I know some people who are really hooked on to HN. There are others who did check out HN, but soon lost interest and never came back.<p>Both of the above groups contain programmers and people with other skills as well.
People who are intellectually curious about a range of topics, who don't immediately trust existing authorities/common knowledge about said topics and the types who are willing to experiment with new things, building themselves if necessary.<p>In other words, the traditional 'hacker' mindset associated with the site's title.