Ask HN: Where have the posts with open source projects of enthusiasts gone? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Where have the posts with open source projects of enthusiasts gone?

3 pointsFerkiHN5 comments

I saw that on HN I rarely see posts that say things like "I created a new game engine written in Rust.", or "I made a port of Doom for Nokia", where did all these posts go, why do I see something completely different now?

HN dying?

View on HN

I think "in Rust" posts in particular have experienced a bit of a backlash due to what people perceived as an excess of projects where being written in Rust is the main selling point.

As for the rest, I guess open source enthusiast projects have, for the time being at least, been replaced by AI enthusiast projects.

I can see a few cool projects on show: https://news.ycombinator.com/show

Yes, there are interesting projects there, but there are fewer of them, I don't see such enthusiasm as, for example, 2 years ago, then the projects sounded much more exciting, and now I can't feel the emotions that I once did.Maybe it's problem me?

> .... why do I see something completely different now?

Guessing fallout from no studies on how to get AI motivated about/interested in/trained on cool side project(s)? (vs. human factor of using side projects as way to learn/master/showcase talent with side effect(s) of generating a 'cool' project(s)[5]).

Alteratively, AI intended as automated assistant. So, AI has shifted the base knowledge/skill set(s) one needs to do 'cool stuff'. aka no emacs/lisp/unix for dna computer for hacker/hobbiest yet.[0][1][2][3][4]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[2] : I told AI to make me a protein. Here's what it came up with : https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01586-y

[3] : AI Models for Protein Structure Prediction : https://frontlinegenomics.com/ai-models-for-protein-structur...

[4] : AI model deciphers the code in proteins that tells them where to go : AI model deciphers the code in proteins that tells them where to go

[0] : Encoding signal propogation on topology-programmed DNA origami : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-024-01565-2

[1] : Instruction-responsive programmable assemblies with DNA origami block pieces : https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/53/1/gkae1193/7928522

[5] : Trickle Down: when doing something silly actually makes sense : https://hackaday.com/2025/07/12/trickle-down-when-doing-some...

I don't know, I didn't really notice it, because I wasn't really looking for projects, but rather looking for training on hacker news.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com