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Why do we care? Why are people voting this up, as though it is as interesting and significant as one of our peers sharing technical knowledge? Seriously, when
by numair 18y ago
Why do we care? Why are people voting this up, as though it is as interesting and significant as one of our peers sharing technical knowledge?
Seriously, when will the tech industry grow up? Why do we treat pundits and gossip hounds as though they are respected journalists and trade editors? Maybe I'm alone in this, but I really wish we looked at ourselves the same way that those in biotech or architecture look at their trade. We need the equivalent of publications such as Nature (nature.com) or Detail (detail.de) -- instead of link/pageview-bait, we need nuanced reporting of current events in our industry, along with thoughtful analysis of new technical advances/trends. We're certainly at a level of sophistication these days where such reporting is both possible and necessary; it's really time someone steps up to the plate and delivers.
TechCrunch and the like are utterly unprofessional, and they make me feel as though I am part of an amateurish cottage industry. They are little more than distractionware; aside from industry promotion, there is no benefit I see from their existence (and the promotional aspect would be gone if companies could get exposure from a more respected, polished outlet with a similarly-sized community). I have no interest in these people and their methods of operation; maybe it's taboo to say it, however I really do think it's time we all grew up, and stopped looking at ourselves as a bunch of kids in the computer lab (even if that's where many of us find ourselves at the moment).
I want techniques, best practices, and interesting/exciting new developments in our industry. I don't want to know about this man and his childish drama, or his tasteless and unprofessional rants (such as the whole Europe thing). I don't want to read his employees' sensationalized pieces on "developments" that are marginally significant at best -- and quite obviously written to meet some sort of self-imposed quota. The whole thing cheapens our industry and the way we look at it, and I hate it.
Here's an immediate, makes-lots-of-sense-at-2AM idea: perhaps we should start a journal under PLoS (plos.org)? Would anyone else support this?
- jrockway 18y agoTechCrunch and the like are utterly unprofessional Keep in mind that TechCrunch is not trying to do anything other than make money. People like gossip and rumors a lot more than they like papers about algorithms. Thus, to make money, that's what you've got to appeal to. This doesn't make it okay, though. It only explains why sites like TechCrunch and Reddit thrive. Anyway, I'm all for creating a more intelligent news site / journal. Even LtU is becoming hard to read these days, and that makes me really sad.
- sqs 18y agoAny specific examples of stories/articles that you'd prefer to be reading? I think you're definitely on to something, but the idea seems (for now) to be defined as a negative. In a way, Hacker News plays the role that high-quality publications do in other fields. In technology, everyone publishes on their own blogs, and aggregators link to the best writing rather. But in science, the aggregators are the journals themselves, and they publish articles instead of just linking to them. I think the ideal news aggregation site would be better than the best journal, but even here on HN there's only 2-3 really good, well-written articles per week. Does that mean that the entire technology world only produces 2-3 great pieces per week? I'm not sure. Also, the "tech industry" is huge. There are the CS academics on one side, whose work is definitely not getting enough attention. It's fascinating to trawl through conference sites and read papers, but where besides http://hnr.dnsalias.net/wordpress/ http://hnr.dnsalias.net/wordpress/ are you going to read well-written, approachable reviews of CS papers? And you also have the tech business people who can't program but would read business pieces. HN tries to appeal to both, but it (or something that wanted to be a better aggregator) shouldn't. So, just a few random thoughts...
- wheels 18y agoI don't really care to get into the usual TechCrunch spiels, but this is basically just a report on his vacation. (Flagged)
- TweedHeads 18y agoI agree 100%, I hope PG understands that if he let shills and drones take control of his creation he will make millions with pay-per-post but will lose his mantra and will become a clown like Mike Arroganton with no credibility. PG is a well respected persona in the tech world, MA is not.
- unalone 18y agoPG respects MA. I'm certain other tech people respect Arrington too. "His creation"? What creation is being destroyed by Arrington? Are you complaining about this story? Because it's not the first bad post that's ever appeared on HN, and this one was at least interesting in a "personal point of view" way. If you misspell somebody's last name just to throw an insult, you've lost more credibility than Arrington has.
- tarmac 18y agoreddited: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/81fjd/renaissance_in_programming_journalism_hacker_news/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/81fjd/renaissan...
- anamax 18y ago> TechCrunch and the like are utterly unprofessional That comment suggests that there's a professional press. While it's true that TechCrunch doesn't reach the standards of the sports and society/celebrity sections, it's not bad by biz standards and is far ahead of "news".