It may be an indicator of popularity / mindshare of certain ideas. It says little about the ideas' substance, but may still be very important in practice, if you deal with people.
The git cli tool is mentioned countless times over many years on HN, surely an indicator that it’s in popular use by the commentatorship here.
I’ve seen many (seemingly informed) mentions of the jj cli tool in the last year — not unreasonable to conclude interest in it is growing among folks here, and enough to pique my curiosity.
I responded to:
This is the second time [I’ve seen that] someone has recommended this book on HN
