PlinkPlonk says "My heartfelt wish is that these junk articles don't make the front page of HN. So what's next on HN? raising children? " This is not a junk ar

PlinkPlonk says "My heartfelt wish is that these junk articles don't make the front page of HN. So what's next on HN? raising children? " This is not a junk article. And yes, articles about raising kids were published here and I do not remember any one questioning if it was hacker news. ( http://www.paulgraham.com/lies.html http://www.paulgraham.com/lies.html). This is intellectually interesting and useful. If hacker news wants to be a community where human beings take part rather than some large drone feeding me with 'programming' news this article stays. For that matter this article has more insight than many articles about 'ruby' on this site, I cringe when articles get in just because it had the word 'programming' in it. There are many programming articles that were a pure waste of time, did not embody what hackers are about. Hacker is an attitude and not just programming. Hacker is the quality in programming and not just the programming. Just dealing with programming is not an automatic pass to be hacker news (some sites are actually banned!), and by the same account just that something does not contain the word programming does not mean its not hacker news. Guess what, we are programmers and proud ones. But I personally value my relationships more than my programming abilities (And my girl friend will never say to me: if you love me stop programming!, she loves me too. Its a nice arrangement. :P). The fear or the question "If we let this article where will this stop?" reminds me of people who ask: If we let gay people marry, then where will this stop ? If you felt pity for such people who did not have a good appreciation for dynamic nature of all things nature, then think a bit more. "Where will this stop?"is not reason enough and is not an automatic pass to raise the objection "this is not hacker news" There is room here for more insight. Further I said this some 2 years back on this site: I will say it again. Dont have a very narrow view of what you are. Don't define yourself and put your self in such a tiny box "I am a hacker because I think ruby is not a gem". I feel kinship to the person who designs good buildings and the one who designs a good meal which is also cheap. In such a meal I see a succinct program which also is very efficient in terms of memory. There are insights to be obtained from all of them for programming itself. Further only if you expand your world view and talk about problems people face on a daily basis can you obtain insights into peoples problems that need solutions. And guess what you will suddenly find a new business instead of hacking together your one millionth web based todolist with email and sms feature. EDIT: adding link to the earlier comment that I refer to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31799 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31799 which was made looong back.