So I ended up here following recommendation from chatgpt after expressing my doubts about grok and also twitter/x. But i'm curious what the other profiles are: young programmers 18-25? startup founders? tech journalists? ?
I'm coming up on 50 years old, with 26 years in this industry. I work as an engineering manager/director these days. I've worked at startups and bigger companies -- they all have their problems and neither is better. I'm sick of layoffs. I'm sick of hype cycles. Honestly I'm ready for a career change but it would be a huge pay cut and lifestyle change for our family.
Hobbyist programmer here. HN is my morning newspaper. I like exploring everything it offers, and I often find inspiration for both work and play. It keeps me informed better than plenty of other sites I enjoy.
sizeable minority maybe like 10%-30%, i've seen many posts about Python/ML, i'm very convinced most of the people who focus greatly on Python to do ML are under 30. No source to back it up, just logic - python exploded in the past 5 years and it's hand-in-hand with ml...college kids must be loving it.
ML is currently the hotness in tech, and startup-land in particular, so it's a popular post topic here as well. (At its foundation this is a startup forum - it's owned by the silicon valley venture capital firm Y Combinator, hence the url.)
You might be right that younger people are particularly interested in AI, but if I had to guess I would say HN skews older than other forums like Reddit.
I am new here (only browsed for a few months) but my impression was big tech programmers who are pro AI and pro big Tech. Complete strawman but the type of people who say "Yeah linux and ethical tech is to much work i'd rather get a $4000 macbook and use whatever big tech service works with the least amount of friction".
I like it here because people seem to actually be open to the idea that tech might be good but are still critical when it sucks. Other places I browse (lemmy) are instantly against AI and big tech which is fair but less interesting to read.
Aside from most people here being in tech, with a very heavy bias toward SV-style companies and venture capital, I think there's a reasonably broad audience in terms of age and experience.
I am here because it feels like the last place to enjoy insightful discussion among a diverse group of strangers.
I really enjoy when someone fresh out of college asks a question and a retiree engineer/technician/manager joins the discussion with personal knowledge. The insight and experience here, pending the AI slop takeover, is what you usually find only on very topic-specific forums.
The text-only formatting, culture of contributing to the conversation, and simplicity (read: not shiny and new), hopefully continue to keep out the cesspool of other internet at bay as long as possible.
Readit News
You might be right that younger people are particularly interested in AI, but if I had to guess I would say HN skews older than other forums like Reddit.
I like it here because people seem to actually be open to the idea that tech might be good but are still critical when it sucks. Other places I browse (lemmy) are instantly against AI and big tech which is fair but less interesting to read.
I really enjoy when someone fresh out of college asks a question and a retiree engineer/technician/manager joins the discussion with personal knowledge. The insight and experience here, pending the AI slop takeover, is what you usually find only on very topic-specific forums.
The text-only formatting, culture of contributing to the conversation, and simplicity (read: not shiny and new), hopefully continue to keep out the cesspool of other internet at bay as long as possible.