
1000 Days on Hacker News – My Experience So Far - ekianjo
http://pandoralive.info/?p=2227
======
bbx
I'm not a hacker, and actually don't even remember how I ended up here some
day back in August 2009. I was one of those for whom the term "hacker" had a
negative connotation.

I'm a designer and I didn't understand 90% of the topics discussed here. But
the reason why I stuck around and why HN eventually became my most visited
site, is the community's quality. Comment threads usually spawn multi-leveled
discussions with various but not radical opinions about a topic. The top
comment can slightly favor point A while its top answer moderates the tone
with or without contradicting it. The result is a a discussion with various
shades while most comment threads on other websites are generally black or
white and favor one-liner jokes to in-depth opinions.

I believe Digg was still around in 2009 but was mostly focused on offbeat
news. Slashdot never appealed to me. And even though reddit covers a lot of
topics, the community isn't really open to discussion and/or criticism.

Although HN is mostly a tech news site, it oddly taught me more about arts,
politics, business and lifestyle than any other website. I guess quality can't
restrict itself to one single topic.

~~~
aerique
Slashdot wasn't that different in its early days, a little less startup and a
little more Linux.

------
elorant
I have a love-hate relationship with HN. On one hand, I love the insight I get
in technical issues as also in business matters in general. I also like the
fact that there is a certain level of respect in different views which you
don’t often see in public forums especially technical ones. I rarely happen to
see inflammatory comments. And I love the simplicity of the design. Sure it
leaves a lot to be desired but in a functional level it’s just brilliant. You
get the content which is the important thing without any fluff.

From the other hand, my most productive days/weeks is when I stop reading it
altogether. It’s like a black hole that sucks you into an alternative reality
and you lose focus of your priorities. There are times when I check it three
or four times daily and this hammers my productivity a lot.

Either way, I consider it _the_ most important community in the IT world right
now and one of the best all around.

~~~
gnerd
If you stay logged in when you read HN, you should use the noprocrast feature
in your settings.

~~~
thenmar
I use a browser extension to put an overall daily cap on the amount of time I
spend on certain websites (including hn).

------
tikhonj
For me, HN has had one very big, very concrete effect: it's forced me to write
more. Not write well, necessarily. Not edit, unfortunately. But write. Before
I started commenting here, I only ever wrote coherently for school and never
liked it. Now, after quite a bit of practice, I'm much more comfortable
getting my ideas across.

This reminds me of "How to Write without Writing"[1] by Jeff Atwood. He
explains how StackOverflow tricks programmers into writing more and therefore
improving. While I love StackOverflow, I think Hacker News does this much
better: StackOverflow posts tend to be too short and too technical, while HN
posts are all over the place. HN also gives much more direct feedback: in my
experience, voting is correlated with how well a comment is written and
people's responses to a comment show where it was effective and where it could
have been clearer.

[1]: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/02/how-to-write-
withou...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/02/how-to-write-without-
writing.html)

Hacker News made writing a game, and playing that game really helped me write.

------
pron
I, too, have become addicted to HN.

Here are some things I like which some may not: I really like the "general
geek interest" articles that usually make their way to the front page on
weekends. I like political threads (that mostly concern directly or indirectly
big government vs. free market). I like those threads not because they're
constructive in any way, but because they provide an insight into the psyche
of Silicon Valley. As an amateur historian I think some of those articles and
discussions are bona fide historical texts (like that video from Startup
School of the guy who suggested Silicon Valley should secede from the US). I
also post on these threads occasionally – not because I think I might convince
anyone, but because I think many of the readers here are very young, or
unfamiliar with non-American culture, and it would do them good to hear other
opinions. I also like heated arguments over programming languages. I know they
inevitably turn religious, but I don't mind; they're fun if you're in the
right mood, and I figure that anyone not in the mood for religious language
wars won't read the thread anyway.

This is something I don't like, which some probably do: I wish HN were less
biased towards web technologies and tools that are mostly applicable to fast-
moving startups. Of course, this is the nature of the community and is to be
expected. But I do wish there was more on embedded, enterprise, real time and
game development. The problem with this bias is that I am sometimes swayed and
mistakingly think that HN represents the "software development community",
which, of course, it doesn't in the least. I need to remind myself that web
companies are a small minority of software developers, and that IBM, Oracle
and SAP employ more people than Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and
Netflix combined, ten times over. And that's not even counting large
organization IT departments and defense. So whenever I get a sense of "so
that's what's everyone is doing" on HN, I need to remind myself that the
community is far from representative (although it does tend to be composed of
early adopters).

~~~
VLM
"I wish HN were less biased towards ... fast-moving startups ... I do wish
there was more on embedded, enterprise, real time and game development."

I agree with you in general but specifically its not an either or
relationship. I wish there were more coverage of fast moving start-uppy
entrepreneur topics in the embedded and game fields.

