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Why must you laugh at my back end?

blog.pud.com

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Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#81

Post by mgkimsal »

JasPanesar wrote: post #25

Customers don't care what you code in. Or what your backend is like as long as it works. They just want their lives to be easier. Use what you know, use it well, and make a difference. --- Most techies who have a negative opinion about any technology do it with hearsay and not first hand experience. For examples, all web languages pretty much do the same stuff, and you'll rarely come across a web app that uses a lang…

"Most techies who have a negative opinion about any technology do it with hearsay and not first hand experience."

You'll find that even when you have first hand experience, you'll often be met with "well, you didn't do it right". Or "you need to do XYZ first - no one ever does foobar with XYZ first - are you stupid?". And so on. Even first hand experience isn't enough for some fanboys when you choose to reject their tools/languages.

Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#82

Post by benihana »

ary wrote: post #51

Cold Fusion? No, no... no . > CFML. I really like programming in CFML (a programming language, “ColdFusion Markup Language,” as opposed to ColdFusion, a commercial CFML interpreter made by Adobe). I know it’s not "cool" like Node.js or Clojure or even RoR. Doctors used to bleed people with leeches to get out the "bad humors". They stopped using that "tool" for a reason. It was a bad tool , and better "tools" came alo…

I recently left ColdFusion development and I've never been happier. IT has been my anecdotal experience that ColdFusion is an old man's game. They seem to look on newfangled things like Object Oriented programming with mistrust. This guy thinks it almost ruined his business.[1] The 'younger' guys who get into OO, seem to look at Java and think it's a good idea to have three layers of abstraction between their controller and their database wrapper that has four methods on it.[2]

I got out of ColdFusion 8 months ago into PHP, which isn't exactly known as being a hotbed of good code. I feel like just a mediocre programmer at the currently company I'm at would be a way-beyond-stellar ColdFusion developer. Of course this is all anecdotal and hearsay, but my experience is in line with yours.

[1] http://www.advantexllc.com/blog/post.cfm/how-oo-almost-destr...

[2] http://www.remotesynthesis.com/post.cfm/Objects-and-Framewor...

Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#83

Post by reinhardt »

ary wrote: post #51

Cold Fusion? No, no... no . > CFML. I really like programming in CFML (a programming language, “ColdFusion Markup Language,” as opposed to ColdFusion, a commercial CFML interpreter made by Adobe). I know it’s not "cool" like Node.js or Clojure or even RoR. Doctors used to bleed people with leeches to get out the "bad humors". They stopped using that "tool" for a reason. It was a bad tool , and better "tools" came alo…

The whole post boils down to what appears to be proud, willful ignorance.

Perhaps, but I kinda liked the contrast to the constant stream of proud, wilful "Clojure/CoffeeScript/CaramelMacciatoScript is the new black" hipster-sounding posts on HN.

Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#84

Post by zaphar »

pyninja wrote: post #76
drblast wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These are the kind of people (I kid you not) that think HTML tables are a great way to get your page layout just right. Is there are good replacement for HTML tables yet that works well in all browsers? I'm talking about for things that actually need to be laid out in a grid, which, in my experience, is many things. Grids are fairly fundamental to layout and design.

Using `display: table` is a great way to lay out your elements in a grid while keeping your HTML semantic.

who said tables aren't semantic? Tables say "Hey, I'm going to show you some things with a row column relationship now." Some times table is exactly the semantics you need. It shouldn't be your primary and only tool but if your showing a set of numbers collated and sorted by rows and columns then its pretty much semantically a perfect fit.

Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#85

Post by dusklight »

nhashem wrote: post #9

This is great. Seriously. I cut my teeth in the early 2000s writing the type of PHP code that would make your eyes bleed. Global variables everywhere. HTML/PHP/MySQL in the same file. Career-wise I ended up going down a backend/database developer path, so if I do anything with consumer-facing web applications, it's on my free time. I'm working on such an app now, and right now the fastest way I can get anything done…

Have you heard of the term "confirmation bias" before?

Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#86

Post by blantonl »

For those of you that were not around during the dot.com implosion in 2000-2001, pud (the author of this blog post) ran the notorious site http://www.fuckedcompany.com which gave an awesome view into companies that were going down the tubes during that time.

good times... good times..

Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#87

Post by humbledrone »

PedroCandeias wrote: post #56
humbledrone wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about the differences between, say, assembly language and Ruby is very different than arguing about what color is the best. I guarantee that some projects will be successful if written in one of those languages, and not the other (webapp in assembly? bootloader in Ruby?). Also, in your view, how is talking about data structures any better than talking about languages? Wouldn't that just be "indoctrinating me…

I don't think you read me right. There's nothing wrong with debating the pros and cons of a language (or whatever else), but there's a difference between discussing and preaching. I'm always open to a nice chat, but I've got little patience for preachers. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, I think we actually agree. :) I have known preachers, and you're right that there is a big difference between them and engineers that just want to find the best tool for the job.

Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#88

Post by sfk »

ary wrote: post #64
pud wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paraphrased: > Some people write crappy code in CFML. Yes. But people write crappy code in [your preferred language] too. There's nothing inherent in CFML that forces people to write bad or hard-to-understand code. > OMG can you believe some people still use TABLES??? view source

I stand by my comment. A few things to note. > Some people write crappy code in CFML. Yes. But people write crappy code in [your preferred language] too. No, I said CFML code is universally hard to understand. Even more so for people already familiar with more popular languages. > OMG can you believe some people still use TABLES??? view source. That example was given to make a point about dated skill sets. I didn't i…

Does anyone here think HN's markup is meant at all to be inspirational?

Yes, it's one of the most usable and beautiful sites on Internet.

Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#89

Post by Goladus »

pud wrote: post #41
jsdalton wrote: post #31

Some weird part of me loves this, and I don't know why. That said, I'm very confused. The post says these sites are running off of your "awesome" backend: * http://www.pud.com * http://adhdinc.com But those are just pages with links to other services? Furthermore, while some of those services (TinyLetter, FaqMe) do seem to be produced by ADHD, others (Blippy, AdBrite) do not seem to be, though it seems you claim to h…

On this stack: TinyLetter.com, FaqMe.com, and many of the other sites listed on pud.com and adhdinc.com. (and more importantly, not-yet-released stuff I'm currently working on). I co-founded both Blippy and AdBrite but did not have technical roles there, so they have nothing to do with this stack.

www.adhdinc.com shows up as black text on a black background for me (firefox 3.6 windows 7).

Using IE, it's black text on a very dark gray background. I can read it, but just barely.

Re: Why must you laugh at my back end?

#90

Post by knieveltech »

earl wrote: post #28
commandar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Countless amateur photographers spend their time discussing hardware, rather than techniques and other aspects that would benefit their craft to a much greater extent. You see the same thing among firearms enthusiasts. It's fairly common to find people that spend (tens of) thousands of dollars chasing the best gear, but won't spend $2-400 on training from a reputable instructor.

And snowboarders. People spend probably minimum $1k for clothes, boots, board and bindings; plus $70+/day for a lift ticket; but won't spend $50 to go to a group class and actually learn how to do it. And they're dangerous to everyone around them because they can't dismount a goddamn lift without falling down and probably knocking down their neighbors.

And climbers. Nothing like wading through a gibbering horde of prana wearing gumbies topropting with their $350 shiny new 70 meter bicolor ropes first thing in the morning at the crag.

And kayakers. I've lost count of the number of times I've had someone's shiny new boat (closely followed by an expanding slick of random gear) float past me on class III+ runs.

And hikers. Ever see a day hiker doing a mile and a half loop trail wearing a $350 hydration pack, $150 trail shoes clad head to toe in North Face gear?

And blacksmiths. Endless are the rants on why a $800 Beverly throatless shear is infinitely superior to an identical model from Harbor Freight that costs a mere $90.

And car enthusiasts. Ever see a $90,000 sportscar dinking around in traffic on a Saturday afternoon?

See a pattern forming? People (mistakenly or otherwise) attach prestige to the latest expensive gear, regardless of the activity in question.

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