Thanks for the Pycoders Weekly mention John!
Read less HN
81–90 of 136 posts
Re: Read less HN
#82I have a different problem with it, which is that it invariably makes me feel pretty incompetent, because no matter what subject comes up, people with 10 times my level of skill in fields that I consider myself relatively competent in start discussing things and I suddenly feel quite completely devoid of any skill at all. Even on a simple thing like posts about typing I find people lamenting how they are only able to…
Flip it on its head and HN comments are one of the best places for me to learn, find interesting things to read, and above all read about perspectives and experiences on a subject different from my own.
Re: Read less HN
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thing is, those default subreddits were actually good before Reddit got too mainstream. What we're seeing right now is the after effects of popularity.
Ah, the Catch 22 of popular discussion based websites. You want to be popular, but you want to remain high in quality. It's shockingly difficult to do both.
Yep, /r/science is about the only default that is ok. And if you've seen a climate change discussion there, you'll realize how painful it is to keep discussion on topic on reddit.
I remember going to reddit and thinking, damn these comments are loads better than slashdot. I don't think I can contribute anything interesting, these people are sharp so I won't post at all.
Might have just been me but there is a marked difference in tone on the site.
Re: Read less HN
#84Out of 250 Hacker News posts that cross my transom in a given week, I might open 30 links, decide to actually read 6 of those thirty tabs, and learn something from three of them.
This is still a better ratio than most websites. Sturgeon's Law applies. 90% of everything is crap, another 9% is of decent quality but not relevant to anything I need to do-- leaving 1% that is worth it for me to read. So I'd say that HN's numbers are on par, if not slightly above it.
See, I'd really like to dislike HN. Paul Graham used to be an iconoclast (with some serious technical chops-- go read On Lisp-- deserving of much respect) fighting the stodgy establishment of VC-istan. Having seen the failings of investors nearly destroy his business on several occasions, he tried to build something new and different: a fast path to funding and access so startups could focus on building instead of bullshit. But now that he is the establishment, he's not fighting hard enough. Then there is the issue of HN's abysmal quality of moderation, for which he must accept responsibility. So I really want to dislike HN and tell it to fuck off wholesale...
... but, the problem is that, in spite of these negatives, there's just a lot of really good stuff that ends up here. Reading less HN is good advice, but there's enough high-quality stuff here (in submissions and comments) to make it worthwhile.
Re: Read less HN
#85Earlier 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?
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 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?"
Re: Read less HN
#86I 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, and given that the contemporary Silicon Valley culture is all about extending adolescence into the mid-30s (and then discarding people)... well it's easy see why people succumb to that nonsense.
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.
Re: Read less HN
#87I read this on HN, so I'll keep reading.
Re: Read less HN
#88Very good article thank you :-) I'm surprised HN haven't removed it.
Re: Read less HN
#89I think we all read the 4chan post yesterday, this is just a reiteration of that
Re: Read less HN
#90I just check HN twice each day to find some news for my blog