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I've noticed most HN comments transformed from being discussions about the _content_ of the article to comments discussing the _topic_ of the article being post

I've noticed most HN comments transformed from being discussions about the _content_ of the article to comments discussing the _topic_ of the article being posted, not sure if this is healthy, but the risk is HN becoming an echo chamber where people discuss opinions, and the posts becoming just topic triggers. We'll see how it evolves.

jondubois 9y ago
That's true but the HN algorithm for deciding what articles make it to the front page has itself become very political. For example, the amount of articles about programming languages like Rust or Elixir is disproportionate compared to their actual relevance in the industry. HN has a very strong bias for functional programming. You almost never hear about Go or Node.js anymore except when there is a major release but these languages are extremely widespread and proven and there is a lot of very interesting stuff happening in these communities that HN seems to ignore.
- pavlov 9y ago
  When Go and Node were new, they benefited from the same disproportionate level of interest here as Rust or Elixir currently do. It's just the nature of the industry (and people in general). New and different is always more interesting than old but incrementally improved.
- OtterCoder 9y ago
  I would agree with Pavlov. I would also say that Rust is a much more disruptive and interesting language from a technical perspective. Node is simply another iteration on quick prototyping languages, like Ruby before it. There's not a lot of new stuff to say about its design. Projects built in node show up in the feed all the time though.
- naasking 9y ago
  > For example, the amount of articles about programming languages like Rust or Elixir is disproportionate compared to their actual relevance in the industry. But not to their possible relevance.
CJefferson 9y ago
Unfortunately, the way HN sorts comments seems to encourage this -- the top comments always seem to be some of the earliest comments, and are usually posted before there is time to read the article (unless the author has read the article previously of course)
SwellJoe 9y ago
Actually reading the whole article takes time, while reading the title and posting a knee-jerk reaction takes only a moment. One of the curses of a hotness-oriented system like HN is that earlier comments receive the bulk of the upvotes and responses, so it becomes less interesting to comment as time goes on. There are lots of little rules in place to minimize the damage of this (like no memes, jokes, pics, etc.; HN actively discourages clickbait), but it can't force people to actually read the articles before responding. And, one doesn't have to read the articles to vote, either (again, HN mitigates that problem somewhat by requiring a minimum level of upvotes before being able to vote, etc.). It's hard to have a substantive conversation online when so many of the incentives are for responding quickly (and probably without going too far against popular opinion within whatever community you're in).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- krapp 9y ago
  > but it can't force people to actually read the articles before responding They could hash the title for a minimum time, or until at least three comments are posted. That would at least force people to click the link to find out what's there, and filter out commenters too lazy to do even that.
  - throwaway413 9y ago
    Or just force the user to click the link before the comment box is enabled for that posting.
    - mgkimsal 9y ago
      then waiting X minutes before enabling the comment box too, to avoid just clicking and posting?
  - SwellJoe 9y ago
    Hashing the title when first posted would likely lead to more quality problems. The first stage of QC is New. Nothing makes it to the front page without a little time on New. So, I think that hashing titles would make it so that the worst (by some definition, but one that probably matches HN's definition) clickbaity stuff would rise to the front page faster and more often. This would happen because people could no longer make any decisions about what to click on New by it's title, and so the short articles that confirm common tropes, the funny pictures, etc. would get people coming back faster to click the upvote, while the longer articles would be more slow to get upvotes. Same problem we have already, only moreso. At least now, we have a stage where we can see the title in New and the interesting things might get upvotes sooner...you have a little more knowledge going in. i.e., I might not read the whole article about something I find really interesting, but I might click over to it, see that it's by someone I trust or seems to be well done and free of fluff, and upvote it before finishing reading. I dunno. I could see blocking commenting for a time after a post. But, hashing titles seems to just take away valuable information people use to make upvote decisions during the vital New phase of a post. Also, there's no way I'm clicking on every link on New. New is a goddamned wasteland; 50+% garbage, sometimes.
brudgers 9y ago
Is a discussion of the discussion healthier?
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  meta is feta
logicallee 9y ago
But I came here to read commentators' statements on the subject. I only clicked the paper due to your comment. The paper makes the claim, early, "[OOP's] central premise appears to be that it matches the way we think about the world." This is the same as the title, and enough for us to discuss. I want to hear what people here have to say about the subject. That's a lot more interesting than what this 1997 paper has to say on the subject. (Of course, people can comment about that as well.)
- brudgers 9y ago
  If writing is thinking (and googling "writing is thinking" quote produces plenty of hits), then object oriented code reflects the way we think because we write it...I mean thinking in terms of object orientation is pretty a given in order to right object orientated code. That's a different proposition than object oriented programming reflects the primary way humans think or the only way humans think. Without diving deep into the uncanny valleys of existential philosophy surrounding trying to be both observer and observed, there is a big leap from I am thinking in objects right now to Everyone always thinks in objects [or something approaching it].
  - logicallee 9y ago
    By that standard it is impossible for any type system not to match the way we think: for example a programming language could be abstracted in terms of food, recipes, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and express literally everything that way. Although by your standard our code would then match the way we think, clearly this is not a useful takeaway.
    - dom0 9y ago
      You're not refuting the point he was making, because no one is writing code in such a language. > If writing is thinking, then object oriented code reflects the way we think because we write it The point is the huge majority of systems (by any metric; number of engineers, lines of code, budget, ...) are written in an OO style (regardless of whether the language actually supports OO; practically all bigger C projects use OO); and the majority of people are just fine with that and get started fairly easily with it. Hence it is reasonable to assume OO being a good fit to our own thinking processes. By comparison, very few people find learning FP easy, and most seasoned FP developers openly say that getting started and acquiring the mindset for FP is a difficult and long-winded process. Similarly, most people find reasoning about point-free programs (concatenative languages such as Forth) quite difficult.

