote: post #59
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…

we need a Vibe HN

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