Writing advice for software developers, covering blog posts, design documents, commit messages, tutorials, and emails, plus a ranking of popular HN personal blogs.
HN links it for its writing rules, such as for tutorials, and its ranking of top personal blogs on HN.
I'm a fan of both HN and DF. If I assume my worldview is accurate, that both are above-board, then the only explanation I have left is flamewar detection. Your links get too many comments—plus some flags sprinkled in there—too fast relative to upvotes. So, your posts get too much engagement.
There is a twisted logic to that algo, esp. for a "News For Nerds. Stuff That Matters"-flavored attitude, and esp. for a site that's trying to be as efficiently managed as possible.
Plus, Scott Alexander noted recently a decline in Substack due to deboosting on X, but also that just too many people are now Substacking, many of whom are good, and a lot who are just clones. And on the Dithering about "Rotten", you and Ben both concur that it feels like a while since either of you went viral. So as soon as a solo blogger blows up, the system quickly co-opts that blend of content into other media channels. i.e., Indie generally doesn't last.
I did a YoY look at your rankings:
2007: #50
2008: #20
2009: #3
2010: #1
2011: #2
2012: #7
2013: #34
2014: #17
2015: #568
2016: #184
2017: #8
2018: #69
2019: #86
2020: #8
2021: #20
2022: #406
2023: #98
2024: #133
2025: #53
(10/9/20XX – 10/09/20XX)
https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/?start=2006-10-09&end=2007-10-09
Something weird definitely happened in 2015/2016, for sure (maybe the start of the anti-engagement algo). But your blog was also crazy popular between the iPhone's release and Steve Jobs' death. That was…
Re-posting from a similar answer I gave in another thread:
Yep, still happy with the decision. A lot of my comp at Google was stock, so I would have made a lot from the stock price movement over the last six years, and I'm a bit envious of that, but still yes.
I do still love the independence of working for myself, so I'm happy to have had the last six years of that rather than feeling unfulfilled at Google.
With everything shifting around AI, and big tech could be doing massive dev layoffs in the next five years. Given that risk, I'm happy to have experience as a founder rather than a dev who could be laid off immediately in a down market.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42126800
>Do you feel richer or poorer for the experience?
Definitely richer. I'm glad I did it, and it was so much more meaningful than the work I did at Google or any previous job.
>What's next for you?
My wife and I just had our first child over the summer, so I'm mostly on paternity leave to enjoy time with my family, but I'm slowly easing back into work. My next project is a book about what I've learned about writing effectively as a software developer.[0] Eventually, I'd like to try building a SaaS, but working on a book is much friendlier to an unpredictable work schedule at the moment.
[0] https://refactoringenglish.com/
I am not sure to be honest, hence “apparently”. It also might be the case that this is less important than the other points I mentioned.
I’m also not sure you could say you were “consistently” at #3 from 2007 to 2021. That would be like saying you were “consistently” at #5 from 2007 to 2025.
Let’s check other periods:
From 2020 to 2021, you are ranked #13 [1].
From 2018 to 2019, you are ranked #26 [2].
From 2017 to 2018, you are ranked #15 [3].
From 2015 to 2016, you are ranked #179 [4].
From 2014 to 2015, you are ranked #33 [5].
[1]: https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/?start=2020-01-01&end=2021-12-31&limit=100
[2]: https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/?start=2018-01-01&end=2019-12-31&limit=100
[3]: https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/?start=2017-01-01&end=2018-12-31&limit=100
[4]: https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/?start=2015-01-01&end=2016-12-31&limit=100
[5]: https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/?start=2014-01-01&end=2015-12-31&limit=100
I reckon if you wanted to choose just a single rule it should be, "Write something that you yourself would actually read." The problem is that our brains are designed to sort of lie to us and tell us that what we've created is amazing when in fact we'd never actually read it if someone else had written it. If you can find a way to be objective and see your own writing as the far-from-perfect mess it actually is.
(In principle, you could use "write something that someone else would actually read", but I think this is much harder, because it's much harder to know how other people would react! If you yourself would read it, well, we aren't that unique, lots of other people would read it too.)
Also, props for this stark picture of reality: https://refactoringenglish.com/chapters/write-blog-posts-developers-read/#you-need-a-realistic-path-to-your-readers
https://refactoringenglish.com/chapters/rules-for-software-tutorials/#an-introduction-to-docker-containers
Sometimes this advice of describing what something is and why you'd use it is helpful. Other times I already know what it's for and just want to use it, and don't like having to slog through descriptions that don't help with implementation. There is no universal right or wrong answer here, since it will depend on who is reading your tutorial, what their level of expertise is, and what they need.
A tutorial can provide the best of both worlds by putting the background stuff of each section in a sidebar, so the reader can easily skip it or delve more deeply if they wish.
There are indeed many ways of consuming HN/news. Here are just few ways I've collected recently:
- https://hckrnews.com/
- https://hcker.news/
- https://hn.unlurker.com/
- https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/
- https://lessnews.dev/
- https://news.kagi.com/world/latest
- https://forty.news/
- https://news.ysimulator.run/news