jondubois 9y ago

That's true but the HN algorithm for deciding what articles make it to the front page has itself become very political. For example, the amount of articles about programming languages like Rust or Elixir is disproportionate compared to their actual relevance in the industry. HN has a very strong bias for functional programming. You almost never hear about Go or Node.js anymore except when there is a major release but these languages are extremely widespread and proven and there is a lot of very interesting stuff happening in these communities that HN seems to ignore.

pavlov 9y ago
When Go and Node were new, they benefited from the same disproportionate level of interest here as Rust or Elixir currently do. It's just the nature of the industry (and people in general). New and different is always more interesting than old but incrementally improved.
OtterCoder 9y ago
I would agree with Pavlov. I would also say that Rust is a much more disruptive and interesting language from a technical perspective. Node is simply another iteration on quick prototyping languages, like Ruby before it. There's not a lot of new stuff to say about its design. Projects built in node show up in the feed all the time though.
naasking 9y ago
> For example, the amount of articles about programming languages like Rust or Elixir is disproportionate compared to their actual relevance in the industry. But not to their possible relevance.

CJefferson 9y ago

Unfortunately, the way HN sorts comments seems to encourage this -- the top comments always seem to be some of the earliest comments, and are usually posted before there is time to read the article (unless the author has read the article previously of course)

SwellJoe 9y ago

Actually reading the whole article takes time, while reading the title and posting a knee-jerk reaction takes only a moment. One of the curses of a hotness-oriented system like HN is that earlier comments receive the bulk of the upvotes and responses, so it becomes less interesting to comment as time goes on. There are lots of little rules in place to minimize the damage of this (like no memes, jokes, pics, etc.; HN actively discourages clickbait), but it can't force people to actually read the articles before responding. And, one doesn't have to read the articles to vote, either (again, HN mitigates that problem somewhat by requiring a minimum level of upvotes before being able to vote, etc.). It's hard to have a substantive conversation online when so many of the incentives are for responding quickly (and probably without going too far against popular opinion within whatever community you're in).

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
krapp 9y ago
> but it can't force people to actually read the articles before responding They could hash the title for a minimum time, or until at least three comments are posted. That would at least force people to click the link to find out what's there, and filter out commenters too lazy to do even that.
- throwaway413 9y ago
  Or just force the user to click the link before the comment box is enabled for that posting.
  - mgkimsal 9y ago
    then waiting X minutes before enabling the comment box too, to avoid just clicking and posting?
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  Hashing the title when first posted would likely lead to more quality problems. The first stage of QC is New. Nothing makes it to the front page without a little time on New. So, I think that hashing titles would make it so that the worst (by some definition, but one that probably matches HN's definition) clickbaity stuff would rise to the front page faster and more often. This would happen because people could no longer make any decisions about what to click on New by it's title, and so the short articles that confirm common tropes, the funny pictures, etc. would get people coming back faster to click the upvote, while the longer articles would be more slow to get upvotes. Same problem we have already, only moreso. At least now, we have a stage where we can see the title in New and the interesting things might get upvotes sooner...you have a little more knowledge going in. i.e., I might not read the whole article about something I find really interesting, but I might click over to it, see that it's by someone I trust or seems to be well done and free of fluff, and upvote it before finishing reading. I dunno. I could see blocking commenting for a time after a post. But, hashing titles seems to just take away valuable information people use to make upvote decisions during the vital New phase of a post. Also, there's no way I'm clicking on every link on New. New is a goddamned wasteland; 50+% garbage, sometimes.

brudgers 9y ago

Is a discussion of the discussion healthier?

Pica_soO 9y ago
meta is feta

logicallee 9y ago

But I came here to read commentators' statements on the subject. I only clicked the paper due to your comment. The paper makes the claim, early, "[OOP's] central premise appears to be that it matches the way we think about the world." This is the same as the title, and enough for us to discuss. I want to hear what people here have to say about the subject. That's a lot more interesting than what this 1997 paper has to say on the subject. (Of course, people can comment about that as well.)

brudgers 9y ago
If writing is thinking (and googling "writing is thinking" quote produces plenty of hits), then object oriented code reflects the way we think because we write it...I mean thinking in terms of object orientation is pretty a given in order to right object orientated code. That's a different proposition than object oriented programming reflects the primary way humans think or the only way humans think. Without diving deep into the uncanny valleys of existential philosophy surrounding trying to be both observer and observed, there is a big leap from I am thinking in objects right now to Everyone always thinks in objects [or something approaching it].
- logicallee 9y ago
  By that standard it is impossible for any type system not to match the way we think: for example a programming language could be abstracted in terms of food, recipes, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and express literally everything that way. Although by your standard our code would then match the way we think, clearly this is not a useful takeaway.
  - dom0 9y ago
    You're not refuting the point he was making, because no one is writing code in such a language. > If writing is thinking, then object oriented code reflects the way we think because we write it The point is the huge majority of systems (by any metric; number of engineers, lines of code, budget, ...) are written in an OO style (regardless of whether the language actually supports OO; practically all bigger C projects use OO); and the majority of people are just fine with that and get started fairly easily with it. Hence it is reasonable to assume OO being a good fit to our own thinking processes. By comparison, very few people find learning FP easy, and most seasoned FP developers openly say that getting started and acquiring the mindset for FP is a difficult and long-winded process. Similarly, most people find reasoning about point-free programs (concatenative languages such as Forth) quite difficult.