So there's a small company called micro-nova in Detroit (Detroit?) that ships
a nifty little xylinx dev board in a DIP-40 form factor and I love the idea. I
have no connection with these guys personal or economic just bringing up as an
example of fast moving entrepreneur small business startup-py type embedded
story not covered on HN.

Pretty much everything adafruit, evil mad scientist, and dangerous prototypes
does should get a story on HN by the above criteria.

Spiderweb software recently (like last week) released their most recent game
Avadon 2 an awesome deep little RPG. Admittedly it is not a "new tech" story
because their focus is on story and gameplay, which is excellent. As far as
entrepreneurship goes, spiderweb is basically one dude. Again no personal or
economic connection to me, just an example of something that should be on HN
but isn't.

X-Plane, another one man entrepreneur did get some minimal coverage on HN when
he got sued by some patent trolls for basically porting his simulator to
Android. So HN is not entirely devoid of all entrepreneurial gaming news, just
mostly.

Maybe the TLDR of both our posts is we should be submitting more of what we
see? Would anyone else upvote an interesting hardware startup / entrepreneur
type story as opposed to the prevailing common software ones?

~~~
pron
> Maybe the TLDR of both our posts is we should be submitting more of what we
> see? Would anyone else upvote an interesting hardware startup / entrepreneur
> type story as opposed to the prevailing common software ones?

I don't know if this is an actionable problem, as it depends on the interests
of the community, which are, in turn, governed by who they are and what they
do. If other types of developers join HN in large numbers, the situation might
change, and it will benefit even web-based SV startups, too.

But there's another problem. A few years ago I was working for the defense
industry, and hadn't even heard of HN. We were doing distributed, fault
tolerant systems with graceful degradation – things that have since become
very interesting for "web" (in the wide sense) developers. Obviously, much of
the work done there is classified, but even the parts that aren't don't get
discussed much because that community hardly blogs at all.

So it's not just a function of what gets submitted or upvoted, but of what
"content" (how I loathe that word) is out there, and developers in other
industries just don't write of their experience as much (which is a shame
because we could all benefit from that). Once in a while we're very lucky to
have some technology leak from the often maligned (here on HN) "enterprise".
Look how much we've learned from Erlang, that for years was the sole domain of
telecom. Or Clojure, which is a result of Rich Hickey's experience in projects
that are very far removed from web startups.

------
jliechti1
EDIT: Site seems down, cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pandora...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pandoralive.info/?p=2227)

\---

When I first came across HN (around the time I started programming), I was a
bit overwhelmed and intimidated upon seeing the projects/people/success
stories in the community. I spent a lot of time just reading before I started
posting. I've heard other people express similar thoughts.

Eventually, I just decided to start posting - there is no need to "wait" until
you have a certain skill/expertise in an area. You can still make valid
contributions to the discussion (of course, please read the posting
guidelines).

So any lurkers out there, I encourage you to stop lurking and join the
community. I did - and have consequently met many interesting people through
HN and learned a lot of new things.

\---

On another note, the only group of people that seem to get tech/"internet"
related (being purposely vague here) news faster than HN is people who use
Reddit. I've had many conversations with friends who use Reddit where I will
say "Hey, did you hear about X?" and they respond "Yeah, I already saw it Y
hours ago on Reddit." Usually the difference isn't very large.

~~~
orkj
I just added this (my first comment on HN, previously just lurking) because of
you. It's on now...

------
trout
Interesting, I'm at 1084 days so I missed a chance at a round-number-blog-
post.

I would echo many of the same things. I graduated with a computer science
degree (and computer systems engineering) but up until about a year ago I had
not written a single program. I've started kicking around with Python again,
have signed up for Coursera courses that involve Github, AWS, and programming.
As well, it's helping me professionally because I'm gradually moving away from
VoIP technologies into datacenter networking where Dev Ops, AWS, IaaS, and the
latest programming trends are important. I got an Arduino and started hacking
around with it as well.

Even though I'm not at a startup, I try to treat my job with the same type of
entrepreneurial spirit as those touted in the Silicon Valley Startup Echo
Chamber posts. I try to keep in mind many of the core entrepreneurial concepts
- fail fast, iterate, A/B test, get feedback, focus on value, user experience
is paramount, etc in mind with my comparatively tame 'cushy' corporate job.

So as much as anything else, thanks HN.

~~~
yoda_sl
Just checked for and I joined 8 days prior to you. 1092 so far.

I remember stumbling upon HN a few months prior and initially was wondering
the 'hacker' part but for whatever reason my google search for a few weeks was
always redirecting me to some HN threads one way or another.

So finally decided to stick around :-)

------
Udo
Wow, site is hosed already. It's probably a good idea to do some basic load
testing on your site before submitting a link ;)

Anyway, this is day 1130 for me. Before here I was on Slashdot, but had
largely stopped using it before that. All its weaknesses and rough edges
aside, to me HN is simply the most worthwhile forum I've ever been on.

I get most of my tech news from here, it has largely replaced RSS to be
honest, it's a great place to see what smart people are up to right now, and
finally it often provides content in the discussions that surpasses the
content of the original article. I also enjoy discussions with smart people
who don't necessarily agree with me (as long as it's civil).

One of its most valuable properties is the fact that it doesn't really matter
(that much) _who_ you are. HN gives virtual nobodies like me the chance to
interact with extremely talented people and I'm really grateful for that.

