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num42 14 hours ago [-]
For no particular reason, I've been browsing HN posts from before November 30, 2022. There's a treasure trove of content from that era. Maybe I've just been hit by a wave of nostalgia.
abdallah-khalil 1 hours ago [-]
creativity for some people is about architecting solutions, teams or getting an idea to the ground, so there will be always creativity in any field in life
armchairhacker 15 hours ago [-]
Looking at https://news.ycombinator.com/show right now, it's not too bad. The #1 (Guitoro, a virtual guitar you strum with your keyboard) is definitely creative. The next 3 (budgeting, AI monitor, scraper) are boring, the next (How Random Are You?) is so-so...and the pattern continues like this.
The pessimist says creative projects are rare nowadays, an optimist says they're still coming out. You may also dislike the vibe-coded "...Craft" projects, but seemingly building a production-capable software in days is something that has never been done before and IMO inspiring.
al_borland 14 hours ago [-]
Not to be a Debby Downer, but GarageBand on iOS had a guitar like that ages ago. It is cool to see something like it in the browser, but here is a 15 year old video showing it on the iPad. While it may not be a common project, it certainly isn’t new.
I looked at that site some more and found the songs area. That’s pretty cool.
ph4rsikal 11 hours ago [-]
I think we are at the beginning of a new golden age of software engineering, but not in the way we think. The cost of creating software might go down to zero with AI. That doesn't mean that no skills are needed. Quite the opposite. If AI would create outstanding code, then it would win every Kaggle coding competition on the planet. But it doesn't.
> The cost of creating software might go down to zero with AI
Keep hearing this, but I think people focus too much on only the first part of software engineering: the producing part. But one also needs to make sure that produced software works as intended… and here engineers (as of October 2026) are as much as needed as pre AI times, if not more (one could argue that more skilled engineers are needed to review the work of decent LLMs spitting decent software but with subtle bugs)
13 hours ago [-]
muzani 2 hours ago [-]
Survivorship bias.
I was talking to someone about game development this morning. The scheduling to make a simple commercial indie game five years ago was roughly 20 hr market research, 10 hr gameplay prototyping, 10 hr art prototype, 20 hr vertical slice, 80 content & level development, 60 hr on polish. Plus some more on marketing.
Now today with AI, what has changed?
Those who follow a process may instead be spending 5 hrs on market research, 3 on prototyping, 30 on levels, and 100 hrs on polish.
These games are a little better and less painful to make. But the output is roughly the same as before.
Those who don't follow a process will spend 15 hours prototyping, 10 on polish, then find that nobody buys it and blames distribution.
But back in the past, these same people would have never reached a release point. The output of slop has multiplied enormously.
Avicebron 16 hours ago [-]
I've worked in C, used Emacs for almost two decades now, and work(ed) on plenty of SQL. We're tired, older. You either were part of the cohort who rode the wave of 150K starting salaries out of college or a bootcamp 15-20 years ago or not. And if you were, you now have graduated to making upwards of that and displacing locals out of their small rural communities because the economy is bad there and you can. Or you weren't part of that cohort and your work and hobby, which was never making tons of money, is now less likely than ever to make money and you're being displaced the former group pretending like programming is gauche.
piratesAndSons 15 hours ago [-]
C is the most perfect language, so simple yet so powerful. That’s why I like C and Arch Linux, made by and for programmers, with no stupidity tolerated. I wish I could use Arch on mobile. That would be epic.
d3Xt3r 12 hours ago [-]
Someone got Arch working (natively, no Android) on their Pixel 9 recently. Was posted to r/Linux, you should check it out.
bigyabai 15 hours ago [-]
> I wish I could use Arch on mobile.
You totally can. I've got a Termux with NixOS installed on my Android handset. There's also Phosh if you want a fully Arch-native install on your phone.
Wouldn't be my choice for a mobile OS, but I don't see any roadblocks to using it.
lancekrogers 11 hours ago [-]
If your project is too creative no one will pay attention to it and you need a crazy amount of attention to get funding now
krapp 7 hours ago [-]
Only if it doesn't use AI. If it uses AI you're basically guaranteed an audience and support at the moment.
