6 ms·

The truly worrying development is when those same Medium posts start circling HN. I’m not trying to be elitist, but what I enjoy about HN is seeing truly novel

The truly worrying development is when those same Medium posts start circling HN. I’m not trying to be elitist, but what I enjoy about HN is seeing truly novel and interesting content, and every “crappy” article on the front page bumps an interesting one downwards into oblivion.

hn_check 6y ago
Worrying development? HN has never been particularly enlightened in this respect, and has all of the same trends and superficial articles that emerge on the other networks. The illusion that it's some higher ground has never held true.
- city41 6y ago
  Based on your bio, you may be a bit biased in your assessment.
  - hn_check 6y ago
    Biased, or simply consistent?
    - _alex_ 6y ago
      based and orangepilled
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    Someone should create that chart with ‘Lawful Good Dunning Kruger Expert’, ‘Chaotic Dunning Kruger Expert’, etc, since I need to know where I fit.
karolisram 6y ago
I’m ashamed to say that was me at some point. On top of that, those articles did nothing to further my career. All that mattered so far is my past experience, projects and how well I can (leet)code. Now if I start blogging again, it will have to be purely out of intellectual curiosity.
- wenincode 6y ago
  I think this is the same situation a lot of people find themselves in. I would say I'm the same. The further along I get in my career the more I find I'm interested in learning or exploring for my own good or interests, rather than some fake sense of credibility I got in the past.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  I confirm this doesn't do anything for your career, or at least not as much as just focusing that time on actual, paid work. I find that in my career my resume and experience that's on it as opposed to any side-projects or attempts at writing.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    Yes, however on helping the career I think the writing is like a nice little detail on the resume, a way to make it standout a bit more, I also found that in a recent interview for a project an article I had just written on SVG was naturally relevant. As a general rule talking about little articles you've written isn't going to naturally happen in the interview because the interview process is focused on past work and horrible trick questions. It has also been somewhat useful in projects where a concern with documentation has been expressed because the writing is a better example of my ability to document things than having worked on a lot of projects where you may be able to go see what we shipped but not be able to see anything of the documentation. I think of the writing as the equivalent of a side project: * it allows me to focus on something I want to learn * it helps to make what I learn stick in my head * it gives me a deadline and people who will send me emails to say how's it going with that * it works as documentation for what I've learned * it gives me a trivial amount of money for having taken the time to learn something. Basically the last article I wrote is paying for an annual Dropbox account, and a couple days worth of food for my family. It was way too much work for that to be worthwhile, but I did learn some things that will help with later stuff.
- loughnane 6y ago
  Also me, but I did have one (on tolerance analysis) that helped my career. It made rounds in the professional circles I traveled in and established myself as, while not necessarily a leader, someone at least very fluent in a particular process. This was also in 2010 though, so the social landscape Was quite different
dustingetz 6y ago
What's interesting is that this stuff works, which means there are idiot decision makers out there eating it up, which means the whole industry is ripe for disruption by someone who can see even an inch into the fog, so lets go do that
watwut 6y ago
But HN was never hardcore tech content? It is more of general set of articles about wide range of tech issues.

hn_check 6y ago

Worrying development? HN has never been particularly enlightened in this respect, and has all of the same trends and superficial articles that emerge on the other networks. The illusion that it's some higher ground has never held true.

city41 6y ago
Based on your bio, you may be a bit biased in your assessment.
- hn_check 6y ago
  Biased, or simply consistent?
  - _alex_ 6y ago
    based and orangepilled
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Someone should create that chart with ‘Lawful Good Dunning Kruger Expert’, ‘Chaotic Dunning Kruger Expert’, etc, since I need to know where I fit.

karolisram 6y ago

I’m ashamed to say that was me at some point. On top of that, those articles did nothing to further my career. All that mattered so far is my past experience, projects and how well I can (leet)code. Now if I start blogging again, it will have to be purely out of intellectual curiosity.

wenincode 6y ago
I think this is the same situation a lot of people find themselves in. I would say I'm the same. The further along I get in my career the more I find I'm interested in learning or exploring for my own good or interests, rather than some fake sense of credibility I got in the past.
Nextgrid 6y ago
I confirm this doesn't do anything for your career, or at least not as much as just focusing that time on actual, paid work. I find that in my career my resume and experience that's on it as opposed to any side-projects or attempts at writing.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  Yes, however on helping the career I think the writing is like a nice little detail on the resume, a way to make it standout a bit more, I also found that in a recent interview for a project an article I had just written on SVG was naturally relevant. As a general rule talking about little articles you've written isn't going to naturally happen in the interview because the interview process is focused on past work and horrible trick questions. It has also been somewhat useful in projects where a concern with documentation has been expressed because the writing is a better example of my ability to document things than having worked on a lot of projects where you may be able to go see what we shipped but not be able to see anything of the documentation. I think of the writing as the equivalent of a side project: * it allows me to focus on something I want to learn * it helps to make what I learn stick in my head * it gives me a deadline and people who will send me emails to say how's it going with that * it works as documentation for what I've learned * it gives me a trivial amount of money for having taken the time to learn something. Basically the last article I wrote is paying for an annual Dropbox account, and a couple days worth of food for my family. It was way too much work for that to be worthwhile, but I did learn some things that will help with later stuff.
loughnane 6y ago
Also me, but I did have one (on tolerance analysis) that helped my career. It made rounds in the professional circles I traveled in and established myself as, while not necessarily a leader, someone at least very fluent in a particular process. This was also in 2010 though, so the social landscape Was quite different

dustingetz 6y ago

What's interesting is that this stuff works, which means there are idiot decision makers out there eating it up, which means the whole industry is ripe for disruption by someone who can see even an inch into the fog, so lets go do that

watwut 6y ago

But HN was never hardcore tech content? It is more of general set of articles about wide range of tech issues.