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Hey, me too. I've started reading HN around 2012, when I was more of a game designer than developer. Throughout the years, I've changed into developer stack, g

Hey, me too. I've started reading HN around 2012, when I was more of a game designer than developer. Throughout the years, I've changed into developer stack, grew professionally, changed game dev for fullstack web development, grew to love functional programming and embraced a lot of things doing "the HN" way. I even switched from regional companies to working for american companies remotely — thanks to "Who's hiring threads"! And when I'm talking to my american colleagues now, we share a lot of the same culture — SICP, "considered harmful", "just a monoid of endofunctors", all of which I learned here. Now I'm working on my O1 visa application, and once again, I wouldn't be here if not for HN. And for the point of comparison, there's been this other social app, which I won't name, that requires a tech company email to access. For a long time, while I didn't work for a recognised american company, I thought of it as an exclusive closed club and assumed that there should be much better content there. But once I finally got access to it, it turned out to be a complete anon cesspool of bragging about TC, cheating on interviews and other things from people who came to tech just for the money, without any glimpse of love for the craft. After using that other app for a couple of weeks, I've deleted it never to log on again and now even more surprised to see how great a community HN turned out to be.

oneepic 3y ago
I had a very similar experience with a toxic app like that :) I must say that I found a handful of valuable threads/comments that helped me, so perhaps it's not all bad.
reducesuffering 3y ago
Blind is a toxic cesspool of greed and frankly, ignorance, that is surprising for the supposed selection effects. However, there are still certain aspects of it where the insider info on companies is better than HN. You can find out certain crappy aspects that happen or how high of compensation a role is, that many people on HN will flat out deny or only collectively acknowledge years later.
JaDogg 3y ago
This is why I never created a blind account. I do not care about how much others are paid. I get what I ask for. But anyhow, I think people who got into the industry just for the money might actually be sleeping well. Everything from not enough code coverage to stupid deployment practices bothers me. And I am more emotionally invested in doing the right thing. Politics and stupid tactics drain me.

oneepic 3y ago

I had a very similar experience with a toxic app like that :) I must say that I found a handful of valuable threads/comments that helped me, so perhaps it's not all bad.

reducesuffering 3y ago

Blind is a toxic cesspool of greed and frankly, ignorance, that is surprising for the supposed selection effects. However, there are still certain aspects of it where the insider info on companies is better than HN. You can find out certain crappy aspects that happen or how high of compensation a role is, that many people on HN will flat out deny or only collectively acknowledge years later.

JaDogg 3y ago

This is why I never created a blind account. I do not care about how much others are paid. I get what I ask for. But anyhow, I think people who got into the industry just for the money might actually be sleeping well. Everything from not enough code coverage to stupid deployment practices bothers me. And I am more emotionally invested in doing the right thing. Politics and stupid tactics drain me.