Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderMany programmers have a bias in thinking that what they're doing is easy or simple, because they truly enjoy it and, many times, have learnt it as a hobby. Their career choice have never been a masterplan on winning big, but it just happened to be so, so they feel like they're fraud. Hobbyist programmers (who usually end up being the best ones) usually put great investment into their career by doing side projects on their free time. We're talking…
> What makes me nervous, though, is that we don't really understand why programmers are paid this well I understand why developers are paid this well. The marginal cost of software is (close enough to) zero [0]. This means that once you make software once, you can sell it infinitely - minus some scaling costs, hence being close enough. We don't pay people based on how hard they work. If we did, stay at home parents would be filthy rich…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 486
- Total comments
- 799
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-12-29 | Programmers Should Plan for Lower Pay?First breakout · Best thread | luu | 339 | 492 |
| 2022-11-05 | Programmers should plan for lower pay (2019)Latest 20+ point return | luu | 145 | 307 |
| 2025-03-11 | Programmers Should Plan for Lower Pay (2019) | cubefox | 2 | 0 |