From the D Blog: A Pattern for Head-mutable Structures

[Mike Parker]

On Friday, 26 June 2020 at 07:35:17 UTC, JN wrote:
>
>
> Here's some examples of blog posts that got popular on reddit 
> last week. They're short enough and can be understood without 
> deep understanding of the language:

We've had long, D-specific posts be successful on reddit on more 
than one occasion. On HN as well. Sometimes they catch on, 
sometimes they don't. I always aim for an optimal window on 
reddit [1] and sometimes use an alternative, catchier title if it 
fits (I learned a valuable lesson with Liran's interview when I 
didn't include "the World's Fastest File System" in the reddit 
post -- I used it on HN and it hit big).

But I've noticed these days that most of our successful blog 
posts have a slow burn on reddit. They stay in the low teens for 
a day or so and then start to tick up. More interesting to me is 
the upvote *rate*. Anything over 75% makes me happy. As I write, 
Simen's post has 14 upvotes and an 82% upvote rate. And no D 
bashing in the comments. In my book, that's a successful post.

HN is always hit or miss. Unlike /r/programming, the HN front 
page changes rapidly. When a post catches on, it's always big. 
Otherwise it fades away quickly. From what I can tell it's mostly 
a matter of timing there. Also, if I don't share a post on HN, 
someone else inevitably will. And it's the same story: big or 
nothing.

[1] 
https://dashboard.laterforreddit.com/analysis/?subreddit=%2Fr%2Fprogramming&threshold=5