~~~
ekianjo
> It's probably a good idea to do some basic load testing on your site before
> submitting a link ;)

Yeah, I just never expected it would get so much attention. I guess I'll have
to be more careful next.

------
confluence
I bounced off of HN a bunch of times before settling in. But once I understood
what I had found, my life has thoroughly improved. This is because, despite
HN's flaws, and some aspects of this community, the comments that I read here
give me the one thing I've always been looking for in a general news site, and
that's clarity.

Reading comments on HN is like having wallhacks turned on. Spend enough time
with this community and you start to see the world in a whole new light.

Reddit is just one-liner/image/jokes one-upmanship. Speciality forums are too
focused to serve as a daily news site. Main stream tech news is always late to
the party, and often has insights that are either pointless or incorrect.
LessWrong is just irritating and full of long winded blow hards.

HN is the right mix of diversity, intelligence and news volume.

I love this site.

------
onion2k
HN reminds me of the early days of Slashdot - news before it breaks elsewhere,
a good-natured and interesting community, me karma-whoring when I should be
working... :)

~~~
jacques_chester
Maybe it's teenage nostalgia talking, but I think Slashdot was a bigger deal.

~~~
Alex3917
It probably was a bigger deal, but it was also a very different time. The
Internet has now been swallowed by mainstream ideology and corporate culture,
so it's not really possible to compare the two.

------
M4v3R
OP: You should celebrate on your 1024th day, it's a more round number :).

------
talles
"Wow we received a tremendous amount of connections to our blog and our sql
database needs more energy. We'll be back in an hour. Thanks for being patient
!"

What a lovely message

------
NAFV_P
As of 06/11/13 I am on day 101.

I write C (rot13 my username), Python and a bit of Javascript, and I am
currently doing an accountancy course. The hacking is not in a professional
context.

Not that much on C (but I'm not really surprised, I get the impression it is
becoming occult knowledge/black_art);

a fair bit on py;

a sh\a _t load on js
([http://www.reddit.com/r/atwoodslaw/](http://www.reddit.com/r/atwoodslaw/) ;
I know, it's R\a_ddit but I actually found it on Twitter);

I have yet to see an article on accounting. I am getting the impression that
double_entry, like C, is a black_art.

HN is a great site, but it is very addictive (I think most of you would
agree)...

I was thinking of starting a site called HNers_Anonymous. Perhaps PG could
provide some backing for it.

~~~
NAFV_P
Oops, I messed up the formatting big time.

------
jackgolding
As someone who joined 2 days ago it seemed you have got what I hope to get out
of HN, thank you for your insights. I can't help to feel there are times where
you would have said the complete opposite about this?

~~~
ekianjo
Actually, not so much. I was really hooked right from the start and while I
had a couple of frustrations now and then, I never really left HN and kept a
strong interest in it. Do hang on, even if you don't understand most of topics
at first.

~~~
jackgolding
I'm having a pretty good time here so far. Hope you keep having a good time!

------
willvarfar
Its a nice positive self-improvement post, but I'd be interested in what the
OP thinks has _changed_ over that time re tone, content, titling, policies etc
and everything meta.

~~~
ekianjo
Well, there is definitely some trend to see more general, non-hacking related
topics featured on the front page of HN in the past year or so. I think
everyone is well aware of that, and that is expected when a social community
grows in size, while the karma restrictions and flagging somehow help to keep
a certain order, I believe.

The creativity around the posts titles is also mostly gone in recent history,
because of the application of new policies. I'm not sure whether that's a good
thing or not.

In terms of the tone, I'm not sure how it has changed. It may be just me, but
it seems to me there is more swearing and ad hominem than before in some
discussions... while I think it used to be more civil before. But it may just
be an impression, again.

------
khadim
Agree with all your points. For new projects hn also helped in getting early
adopters & of-course show hn (feedback).

~~~
ekianjo
Yeha, Show HN is a great way to get feedback and I do pay close attention to
these kind of posts as well. It kind of validates the potential user interest,
too.

------
ekianjo
Article is back online :) Sorry for the issue earlier.

------
lewaldman
Simply put, To read HN front page is a huge part of my "get-into-the-zone"
ritual before start to code! :)

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strikespeed
Well this is day 1 for me and I am loving HN already.

------
prakster
This is day 2,426 for me, but who's bragging.

------
ekianjo
Looks like the server went down. :(

