Top all-time · #904
Allen Pike
Personal blog · allenpike.com · on HN as apikestartupsprogrammingcareer
Allen Pike's personal blog at allenpike.com covers startups, programming and career. Since 2011, 72 different Hacker News readers have linked it 125 times, most often “UX Entropy”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-31, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Allen Pike's essays on software and tech culture, including JavaScript framework fatigue, LLM training data, Apple's iOS design and a dial-up ISP story about automating manual processes.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Allen Pike writes about making nice software, building teams, and other tricky things.
Most-linked posts?
- UX Entropy6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2025-10-01
- A JavaScript framework on every table – Allen Pike6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2015-03-01
- Developing for iPhone Pro5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-08-01
- Giving a shit as a service4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-07-12
- The Great Bug Hunt3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-05-30
- The Curse of Dialup World3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-10-01
- We Can Do Hard Things3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-05-04
- LLMs aren't "trained on the internet" anymore3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-06-01
- Post-Chat UI2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-05-01
- iTunes: An Error Occurred2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-05-31
What Hacker News says?
I've been in a similar situation but can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Giving yourself time to feel shitty about a shitty situation is pretty normal, but if you like doing good work then your interest in the work will be motivating when you dig back into it. Lots of new areas and ideas floating around right now, and it'd be worth looking around before setting your sights on an old career trajectory. How co…
Comment linking /2022/giving-a-shit
on “Giving a shit as a service”Submitted Giving a shit as a service as a story · 603 points
HN discussion> they're just acknowledging the fact that 99% of users don't need to see 99% of the URLs they visit on a daily basis. While we're talking about things we don't need, let's include this change . The fact is, for most of the last two decades we've already had a UI where users who don't care to attend to the URL don't have to, and users who care to notice can. What does this add? Nothing. But it does take away some le…
Comment linking /2014/burying-the-url/
on “Burying the URL”Submitted Burying the URL as a story · 553 points
HN discussionWhile it would be nice to have a more complex example than a todo app, studies show that a todo list is the most complex JavaScript app you can build before a newer, better framework is invented: http://www.allenpike.com/2015/javascript-framework-fatigue/
Comment linking /2015/javascript-framework-fatigue/
on “Introducing T3: Enabling Large Scale JavaScript Applications”Submitted An Unreasonable Amount of Time as a story · 545 points
HN discussionI was thinking about this when reading an article on HN a couple weeks ago, "LLMs Aren’t Just “Trained On the Internet” Anymore" [1] (HN discussion [2]). The thesis was that it won't matter if LLMs exhaust the available corpus of text that humanity has generated thus far, because it will always be easy to pay humans to create an inexhaustible supply of more text. The article suggested that it was all going to be PhD…
Comment linking /2024/llms-trained-on-internet
on “Cheap, outsourced labour in Africa is shaping AI English”Submitted Figma Slides Is a Beautiful Disaster as a story · 422 points
HN discussion"Hello world" is doable in 3 lines instead of 5, granted. But for more complicated development.. http://www.allenpike.com/2015/javascript-framework-fatigue/ Question: is there ANY environment or language that has fantastic support and is continually improving? Any open source one?
Comment linking /2015/javascript-framework-fatigue/
on “If we stand still, we go backwards”Submitted LLMs aren't "trained on the internet" anymore as a story · 193 points
HN discussionIt is amazing how much the Apple focused bloggers resemble political spin doctors these days. Create a talking point full of pro-Apple assumptions such as iOS 7 is an resource intensive OS that only Apple could support (another currently popular talking point is "iOS 7 isn't flat, it has depth" as if other OSs don't). Of course Android mostly sells cheap phones, that is given. Doesn't matter what the actual sales fi…
Comment linking /2013/ios7-catch-me-if-you-can/
on “iOS 7 As Defense”Submitted Spending Too Much Money on a Coding Agent as a story · 155 points
HN discussionThis smaller notification size would look pretty terrible on 4" devices like the iPhone SE. In fact, it already looks kind of terrible in the mockup provided. IMO Apple is long overdue admitting that putting navigation buttons on the top bar was a mistake. Fine in the era of the original iPhone, but as phones get progressively bigger and taller, less so. The swipe back gesture works in most situations, but I was a f…
Comment linking /2017/developing-for-iphone-pro/
on “Dear Apple, please fix notifications”Submitted Unprofessionalism as a story · 151 points
HN discussionCorrected URL: https://allenpike.com/2024/llms-trained-on-internet
Comment linking /2024/llms-trained-on-internet
on “LLMs Aren't Just "Trained on the Internet" Anymore – Allen Pike”Submitted iOS 7: Catch me if you can as a story · 133 points
HN discussionJust remember to automate the manual process at some point. from https://allenpike.com/2023/dialup-world-isp : "1. When a customer submitted their signup form to Dialup World, they would add a row for that new customer to their 20,000-row Excel spreadsheet. 2.Then, they would put that signup form in a pile with all the other signup forms of customers who had signed up on that day of the month. [billing steps removed…
Comment linking /2023/dialup-world-isp
on “Ask HN: PG's 'Do Things That Don't Scale' Manual Examples”Submitted The Persistent Gravity of Cross Platform as a story · 91 points
HN discussionhttps://allenpike.com/ I’ve been writing monthly for 10 years, and otherwise for 20. Topics have ranged from product development to leadership to breakfast cereal selection techniques.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?”Submitted Navigation Should Be Boring as a story · 87 points
HN discussionSubmitted Unprofessionalism (2013) as a story · 58 points
HN discussionSubmitted JavaScript Fatigue Strikes Back as a story · 40 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why Is ChatGPT for Mac So Good? as a story · 28 points
HN discussionSubmitted A JavaScript framework on every table – Allen Pike as a story · 19 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Burgeoning Need for Focus as a story · 17 points
HN discussionSubmitted The worst app as a story · 15 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Persistent Gravity of Cross Platform as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted A JavaScript framework on every table as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted The iPad zombie as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted Post-Chat UI as a story · 5 points
HN discussion
