Just n=1, but I’ve been here a lot, wrote a lot about everything, but the recent double whammy of becoming jaded at software (20 years of professional experience means that I am starting to see the cycles and old ideas being packaged as new) and caring more about the artistic and craftsmanship side of life during the AI boom means that, sadly, all I have to contribute is more doomer snark. To save everyone and myself, these days I block Hacker News the same way I block other “brain rot” sites like Reddit or X. When I cave or come back, the place feels ever more alien.
I guess I grew out of Hacker News and software development just like I grew out of most of social media, and let me tell you, for a person that used to participate a lot in either, it is very hard to adjust.
People change while Hacker News is the voice of mainstream/big Tech, the kind most early adults mould themselves to, to become hireable commodities, until the inevitable middle age crisis and reevaluation of priorities in life. In extreme cases like mine, during large cultural changes like today, you just grow apart from places like these, and need to find a new home.
I do agree with you on one thing: the AI boom is unlike anything else we’ve gone through, and the effect it has on such an heterogeneous meeting point is just the canary in the mines, and a teaser of what will happen to the field. We will settle to a new normal eventually, but these are just the first few warning quakes before a massive reassessment of our entire digital society and what it means to be a computer programmer.
I guess I grew out of Hacker News and software development just like I grew out of most of social media, and let me tell you, for a person that used to participate a lot in either, it is very hard to adjust.
People change while Hacker News is the voice of mainstream/big Tech, the kind most early adults mould themselves to, to become hireable commodities, until the inevitable middle age crisis and reevaluation of priorities in life. In extreme cases like mine, during large cultural changes like today, you just grow apart from places like these, and need to find a new home.
I do agree with you on one thing: the AI boom is unlike anything else we’ve gone through, and the effect it has on such an heterogeneous meeting point is just the canary in the mines, and a teaser of what will happen to the field. We will settle to a new normal eventually, but these are just the first few warning quakes before a massive reassessment of our entire digital society and what it means to be a computer programmer.