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I've noticed the occasional posting in HN from people who aren't [aspiring] professional software developers, which surprises me. If you don't mind me asking,

I've noticed the occasional posting in HN from people who aren't [aspiring] professional software developers, which surprises me. If you don't mind me asking, what brings someone in your line of work to a site like this? [edit: I just realized that ^ sounds like a tragically bad pickup line.]

soared 8y ago
~30% of submissions are software-dev-only (new typescript 3.0 release), but most submissions are just high quality, interesting posts. And the level of discussion is excellent - no memes, no jokes. Its like the opposite of reddit.
- FooHentai 8y ago
  Yeah this. Signal:Noise ratio on HN is far better than any other source of tech news & discussion I know of. I skip the programming-related threads.
  - mclehman 8y ago
    I think Lobste.rs might sneak past HN on signal:noise, but it gives up a bit of variety in topics.
zitterbewegung 8y ago
HN is not a monoculture the appropriate stuff on the site can interested anyone and no one is required to be a software developer to get on this website.
- setr 8y ago
  Nobody is required to be anything on any public forum; that doesn’t change the fact that communities exist, and the vast majority of people on a forum are there due a particular taste, and share a common preference for discussion. That anyone of any interest can visit the webpage is not a sufficient explanation as to why anyone of any interest do visit it. The question is whats so special about HN that draws such a varied background, despite it clearly having its strongest preference towards software engineering (on any given day, if you counted by category, it would be surprising to find software engineering / programming not as the highest). A reddit forum has the same public property, but the software engineering channels presumably do not draw such varied backgrounds. So why?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - glup 8y ago
    Maybe granularity -- there's only one front page for HN? I usually find that I want to read 10% of articles on the front page, but I'm often surprised by which 10%.
  - zitterbewegung 8y ago
    Most likely to the type and extent of moderation that is present on HN and the evolving purpose of both websites .
nimbius 8y ago
our heavy diesel emissions performance machine runs Linux, and after a vendor training on how to use it I became totally fascinated with it. A lot of Linux professionals like HN a lot, and the articles are a good break from the norm on lunch break. Im learning python, too! :)
seem_2211 8y ago
The comments are informative, there's no politics, it's more interesting than the news. I'm a sales recruiter, so I don't read the in the weeds software articles, but there are still 2-3 good articles on the front page at any one time.
- _Tev 8y ago
  > there's no politics Ok I am definitely clicking on bad articles
okmokmz 8y ago
A lot of the content is still relevant for those in other IT roles, or even just hobbyists. I'm a security engineer rather than a dev but I still find many of the posts on the site useful and/or interesting
glup 8y ago
There's also a ton of academic lurkers -- I've always though that this due to the facts that 1) the border between academia and industry is pretty porous in technical fields (super obvious in ML research, but I think holds more generally) 2) academics borrow---and contribute to---the same set of methods and technologies 3) most individuals have an interest in complex systems (and their hilarious, tragic faults) such that they find articles like this one interesting. I think it's also useful to look at preceding communities like Slashdot — in that case it started out pretty tightly scoped for Linux enthusiasts, gaming, programming, and the then-nascent social internet but then the cohort of regular readers and contributors got older and they found themselves in policy, academia, and managerial business roles; as long as people remained involved in the community, the content of the site expanded to reflect the (extremely rapidly increasing) role of tech in these domains. (Obviously, Slashdot suffered from several ownership changes, a lame commenting system, and most everyone moved on to other venues).
- phs318u 8y ago
  and 4) the signal-to-noise ratio on HN is very good compared to other online discussion forums.
cli 8y ago
I've been reading this site since 2009 and can barely write anything more complex than Hello World. The guidelines on submissions say nothing about software engineering, and the definition of hackers as written by Paul Graham does not limit it to software engineers.
engi_nerd 8y ago
I've been lurking here for 10 years. For most of that time I was employed as an electrical engineer. Why should people who are interested in high quality technical discussion surprise you with their presence? "Hacker" used to mean a lot more than "software developer".
tejtm 8y ago
you had me at "bad pickup" :)
analog31 8y ago
I came across HN by accident, and what keeps me coming back is the interesting, informative links & threads, and the quality of discussion. Threads about workplace issues are of interest to me, as are general scientific and social topics. I'm a "scientific" programmer, meaning that I use programming as a problem solving tool, but I don't write commercial software for a living. I turned away from that path in the early 80s.
ggcdn 8y ago
Big factor for me is the higher-quality discussion compared to say, Reddit.
MiscIdeaMaker99 8y ago
Not everyone in the software world is a developer.

soared 8y ago

~30% of submissions are software-dev-only (new typescript 3.0 release), but most submissions are just high quality, interesting posts. And the level of discussion is excellent - no memes, no jokes. Its like the opposite of reddit.

