Why I Am a Programmer(alfie.wtf)
282 points by jruohonen | 87 comments
Personal blog essay recounting how BBS-era cracktros, the demoscene, and Denthor's ASPHYXIA Pascal demo tutorials inspired the author to become a programmer.
#personal-essay on Hacker News
120 stories tagged personal-essay, newest first.
Challenge Is Gone(blog.alxgsv.com)
46 points by alxgsv | 84 comments
Personal blog essay by Uploadcare CTO Alex Gusev reflecting that AI coding agents have removed the engineering challenge that once motivated him.
Job loss and cortisone mania(tilschuenemann.de)
158 points by speckx | 93 comments
Personal blog post about being laid off from a tech job, an autoimmune flare-up after illness, and manic productivity as a side effect of cortisone treatment.
Radio Days(oldster.substack.com)
5 points by NaOH | 2 comments
A personal essay in Oldster Magazine where Michael A. Gonzales recalls childhood mornings in Harlem listening to WNEW and WABC radio and how it shaped his musical taste.
I Became a Citizen of Japan(derekwessman.com)
190 points by luu | 102 comments
Personal blog post by Derek Wessman recounting his experience becoming a naturalized citizen of Japan, mixing anecdotes, opinion, and facts.
My old job feels distant now(pinecoder.dev)
28 points by speckx | 27 comments
A personal blog post on pinecoder.dev reflecting on how the author's previous job now feels distant.
Processing my father's death by climbing in his footsteps(nytimes.com)
8 points by elemeno | 0 comments
A New York Times Magazine interactive essay about a writer processing their father's death by climbing a Yosemite route he once climbed.
Beyond the Glass(longreads.com)
19 points by Petiver | 3 comments
A Longreads personal essay by Daniel Barnum about a grieving son finding meaning among a museum collection of skulls after his mother's death.
Fable Took My Job(cendyne.dev)
162 points by jllyhill | 196 comments
A personal blog post by Cendyne describing losing an engineering job after leadership decided an LLM called Fable was cheaper than their compensation.
You might want to try being less creative(blog.bawolf.com)
61 points by bryantwolf | 31 comments
A Substack newsletter essay arguing that trying to be original everywhere hinders progress, drawn from a jam session experience about finishing songs.
The value of not getting to the point (2015)(ken.arneson.name)
220 points by NaOH | 75 comments
A 2015 personal blog essay by Ken Arneson reflecting on introversion and why conversations meander, prompted by a text from his college-age daughter.
Grieving the loss of details(purplesyringa.moe)
448 points by signa11 | 352 comments
A personal blog post by purplesyringa reflecting on grieving the loss of low-level coding details as the industry shifts toward vibecoding and architecture-focused work.
Wood Tape (2004)(gamesbyemail.com)
189 points by NaOH | 29 comments
A father's personal story from 2004 about his four-year-old son asking for 'wood tape' and drawing plans for a table to build together.
Open Source as We Know It Is Dead(jross.me)
34 points by vinhnx | 13 comments
A personal essay by a self-taught developer reflecting on growing up with open source and GitHub and arguing that open source as we know it is dead.
15-year search for a band that charted once and vanished(shahidhussain.com)
363 points by shahidhussain | 127 comments
A personal essay by Shahid Hussain about a years-long search for information on Salvage, an obscure indie rock band he discovered on a CD in 2011.
Reasons I didn't become an EMT, ranked(ben.stolovitz.com)
216 points by citelao | 103 comments
A personal blog post by a software engineer who became an EMT in 2024, ranking 21 reasons he delayed getting certified.
Protect Your Friends and Loved Ones(ephemeral.cx)
36 points by speckx | 11 comments
A personal blog post recounting a friend's late-night arrest and urging readers to prepare information and plans to help loved ones if arrested.
AI Makes Me Sad(mondobe.com)
121 points by mondobe | 120 comments
A personal blog essay in which the author describes feeling sadness and hopelessness about new developments in AI, despite being positioned to benefit from it.
I can't tell who's teaching who anymore(blog.murphytrueman.com)
24 points by eustoria | 11 comments
A personal essay by Murphy Trueman about inheriting her mother's writing style and finding that it now reads as if written by AI.
The last time my family was replaced by technology(manuel.darcemont.fr)
298 points by megalomanu | 582 comments
Personal essay comparing a great-great-grandfather farrier who became a mechanic with today's developers facing replacement by AI.
13 Months Sober (2025)(bobbytables.io)
66 points by btables | 56 comments
A personal Substack essay by Robert Ross reflecting on reaching 13 months of sobriety and the less eventful phase of the journey.
Ten lines of code that changed my world(pixelambacht.nl)
106 points by dimonomid | 33 comments
A personal blog post on Pixel Ambacht listing ten lines of code that hold meaning for the author, whether written, copied, or memorable.
