HN is mostly a finance forum. There is a veneer of "tech startup" discussion around it, but you shouldn't interpret the "hacker" to mean much besides hacking finance. Time has proved that notion right, a lot of the characteristic discourse of HN stems from economics more than hard science or code preferences.

I'd take the average comment with a grain of salt. There are talented programmers that use this site, but most users are probably not a prolific Carmack-esque SWE.