FooHentai 8y ago
Yeah this. Signal:Noise ratio on HN is far better than any other source of tech news & discussion I know of. I skip the programming-related threads.
- mclehman 8y ago
  I think Lobste.rs might sneak past HN on signal:noise, but it gives up a bit of variety in topics.

zitterbewegung 8y ago

HN is not a monoculture the appropriate stuff on the site can interested anyone and no one is required to be a software developer to get on this website.

setr 8y ago
Nobody is required to be anything on any public forum; that doesn’t change the fact that communities exist, and the vast majority of people on a forum are there due a particular taste, and share a common preference for discussion. That anyone of any interest can visit the webpage is not a sufficient explanation as to why anyone of any interest do visit it. The question is whats so special about HN that draws such a varied background, despite it clearly having its strongest preference towards software engineering (on any given day, if you counted by category, it would be surprising to find software engineering / programming not as the highest). A reddit forum has the same public property, but the software engineering channels presumably do not draw such varied backgrounds. So why?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- glup 8y ago
  Maybe granularity -- there's only one front page for HN? I usually find that I want to read 10% of articles on the front page, but I'm often surprised by which 10%.
- zitterbewegung 8y ago
  Most likely to the type and extent of moderation that is present on HN and the evolving purpose of both websites .

nimbius 8y ago

our heavy diesel emissions performance machine runs Linux, and after a vendor training on how to use it I became totally fascinated with it. A lot of Linux professionals like HN a lot, and the articles are a good break from the norm on lunch break. Im learning python, too! :)

seem_2211 8y ago

The comments are informative, there's no politics, it's more interesting than the news. I'm a sales recruiter, so I don't read the in the weeds software articles, but there are still 2-3 good articles on the front page at any one time.

_Tev 8y ago
> there's no politics Ok I am definitely clicking on bad articles

okmokmz 8y ago

A lot of the content is still relevant for those in other IT roles, or even just hobbyists. I'm a security engineer rather than a dev but I still find many of the posts on the site useful and/or interesting

glup 8y ago

There's also a ton of academic lurkers -- I've always though that this due to the facts that 1) the border between academia and industry is pretty porous in technical fields (super obvious in ML research, but I think holds more generally) 2) academics borrow---and contribute to---the same set of methods and technologies 3) most individuals have an interest in complex systems (and their hilarious, tragic faults) such that they find articles like this one interesting. I think it's also useful to look at preceding communities like Slashdot — in that case it started out pretty tightly scoped for Linux enthusiasts, gaming, programming, and the then-nascent social internet but then the cohort of regular readers and contributors got older and they found themselves in policy, academia, and managerial business roles; as long as people remained involved in the community, the content of the site expanded to reflect the (extremely rapidly increasing) role of tech in these domains. (Obviously, Slashdot suffered from several ownership changes, a lame commenting system, and most everyone moved on to other venues).

phs318u 8y ago
and 4) the signal-to-noise ratio on HN is very good compared to other online discussion forums.

cli 8y ago

I've been reading this site since 2009 and can barely write anything more complex than Hello World. The guidelines on submissions say nothing about software engineering, and the definition of hackers as written by Paul Graham does not limit it to software engineers.

engi_nerd 8y ago

I've been lurking here for 10 years. For most of that time I was employed as an electrical engineer. Why should people who are interested in high quality technical discussion surprise you with their presence? "Hacker" used to mean a lot more than "software developer".

tejtm 8y ago

you had me at "bad pickup" :)

analog31 8y ago

I came across HN by accident, and what keeps me coming back is the interesting, informative links & threads, and the quality of discussion. Threads about workplace issues are of interest to me, as are general scientific and social topics. I'm a "scientific" programmer, meaning that I use programming as a problem solving tool, but I don't write commercial software for a living. I turned away from that path in the early 80s.

ggcdn 8y ago

Big factor for me is the higher-quality discussion compared to say, Reddit.

MiscIdeaMaker99 8y ago

Not everyone in the software world is a developer.