What even is an OS now?(sockpuppet.org)
290 points by fratellobigio | 437 comments
Blog post on sockpuppet.org musing on how AI is reshaping what an operating system is, and announcing the author is leaving Fly.io to work with Kurt on a new project.
I'm Tired of Being on the Network(matduggan.com)
97 points by sagacity | 93 comments
A personal blog essay by Mat Duggan about growing weary of smartphones and the always-online, constantly connected life.
The softness of metal(psyche.co)
39 points by NaOH | 15 comments
A Psyche personal essay about watching Ozzy Osbourne play his final gig seated, while the author had a broken ankle, and finding vulnerability true to metal.
Attention is all you have(alicegg.tech)
996 points by zer0tonin | 298 comments
A personal blog essay by Alice GG titled "Attention is all you have", opening with the Tetris effect to discuss how what we focus on shapes perception.
Everything I own, owned(schlarp.com)
1354 points by schlarpc | 335 comments
A personal blog post titled "Everything I own, owned" on schlarp.com; no page content was captured.
Scrap (2006)(twitter.com)
386 points by tosh | 212 comments
A post on X by Moxie Marlinspike sharing a circa-2006 journal entry about moving into a derelict Pittsburgh house in winter and rebuilding it from scrap.
I'm becoming AI-blind(cymerys.com)
462 points by rcymerys | 468 comments
Personal blog post by Rafal Cymerys describing how he struggles to focus on documents at work, feeling increasingly 'blind' to AI-generated text.
Hello, me. It's been a while(themech.net)
336 points by somesoftdev | 178 comments
A personal blog post in which a programmer returns after fourteen years to reflect on filling every quiet moment with podcasts, audiobooks, and social media.
In Memory of My Wife, Elise Cawley, with Thanks for 36 Wonderful Years(writings.stephenwolfram.com)
1521 points by jdcampolargo | 90 comments
Stephen Wolfram's memorial blog post for his wife Elise Cawley (1961–2026), reflecting on their 36 years together.
More German than many Germans(mertbulan.com)
539 points by mertbio | 381 comments
Personal blog post by developer Mert Bulan reflecting on moving to Germany for an internship and building a life there, feeling more German than many Germans.
How to Exist(raptitude.com)
352 points by walterbell | 209 comments
A Raptitude blog post by David Cain titled "How to Exist," a personal essay on living and being present.
It's getting harder to focus every day(glyphack.com)
675 points by peykar | 381 comments
A personal blog post by Glyphack reflecting on increasing difficulty focusing and getting only about an hour of focused time a day.
"Don't You Just Upload It to ChatGPT?"(correresmidestino.com)
395 points by speckx | 307 comments
A personal blog post by a freelance writer/translator in Ottawa about her workload and people assuming she can just upload her work to ChatGPT.
LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do(human-in-the-loop.bearblog.dev)
1029 points by poisonfountain | 967 comments
A personal blog post by a software engineer with 10 years of experience reflecting on how LLMs are eroding their career and their uncertainty about what to do.
I'm Tired of Talking to AI(orchidfiles.com)
1753 points by theorchid | 850 comments
A personal essay recounting frustration with people replying using copy-pasted AI answers, including on GitHub discussions and from an employer sharing ChatGPT screenshots.
The worst job interview I ever had(oliverio.dev)
587 points by oliverio | 470 comments
A personal blog post by a startup engineer recounting his worst job interview, a culture-fit interview that felt like an unsolicited psych evaluation.
We've made the world too complicated(user8.bearblog.dev)
412 points by James72689 | 383 comments
A personal blog post on Bear Blog arguing that modern society and technology have become overly complicated.
Talking to strangers at the gym(thienantran.com)
1429 points by thitran | 696 comments
A personal blog post by Thienan Tran describing an experiment of talking to 35 strangers at the gym to make friends after college.
The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner(sightlessscribbles.com)
515 points by robin_reala | 417 comments
A blog post by blind writer Robert Kingett on Sightless Scribbles recounting how he overwhelmed a bureaucrat with paperwork.
You are not your job(jry.io)
334 points by jryio | 357 comments
A personal essay arguing that software engineers shouldn't tie their identity to their job title as machines increasingly automate their work.
I'm OK being left behind, thanks(shkspr.mobi)
730 points by coinfused | 610 comments
Terence Eden's blog post arguing he is fine waiting to adopt hyped technologies like crypto and AI until they are mature, rejecting fear of being left behind.
The happiest I've ever been(ben-mini.com)
616 points by bewal416 | 336 comments
Personal essay about finding fulfillment as a volunteer youth basketball head coach in Indiana after feeling empty in a first post-college job.
