[ckris]

In defense of the article, what you are talking about is a different story more "finding the Internet and programming" that isn't really unique to Hacker News. It can surely be used that way, and people likely do, but you can also find those things by searching for "top programming books" (or hanging around twitter, quora, medium or other sites). They did sort of talk about that with the early motivations for Hacker News. And you could absolutely go to a music festival and write about the food trucks, the people and the atmosphere that if that is what unique about that festival. I think they did a good job in that regard. People don't obsessively read Hacker News to help newcomers, they do so because it is all in all a technical tabloid.

[mushufasa]

I don't see HN as an intro course to programming, but more of like that older kid on the block who you notice is listening to bob dylan, and then you try again, you start to get past that nasally voice, really listening to the lyrics this time, and now you're turned on to a whole world of good music.

[ckris]

Sure. I should clarify that I didn't mean "lmgtfy". There are five to ten books that covers things most programmers won't learn by practicing and therefor will uncover most of the mystery experienced by self-taught programmers. There is no need to listening really hard to the lyrics when you can learn how to play. You just need to go and read material that actually covers how to design programs, rather than are about "learning programming". And you will literally find those books about algorithms, design patterns, workflow, refactoring and whatever else by searching for "top programming books". Or in discussion on most platforms. I don't think it is as esoteric as you think.

[navigatesol]

And sometimes people think Bob Dylan is overrated, that's okay too.