HN Explorer

Poll: What is HN made of?

105 points by icey ↗ HN
Just curious about the makeup of the Hacker News population.

(This poll originally had 4 options: "I'm a developer", "I'm a business person", "I do both" and "I do neither". I've modified the poll due to feedback in the comments, so the "I do both" option seems a little out of place now.

At the time of the modification, there were 374 developers, 48 business people, 211 people who did both and 37 that did neither.)

68 comments

[ 63.0 ms ] story [ 4018 ms ] thread
wwortiz
Students and engineers really should be options.
spicyj
I suppose engineers could be filed as "developers" because they develop stuff, but it would be nice if students was added.
wwortiz
Well there are electrical, mechanical, civil, chem, etc. engineers and I'm sure some of those are represented here, not just software engineers.
spicyj
My point is that "developers" doesn't necessarily refer to software; it can refer to anyone who develops anything, including circuits, engines, bridges, and chemicals. But I agree, not the best choice of word.
icey
I've added an option for "non-software related technical field". I was thinking that students could or should select whatever was closest to what they were going to school for.
baddox
I have a feeling a "student" option would overwhelm all the others.
wwortiz
That actually would interest me incredibly if students were the majority.
thompo
what about designers?
icey
Sorry, I've added it to the poll
prawn
What about business/programmer/designer? I do a lot of all three with no real focus on one over the others. Do you want me to upvote three different things?
barnaby
It's refreshing to take polls on community-driven technology news sites that don't always have Cowboy Neal as an option.
gridspy
To add: I'm a startup founder (tick)
icey
What role do you fill in your startup?
gridspy
- Co-founder

- Software (High level firmware, all of the web presence / backend)

- Marketing

- Public Relations

- Customer Support

See the blog to gain some more insight into my life (all the posts are mine): http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/

jrockway
I don't like the word "developer".
thunk
Gaaahhh! Visions of prancing, sweaty Ballmer!
jrockway
Somewhat OT, but I actually liked that talk. You know Steve Jobs does the same thing at home when he is alone, except the chant is "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs". And it's not the underarm region that gets stained.
icey
I've changed it from "developers" to "programmers", just for you.
pquerna
people always forget the sysadmins/operations crew.
sliverstorm
They must be blessed by excellent sysadmins to have forgotten them
Natsu
One of the bad things about that is that you can automate yourself out of a job (or have your duties expanded to include things that are pretty unreasonable).

Smart people should realize that it's a good thing if you're not constantly fighting fires or that you've replaced a whole lot of manual BS with a small script or two.

But there seem to be a lot fewer smart people around than I would like. I read this thing on Bruce Schneier's blog and wondered how I would know if we were being sabotaged or not:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/06/world_war_ii_s...

I guess it's like they say: sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

JMiao
explains all those "ninja" sysadmin/ops job postings.
icey
A true oversight on my part, I apologize. I've added operations as an option.
spicyj
I came to this thread to say Arc, but I see that you're talking about the real people who make up this site. As if!
bootload
"... I came to this thread to say Arc ..."

Same here. A quirk of cognitive recognition - literalism and thinking of objects before people.

mixmax
It's worth remembering that since HN is (unsurprisingly) largely made up of developers when you read through all of the great comments and linked articles there's bound to be a bias towards solving problems with technology even though it's not always the best approach. Remember that a lot of business transactions are done in the real world based on connections, phone calls and socialising.
derefr
But remember also that there's a difference in meaning between "best approach" and "approach that doesn't make anyone angry due to having been made irrelevant/replaced by a small shell script." Middle-men that add no value should be routed around, not greased, no matter how unhappy that makes the middle-men.
mixmax
Absolutely. It's all about efficiency. But sometimes the most efficient way to get a customer to buy your product is to call him and tell him how great your stuff is, and sometimes the best way to market your product is to go to tradeshows and meetups to advertise. Most people trust a real person more than they trust technology.

The right tool for the right job.

jayruy
Ridiculously techno-centric comment. You cannot replace trust with a shell script. IT has the profound ability to tell us, with amazing detail, the state of the world today. But business planning is done based on the future, and that requires trust.