I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978(wordglyph.xyz)
549 points by wordglyph | 194 comments
Personal essay by Kevin Glikmann recounting how, at age 10 in 1978, he pitched an upside-down looping roller coaster idea to Disneyland.
Teaching my neighbor to keep the volume down(idiallo.com)
692 points by firefoxd | 329 comments
Ibrahim Diallo's blog post recounting how he got a neighbor to keep their volume down, subtitled "I'm the Captain Now."
Doing the thing is doing the thing(softwaredesign.ing)
522 points by prakhar897 | 176 comments
A personal blog post by Prakhar Gupta arguing that only actually doing the work counts, and that thinking or planning about it is not the same as doing it.
I'm addicted to being useful(seangoedecke.com)
519 points by swah | 265 comments
Sean Goedecke's blog essay on loving his software engineering job because he is driven by being useful, drawing on Gogol's The Overcoat.
A4 Paper Stories(susam.net)
364 points by blenderob | 171 comments
A personal blog post by Susam Pal describing how he uses a sheet of A4 paper as an improvised measuring tool, with anecdotes.
The unbearable joy of sitting alone in a café(candost.blog)
757 points by mooreds | 425 comments
A personal blog essay about the experience and pleasure of sitting alone in a café during a staycation.
Maybe the default settings are too high(raptitude.com)
837 points by htk | 273 comments
A Raptitude blog essay titled "Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High," a personal-improvement piece suggesting we slow down our default pace of living and consuming.
I'm just having fun(jyn.dev)
457 points by lemper | 209 comments
A blog post by jyn, a compiler engineer, arguing that programming isn't a competition and that they write about technical topics simply for fun.
What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?(louplummer.lol)
393 points by speckx | 277 comments
A personal blog post on Living Out Loud asking readers about the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for them.
A Love Letter to FreeBSD(tara.sh)
401 points by rbanffy | 266 comments
A personal blog post written as a love letter to FreeBSD, praising its coherent base system, boot environments, and long-term stability.
All it takes is for one to work out(alearningaday.blog)
744 points by herbertl | 360 comments
A blog post on the A Learning a Day blog reflecting on reapplying to graduate school after rejection and the idea that only one acceptance needs to work out.
Confessions of a Software Developer: No More Self-Censorship(kerrick.blog)
335 points by Kerrick | 299 comments
A personal blog post by Kerrick in which a software developer shares professional confessions and vows to stop self-censoring.
I don't care how well your "AI" works(fokus.cool)
434 points by todsacerdoti | 562 comments
A personal blog essay by Fiona Fokus arguing against using AI chatbots for everyday tasks regardless of how well they work.
After my dad died, we found the love letters(jenn.site)
854 points by eatitraw | 389 comments
A personal blog essay on Jenneral HQ about discovering love letters among the author's late father's belongings and reflecting on her parents' arranged marriage.
My stages of learning to be a socially normal person(sashachapin.substack.com)
555 points by eatitraw | 378 comments
Sasha Chapin's Substack essay describing six stages he went through learning to overcome social awkwardness and connect with people.
Being poor vs. being broke(blog.ctms.me)
468 points by speckx | 546 comments
A personal blog essay by Dom Corriveau explaining the difference between being poor and being broke, and why advice from non-poor people often doesn't help.
My dad could still be alive, but he's not(jenn.site)
324 points by DustinEchoes | 218 comments
A personal blog post about the author's father dying of a first heart attack shortly after his 57th birthday, reflecting on how he could have survived.
I Want You to Understand Chicago(aphyr.com)
466 points by tonyg | 202 comments
A personal essay on aphyr.com by Kyle Kingsbury describing conditions in Chicago, likely concerning federal immigration enforcement operations there.
My Truck Desk(theparisreview.org)
416 points by zdw | 103 comments
A first-person essay by Bud Smith on The Paris Review blog about writing at a makeshift desk in his truck.
Tips for stroke-surviving software engineers(blog.j11y.io)
427 points by padolsey | 152 comments
A blog post by James Padolsey offering tips for software engineers who have survived a hemorrhagic stroke, particularly with residual epilepsy.
The pivot(antipope.org)
468 points by AndrewDucker | 235 comments
Blog post by author Charles Stross on his 61st birthday reflecting on a world resembling a dystopian 1970s SF novel, with billionaires colonizing space.
Greenland is a beautiful nightmare(matduggan.com)
541 points by zdw | 301 comments
A personal blog post on matduggan.com recounting the author's travel experiences in Greenland, describing it as beautiful but difficult.
Always Invite Anna(sharif.io)
959 points by walterbell | 130 comments
A personal blog essay by Sharif Shameem arguing that people who always decline invitations are often the ones who most need to keep being invited.
