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Goodbye Joyent

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Re: Goodbye Joyent

#31

Post by p_l »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #17
zelly wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tradeoff is that if you use unpopular software, like lisp, you can often gain more leverage in specific situations. HN’s software is the most flexible codebase I’ve ever seen, but few have ever studied it deeply. Viaweb used those principles to dominate the competition at a time when everybody was writing websites in C. But are those days gone? In Paul Graham's days, Lisp was not as unpopular as it is today. It…

Hmm. I think Viaweb was the first web application (or at least, no one's disputed that claim) and they kept their choice to use lisp a secret until acquisition. If someone else was using lisp to make websites, it seems like they must have independently rediscovered the idea. It was started in 1995 and acquired in 1998, so that wasn't a very long time for lisp to come into the public consciousness. It seems like at be…

As for Lisp - in computing circles, it was very big name, at least in places that weren't on the low-end side. The Second AI Winter was at the time heavily kicking it by association, and big name companies had just went under (Symbolics, TI shuttering Explorer line, etc.)

Re: Goodbye Joyent

#32

Post by p_l »

ludamad wrote: post #16
tw04 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a potential issue for a startup. Joyent was acquired by Samsung. They could literally hire 100 top tier devs to shadow him with the money they dropped between the couch cushions. Getting hit by a bus wasn’t ever going to be an issue if it was ever a concern.

Yet they aren't doing that, they are laying people off. When you need to reduce personnel, losing out on an information silo is definitely a concern

That's on the people doing reduction though.

There should be an active policy of reduction information siloing that is active all the time, especially for a big corporation like that.

Re: Goodbye Joyent

#33

Post by gexla »

Always interesting to hear the name Joyent again. The company has had quite the colorful history. Starting from a productivity suite I never understood to then moving into hosting to eventually becoming a major cloud computing provider.

I used some of their Solaris VM's and never had a problem getting eased in. Learning how to get around in one seemed to be just a bit more work than learning a different Linux distro.

The company was fun to be a customer of even if I did lose my Mixed Grill, later upgraded to the 3 Martini Lunch. I imagine even more fun to work for.

Re: Goodbye Joyent

#36

Post by qubex »

pushpop wrote: post #28
qubex wrote: post #9

I had to look up ‘SmartOS’ and ‘OmniOS’ because I had no idea what they are. NOTE: This isn’t meant as an insult; it’s just that often people use terms as if they were universally known. He had hyperlinks to some of the more obscure items on the list but not the key items.

I’m surprised. They were massive names in the OS scene until recently. Their lineage can be traced back to Solaris and share many of the cool technologies that Sun developers pioneered. So much so that for the first few years of SmartOS, Linux felt like a hobbyist platform in comparison due to its lack of dtrace, containerisations, ZFS, etc. Linux has come a long way since, which is a large part of the reason why Sma…

+1 for your reply and to cheer you up. I also got down-voted to hell for posting that rather innocuous comment — don’t let it get to you.

As for the element of surprise, not everybody moves in the same circles. You might be deep into server-grade operating systems, or DevOps, or other branches of information technology that are far from my daily experience. I haunt the areas associated with theoretical computer science, applied mathematics, finance, and the ins-and-outs of the (European) payments system. Each of our haunts are so vast that it’s easy to be erudite in general and yet still pretty ignorant of things others take for granted.

Re: Goodbye Joyent

#38

Post by nicholassmith »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #5

It’s kind of risky to have programmers who feel so passionately opinionated about the software that should power a business. It’s doubly tricky, because most companies pay lip service to passion. But like a chef that cares a bit too much about which cookware you use, it sometimes hinders the goal of serving 100 customers at noon. I respect that they’ve created their entire networking stack from the ground up. Few can…

> It’s doubly tricky, because most companies pay lip service to passion. But like a chef that cares a bit too much about which cookware you use, it sometimes hinders the goal of serving 100 customers at noon.

Chefs that care deeply about cookware will either go one of two ways, flame out or Michelin star.

It's a hugely risky strategy but the pay off from staffing a business with people who care incredibly deeply is potentially very high as long as they're well managed. Early days Apple is probably one of the best examples of it, but Microsoft is probably the excellent counterpoint to that as well.

Re: Goodbye Joyent

#39

Post by RantyDave »

pushpop wrote: post #28
qubex wrote: post #9

I had to look up ‘SmartOS’ and ‘OmniOS’ because I had no idea what they are. NOTE: This isn’t meant as an insult; it’s just that often people use terms as if they were universally known. He had hyperlinks to some of the more obscure items on the list but not the key items.

I’m surprised. They were massive names in the OS scene until recently. Their lineage can be traced back to Solaris and share many of the cool technologies that Sun developers pioneered. So much so that for the first few years of SmartOS, Linux felt like a hobbyist platform in comparison due to its lack of dtrace, containerisations, ZFS, etc. Linux has come a long way since, which is a large part of the reason why Sma…

I did a lot with SmartOS and, eventually, Linux got good enough. But also, Kubernetes won everything, ZFS ended up in everything, and dtrace ended up in most things. It was a thing of beauty but I can't say I ever felt like I properly understood it.

Re: Goodbye Joyent

#40

Post by RantyDave »

patkai wrote: post #26

It is the sign of terrible incompetence to downsize people like him. If you ever get hold of people with this much competence then find a clever project for them, or create a new subsidiary.

Yes, it is. But sometimes you've just got to start shutting these things down if they're not going very well.
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