Even if you are "building the future" in a startup: if you've taken funding or are drawing salary, you've convinced someone about a possible future state of the world, and that requires trust.

derefr
I was responding to the original statement that "a lot of business transactions are done in the real world based on connections, phone calls and socialising." My comment was basically that these transactions are frequently done with agents and proxies that provide no service on their own, beyond acting as gatekeepers that must be convinced with steak dinners, hired escorts, etc., to "trust" you. They are in a position to do this because they have earned the trust of the people you really want to reach, and now abuse that trust by only putting through those that offer payola.

These people should be avoided; the best thing to do is to find the real customer—the person who makes the decision, not to pass your idea on, but to accept or reject it—and gain their trust (which is frequently much simpler, since they're much closer to the product/service and know what's actually good for it.)

Frequently, this will make the middle-men angry, and they will strike back by trying to ruin your image in the eyes of their contact (who, you recall, trusts them.) This is why most people choose to stick with the steak-dinners-and-strippers route.

Dobbs
Professionally a Sysadmin, in my spare time a growing developer.
quizbiz
Since polls allow multiple votes, would be great if tje following could be added:

   I'm a Student
   I'm a Founder
   I'm an Investor
   I'm a designer
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
c23gooey
when i saw the title for this thread, i thought:

HN is made of awesome!

CapitalistCartr
I program and manage CNC machines. Not a common area. I suspect lots of people here fit into uncommon fields.
joe_bleau
I've done some of that. Mostly Fanuc controls.
timf
The "do both business and technical work" option doesn't seem to capture the essence of what many are up to here, the "full time technical work but learning about starting small businesses and actively building something on the side" option. But OK, that's what I picked.
jff
Where's the "I'm a researcher"? Or, as stated elsewhere, engineer? I'm both, but an engineer (computer engineer) first of course.

If you stripped my work down to the most insultingly basic level, then I'm a programmer.

jim-greer
It's tough to cover every case, and if you're insulted by being called a programmer, this might not be the site for you.
ericd
Researchers, even researchers in some CS fields, frequently only do a little programming - the thinking behind it is often much harder than the actual implementation they do to test something.

So imagine being identified with a part of your job that is actually only an inconsequential sliver of it.

tensor
Computer scientists are often mathematicians more than anything else. It is similar to calling a laboratory scientist a "lab technician."
muppetman
I'm a network architect, working for an ISP.

I design and architect networks for our Internet customers and for our private customers as well.

I read Hacker News because I find it really interesting. Not living in the US, the whole startup thing is something I still, frankly, don't quite understand.

It's a whole other world that I find very interesting in almost a voyeuristic way.

I don't consider myself much of a Hacker. I install vim on my Windows XP machine at work to edit Router config's and the like, but I don't need to use any of its power.

I suspect there's quite a few people here like me that read the site and the comments, but never really post because I can't offer anything decent to the conversations.

scorpioxy
Just want to add that being a hacker has less to do with the tools you choose to use and more to do with how you approach problems.

Using Windows is not a mark of shame or incompetence. Using Windows because you can't comprehend anything but point-and-click interfaces probably is. In my opinion at least...

jsz0
I also work at an ISP. I feel like building a big complex router configuration can classify as hacking. You're creating something that didn't exist before you took the router out of the box. Maybe you're limited to the device's capabilities and features but there's still plenty of room for creativity and skill in how you design and implement solutions.
muppetman
Good point. I guess by hacker I meant coder/programmer. Most of the articles here refer to programming or other similar complex problems.

Whilst BGP next-hops, OSPF neighbours and flapping spanning-tree can be a pain in the arse to debug, I just don't quite consider it on the same level as some of the stuff I read here.

Maybe it's just because I don't understand it, so it seems more complex than it really is?

I am proud of my work and I love my job, so I'm happy in that regard!

teach
I'm an educator; specifically a high-school teacher teaching plain old "Computer Science I". But Hacker News has helped me (and, in turn, my students) to be more self-aware, and encouraged me to work harder and take more risks than I'm naturally inclined to.

Edit: Oh, and I write small software tools to improve my teaching/grading workflow, but I did that even before Slashdot got started.

amanfredi
A resource, according to some of the managers.
Naga
I'm a history undergrad. I had to make a decision between going into compsci, or history, and I think I should right. I'm a history student by day, hacker by night.
minalecs
I do Both - programmer first, and became founder business second
sabat
I'm in operations and I'm a programmer.