A lively discussion titled "Ask HN: What are your favorite blogs not about AI?" on the Hacker News forum recently garnered significant attention from the global software development community. This topic quickly became a focal point, clearly reflecting the "AI fatigue" wave among programmers who are actively seeking traditional, high-quality technical knowledge sources outside the current artificial intelligence hype.
Context & Causes
Over the past two years, the generative artificial intelligence wave has dominated almost every corner of tech media. From major news outlets to developers' personal blogs, articles about large language models (LLMs), prompt engineering, and AI agents are everywhere. This saturation has inadvertently created an information barrier for engineers seeking deep knowledge on system architecture, performance optimization, or simply practical programming insights unaffected by tech marketing. According to discussions on Hacker News, users are showing a strong desire for sustainable content that does not fluctuate with short-term trends.
Detailed Developments
The thread opened up a treasure trove of diverse blog recommendations from the community. Many veteran developers shared personal websites focusing deeply on system programming, low-level game development, or traditional database administration. A common feature of these highly-rated blogs is their profound personalization, focusing on solving practical engineering problems rather than chasing trendy buzzwords. Hacker News readers actively shared and discussed deep-dive articles by long-time systems engineers, where knowledge has been distilled over decades of real-world experience.
Technical Analysis & Technology
On the technical side, managing and finding these blogs also reflects an interesting technological trend: the revival of the RSS protocol and self-hosted news aggregators. To avoid content distribution algorithms dominated by AI and advertising on modern social media platforms, many developers are returning to classic RSS readers. They build manual filters or curated lists hosted directly on GitHub. The recommended blogs often use static site generators like Hugo, Jekyll, or Eleventy, minimizing the user interface and omitting ad tracking scripts to optimize page load speeds and deliver the most focused reading experience for developers.
Expert Opinions & Insights
Many tech analysts point out that this reaction from the Hacker News community does not mean they reject the role of AI. Instead, it represents a natural filtering mechanism of the information market. When a technology becomes overly pervasive and commercialized, the value of foundational knowledge—such as data structures, basic algorithms, system security, and computer networking—becomes even more appreciated. Some prominent voices in the thread noted that reading non-AI-related blogs helps them maintain independent programming thinking, free from reliance on automated tools that sometimes generate suboptimal code.
Impact & Future
The trend of searching for non-AI resources promises to further drive the growth of the personal web movement (Indie Web). For the tech community in Vietnam, this serves as an important hint for building high-quality technical content. Instead of chasing saturated AI topics, Vietnamese engineers can establish their presence by sharing deep, real-world experiences in system optimization, embedded programming, or cybersecurity. These authentic values will not only help develop a sustainable community but also provide a solid foundation amidst the rapid changes of global technology trends.