Fast • Hacker News Board

Re: Fast

#81

Post by jljljl » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #55

jljljl wrote: post #24

For the Van Ness Bus Line example: one reason there were major delays was because maps of underground sewer lines and plumbing were inaccurate, and needed to be relocated. The 6 years of construction was really a bus lane + major sewer infrastructure project. Which brings up another reason why some of these projects were Fast -- they operated in places where there there wasn't existing infrastructure or residents to…

Thats the story, but everyone who transited Van Ness during that time saw the same thing - very little work actually being done. The equipment just sat there idle most of the time. A more efficient process could have come in and finished the work, block by block in far less time if they actually, y'know, worked on it. People in construction tell me that it's because they're always waiting on the other guy to finish t…

There was a Grand Jury report analyzing the causes of the delay in the Van Ness project. While the unexpected conditions of the underground utilities is cited as the primary cause, it does touch on some project management aspects that you mention as opportunities for improvement:

https://civilgrandjury.sfgov.org/2020_2021/2021%20CGJ%20Repo...

Ironically, more planning and analysis at the beginning of the project (e.g., by potholing and inspecting the condition of utilities underneath Van Ness may have avoided the construction delays.

Re: Fast

#82

Post by chaxor » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #62

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a big tech company is surprisingly similar to governments in terms of internal bureaucracy Underrated point. It didn't really sink in for me until I saw the numbers with my own eyes. From a quick DDG search of publicly available info, here's [1] the numbers for FAANG headcount as of the end of 2022: - Meta: 86,000 - Apple: 164,000 - Amazon: 1,541,000 - Netflix: 12,800 - Google: 190,000 The numbers get a bit smaller…

Google released its search engine when it was just 2 guys. If those two guys kept working on it for the past 25 years, but hired nobody new, I wonder what their product would look like? I suspect it would still be pretty decent.

I suspect it would be substantially better. Less UX, more capability.

Re: Fast

#83

Post by post-it » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #61

skrebbel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting so old. It’s also dated, modern JS is a pretty great language.

Modern Typescript is fairly decent. Plain Javascript is still awful. And I wouldn't say either are great. I especially don't understand why Javascript doesn't have a "modern" mode where `var` and `==` are banned, prototypes are immutable, etc. You can do all that with linters but the people that need help with that stuff don't know how to set up a linter in the first place or what options to choose.

> You can do all that with linters but the people that need help with that stuff don't know how to set up a linter in the first place or what options to choose.

Then how would they know how to enable "modern" mode? Junior devs shouldn't be setting up any of that stuff anyway, they should be given a laptop with VSCode + prettier already installed, and all of the config they need should be in the project repo.

Re: Fast

#84

Post by chaxor » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #69

soggybutter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern JS is a passable language only after a tremendous amount of time and effort was invested to retrofit it as such. For all of the purported isomorphic benefits, I still don't know why anyone would choose to use it outside of being forced to in browsers

Javascript, like python, was "simple yet flexible". Thats what made them successful. When a language is successful, people start to bolt on extra bits of syntax and features (async, prototypes/classes, lambdas, etc). Eventually it is no longer simple, and the learning curve gets steeper for new users. Someone comes up with a new simple yet flexible language, all the new users start with that instead, and the cycle re…

Go was trashed just about the time they added telemetry to it inherently.

Re: Fast

#85

Post by numbsafari » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #72

soggybutter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern JS is a passable language only after a tremendous amount of time and effort was invested to retrofit it as such. For all of the purported isomorphic benefits, I still don't know why anyone would choose to use it outside of being forced to in browsers

> a tremendous amount of time and effort was invested to retrofit it as such Great things require tremendous effort and even time.

That’s why git and JS don’t really belong on this list without a massive asterisk. It’s not like JS you use today is the same as the one that took “10 days”. Same goes for git.

Re: Fast

#86

Post by rzzzt » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

jyxent wrote: post #19

dragontamer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID19 vaccine was 2021, wasn't it? Just slightly outside the decade. A lot of war-equipment got spun up in 2022 and 2023 extremely quickly, but I don't think people are talking about that. ----------- EDIT: The 2010s through 2020s were a period of incredibly low interest rates and cheap money. Most projects were thinking long-term, for good reason. When interest rates are 0% and you got free money / free borrowing,…

I guess it depends what endpoint you are talking about. The actual vaccine was pretty quick, it was the phases of testing that took longer: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000119312520...

Also the starting point. IIRC the technology already existed for SARS-CoV-1, but it went on a hiatus before producing a vaccine became necessary.

Re: Fast

#87

Post by numbsafari » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #63

I don't deny the achievements, but this article is the quintessential illustration of survivorship bias.

It’s also a great example of “headlines without reading the article”. There’s no discussion of consequences, and some of the items don’t really reflect how much work had to go on after the initial effort to make things what they are today (JS and git being prime examples).

Re: Fast

#88

Post by kybernetikos » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #62

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a big tech company is surprisingly similar to governments in terms of internal bureaucracy Underrated point. It didn't really sink in for me until I saw the numbers with my own eyes. From a quick DDG search of publicly available info, here's [1] the numbers for FAANG headcount as of the end of 2022: - Meta: 86,000 - Apple: 164,000 - Amazon: 1,541,000 - Netflix: 12,800 - Google: 190,000 The numbers get a bit smaller…

Google released its search engine when it was just 2 guys. If those two guys kept working on it for the past 25 years, but hired nobody new, I wonder what their product would look like? I suspect it would still be pretty decent.

Difficult to know. It would have been difficult for them to make money without adding an ads team. Without making money it would have been difficult for them to create the infrastructure to process the large amounts of data and change that are a big part of how google search works these days. Would a two man company focused on search have created google maps or google earth? Probably not - gathering just the data for streetview was a pretty huge undertaking. Their geographic search capabilities would probably have been nonexistent.

Re: Fast

#89

Post by lemming » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

skrebbel wrote: post #21

lemming wrote: post #15

> Brendan Eich implemented the first prototype for JavaScript in 10 days, in May 1995. And 28 years later, the world is still investing untold millions of dollars, and untold person-years of effort, working around it.

This is getting so old. It’s also dated, modern JS is a pretty great language.

I didn't say anything about JS being bad. But this article is predicated on the assumption that doing things fast is good. I think it's hard to argue that if Eich had spent 20 days (or perhaps even 30 days!!!!) we would have been in a much better place for the last couple of decades. We're not working around the fact that JS is intrinsically a bad language, we're working around the fact that it was ridiculously rushed.

Re: Fast

#90

Post by chaxor » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:38 PM UTC

JimDabell wrote: post #7

cscheid wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that saved an estimated couple of million lives comes to mind.

> from the 2010-2020 decade Depends exactly how you define this. If it’s inclusive of 2020, sure. If it isn’t, then it won’t include the COVID vaccines.

The vaccine development happened effectively in a weekend. The long period of time to develop isn't related to science, it's the bureaucracy afterwards that took so long. So depends on the definition.