Grief gets an expiration date, just like us(bessstillman.substack.com)
427 points by LaurenSerino | 200 comments
A Substack personal essay by Bess Stillman about grieving her husband Jake a year after his death and how society expects grief to expire.
Notes on Managing ADHD(borretti.me)
409 points by amrrs | 211 comments
A personal essay by Fernando Borretti on managing ADHD, divided into high-level strategies and micro-level tactics for tricking yourself into productivity.
Flunking my Anthropic interview again(taylor.town)
329 points by surprisetalk | 304 comments
A personal blog post by Taylor recounting applying for Anthropic's Developer Relations role and failing the interview process a second time.
Reflections on OpenAI(calv.info)
697 points by calvinfo | 380 comments
Calvin French-Owen's blog post reflecting on the culture of working at OpenAI after leaving the company, where he worked from May 2024.
I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric(blog.danpetrolito.xyz)
552 points by dandano | 246 comments
A personal blog post by Dan Petrolito about a project he built in 2022 that reshaped how his globally dispersed friend group stays connected.
Successful people set constraints rather than chasing goals(joanwestenberg.com)
343 points by MaysonL | 182 comments
A blog essay by Joan Westenberg arguing that smart people create limits and constraints for themselves rather than chasing goals.
Thoughts on thinking(dcurt.is)
588 points by bradgessler | 367 comments
Dustin Curtis's blog essay reflecting on how AI and LLMs have made his own writing, coding, and creative thinking feel pointless.
The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything(notashelf.dev)
974 points by Lunar5227 | 401 comments
A personal blog essay about how programming skill creates a compulsion to build or fix every tool and problem one encounters.
I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt(huffpost.com)
438 points by dredmorbius | 551 comments
A HuffPost Personal essay by DJ Bracken about deciding to pay off a school's student lunch debt and what happened afterward.
A Love Letter to People Who Believe in People(swiss-miss.com)
352 points by NaOH | 104 comments
A personal essay on the Swissmiss blog by Tina Roth Eisenberg about the transformative power of enthusiasm and people who believe in others.
The blissful Zen of a good side project(joshcollinsworth.com)
497 points by ingve | 126 comments
A blog post by Josh Collinsworth reflecting on the satisfaction and calm that come from working on a good personal side project.
I stopped everything and started writing C again(kmx.io)
371 points by dvrj101 | 392 comments
A personal blog post by a longtime freelance developer explaining why they moved from Ruby on Rails and Common Lisp back to writing C.
Write to Escape Your Default Setting(kupajo.com)
370 points by kolyder | 85 comments
A personal blog essay on kupajo arguing that writing gives structure to thinking and helps escape distraction and default mental patterns.
A decade later, a decade lost (2024)(meyerweb.com)
503 points by ZeWaka | 151 comments
Eric Meyer's personal blog post reflecting on the tenth anniversary of his daughter Rebecca's death on what would have been her sixteenth birthday.
The year I didn't survive(bessstillman.substack.com)
856 points by LaurenSerino | 220 comments
Personal essay by Bess Stillman on how her husband's death from cancer and the birth of her daughter in the same year transformed her brain, body, and sense of self.
A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work(mertbulan.com)
901 points by mertbio | 827 comments
Personal blog post by Mert Bulan reflecting, a year later, on how being laid off changed his relationship with work.
I am (not) a failure: Lessons learned from six failed startup attempts(blog.rongarret.info)
491 points by lisper | 281 comments
Blog post by Ron Garret on Rondam Ramblings reflecting on lessons learned from six and a half failed startup attempts.
I Met Paul Graham Once(okayfail.com)
886 points by DamonHD | 547 comments
Personal essay by Phill Mendonça-Vieira recounting meeting Paul Graham at Y Combinator in 2015 and reflecting on feeling unsupported as a queer person in tech.
Nobody cares(grantslatton.com)
833 points by fzliu | 778 comments
A personal blog rant by Grant Slatton arguing that most people don't care about doing excellent work, citing examples like the DMV and buggy software.
I deleted my social media accounts(asylumsquare.com)
364 points by joemanaco | 398 comments
A blog post on a game studio's Backstage blog explaining why the author deleted their social media accounts and urging others to do the same.
In my life, I've witnessed three elite salespeople at work(slate.com)
447 points by mooreds | 266 comments
A Slate Life essay in which the author recounts witnessing three elite salespeople at work and reflects on sales jobs in America.
I am rich and have no idea what to do(vinay.sh)
754 points by vhiremath4 | 1259 comments
Personal blog post by a founder who sold his company, reflecting on wealth, lack of purpose, and walking away from $60m after the acquisition.
Always go to the funeral (2005)(npr.org)
462 points by NaOH | 268 comments
A 2005 NPR "This I Believe" essay by Deirdre Sullivan about her father's lesson to always attend funerals, aired on All Things Considered.