CM30 8 hours ago [-]
I have to question if things are less creative, or whether we're just getting more 'uncreative' projects released on a regular basis. There's a flood of software being released now that AI models have become 'good' enough to build basic stuff without any prior technical knowledge, and since most software is being built by folks looking for a quick buck, it's probably not going to be all that original.
Original software is still being made, it's just buried under a flood of AI generated slop.
The average person or company's idea for a piece of software is an unoriginal spin on a likely already overdone concept.
Add this to the more technically original projects perhaps not being posted on Hacker News as often (many folks here would say the site's experienced its Eternal September moment, and a fair few of them have almost stopped using it altogether), and well, you're just seeing what moderately technical people are making with the tools of the moment.
thomasjeff1 13 hours ago [-]
One reason is that AI seems to be pushing everyone to be "fast" than "better".
akerl_ 16 hours ago [-]
You say this like there's nobody out there working on transistors or C or Emacs or Sqlite. There definitely are.
piratesAndSons 15 hours ago [-]
Look at Show HN. Literally an infant could prompt and post every single thread. It’s so simple, so stupidly repetitive, and these are so-called “products.” I wonder what the man who built SQLite for the US Navy would think when he sees someone calling themselves a software engineer while prompting a machine to build a note taker app for dogs. I would be ashamed to be seen as their equal.
JojoFatsani 15 hours ago [-]
HN is not the entire universe it turns out
KenPainter 15 hours ago [-]
I thought mine was very creative, but it never got off new show hn.
Sorry no C, Emacs. Just some database stuff.
blodkorv 10 hours ago [-]
Its not gone, just that the bar has been increased.
The pessimist says creative projects are rare nowadays, an optimist says they're still coming out. You may also dislike the vibe-coded "...Craft" projects, but seemingly building a production-capable software in days is something that has never been done before and IMO inspiring.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=E_KYUF6pxR8
Edit…
I looked at that site some more and found the songs area. That’s pretty cool.
]1] https://github.com/storytold/artcraft [2] https://huggingface.co/blog/a2aprotocol/universal-modder-a-p... [3] https://jdsemrau.substack.com/p/jamming-with-jev-and-claude-... [4]
Keep hearing this, but I think people focus too much on only the first part of software engineering: the producing part. But one also needs to make sure that produced software works as intended… and here engineers (as of October 2026) are as much as needed as pre AI times, if not more (one could argue that more skilled engineers are needed to review the work of decent LLMs spitting decent software but with subtle bugs)
I was talking to someone about game development this morning. The scheduling to make a simple commercial indie game five years ago was roughly 20 hr market research, 10 hr gameplay prototyping, 10 hr art prototype, 20 hr vertical slice, 80 content & level development, 60 hr on polish. Plus some more on marketing.
Now today with AI, what has changed?
Those who follow a process may instead be spending 5 hrs on market research, 3 on prototyping, 30 on levels, and 100 hrs on polish.
These games are a little better and less painful to make. But the output is roughly the same as before.
Those who don't follow a process will spend 15 hours prototyping, 10 on polish, then find that nobody buys it and blames distribution.
But back in the past, these same people would have never reached a release point. The output of slop has multiplied enormously.
You totally can. I've got a Termux with NixOS installed on my Android handset. There's also Phosh if you want a fully Arch-native install on your phone.
Wouldn't be my choice for a mobile OS, but I don't see any roadblocks to using it.
Original software is still being made, it's just buried under a flood of AI generated slop.
The average person or company's idea for a piece of software is an unoriginal spin on a likely already overdone concept.
Add this to the more technically original projects perhaps not being posted on Hacker News as often (many folks here would say the site's experienced its Eternal September moment, and a fair few of them have almost stopped using it altogether), and well, you're just seeing what moderately technical people are making with the tools of the moment.
Sorry no C, Emacs. Just some database stuff.