The highest paid people in our industry are working on drudgery full-time for FAANG. And that's fine, people have families, I'm not judging anyone. But let's not fool ourselves.
The shat on one is the old Java, verbose, obtrusive style. The newly praised one is Haskell-style, type inferred, expressive...
Now you could say that's not new, BUT what is new is marrying ML style type system to languages whose other concepts devs are largely familiar with and packaging it the right way to get into production, instead of just academia and that being the case even for historically impenetrable low-level programming and such.
https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/csharp/union-types-in-csha...
Normally my comment would be an unnecessary back-slapping, but since the conversation veered this way, I think it is appropriate to call out your comment as something that represents the spirit that makes HN unique and wonderful.
Hackernews has an _instagram filter_ where everybody brags about how smart they are.
Then there's a bunch of fresh grads who fanboy their favourite tech companies.
Then every so often you get a gem of a comment from knowledge leader in the industry.
But that's quickly overshadowed by 'my Startup, my Startup, mah Startup' and how everybody wants to be rich one day.
But like every larger community in the internet, it eventually derives itself into an echo chamber.
Look on the front page right now and see how many stories are about startups. That didn’t change in the last five years. It’s always been about technology in general.
HN’s front page 10 years ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-05-10
HN’s front page 5 years ago
Having said that, the most apparent change to me is in the tone and substance of the comments rather than the front page. And it isn’t a huge change. Just noticeable for me.
Im not surprised the leaders of IT, ppl who create those new technologies, push for a narrative to use those new shiny things.
Or engineers who've convinced themselves that they're Tier 1 engineers...
There are plenty of other forums and sites to read about conventional tech. HN is where I find the bleeding edge. 90% of it is just fascinating. But the other 10% offer tantalizing possibilities for making something novel, which is to say: solving an unsolved problem.
“How to Become a Hacker” puts it plainly: no problem should have to be solved twice. Drudgery is evil. And by those axioms, a ‘Hacker’ is just uninterested in old solutions to old problems. We need to live in the future so that we can build the future. Although HN’s content has suffered over the last 5 years with the influx that accompanied a wider awareness of startups, it still is the best place I know of to dip your toes into the various futures we may one day encounter.
Having said that, lately I’ve found that Google Scholar is often more thought-provoking. If only there was a HN for Google Scholar.