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Web Development: A Crazy World

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Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#171

Post by sovande »

31reasons wrote: post #120
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am amazed a rant can go English -> Mandarin -> English via half the world's tech forums, and still be recognised by its original author. But what really blows my socks off is how a tech forum in Beijing follows rants from Slovenian blog to a Californian forum and back again. And it actually matters to the Chinese because they liked it as much as we did. Welcome to the new global culture, sharing the same memepool.

This is scary, we are loosing diversity at an incredible rate.

Ironic since the original comment complaints about too much diversity. Just because a good rant is recognised across cultures does not imply a loss of diversity. Somethings are just common on this planet, like gravity.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#172

Post by jskulski »

papsosouid wrote: post #145
barredo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let's argue about whether Haskell or Clojure is better while somebody else ships products using PHP and duct tape." @agentdero https://twitter.com/agentdero/status/174965036928868352

I really dislike the anti-intellectualism in fallacious quips like that. People discussing haskell and clojure are not magically prevented from writing code as a result of their intellectual curiosity and desire to explore better tools and methods. The implication that people who are smart and use quality tools never accomplish anything or do any work is quite insidious, as newcomers start taking pride in ignorance b…

That's reading into it quite a bit.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#173

Post by Domenic_S »

bpatrianakos wrote: post #92
dvanduzer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can be significant risk in choosing unfashionable tools if upstream maintenance dies off and you aren't equipped to maintain them yourself.

No, this isn't correct. Fashionability has nothing to do with it. PHP is not fashionable - in fact I'd argue that right now it might be the most despised language around - but upstream development isn't slowing down at all but in fact speeding up and it's being improved at a very rapid pace as of late. I think choosing fashionable tools because you think upstream maintenance will continue into the future is actually…

Right, the difference between "fashionable" and "unfashionable" is just what the cool kids on HN say it is.

To take your example on a stroll, PHP is like regular (non-skinny) blue jeans. Everyone knows them, most people use them, every store carries them, at one point in history they were revolutionary, they're probably never going to go away. But the cool kids say skin-tight crazy-colored jeans are the new hotness...

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#174

Post by Domenic_S »

sbilstein wrote: post #152
barredo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let's argue about whether Haskell or Clojure is better while somebody else ships products using PHP and duct tape." @agentdero https://twitter.com/agentdero/status/174965036928868352

If one bothers to learn about tools and why they are useful, they can think a little bit deeper and understand why some intellectual argument do result in software that ships. We write Scala at my company because we've found that with the right developers who seek to understand type systems and fp we can ship fast as fuck. I'm dozens of times faster working in Scala than I ever would be in php. We want to beat the av…

That's a situation particular to you and your team, unless you're saying everyone would do a better job in scala?

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#175

Post by Domenic_S »

papsosouid wrote: post #145
barredo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let's argue about whether Haskell or Clojure is better while somebody else ships products using PHP and duct tape." @agentdero https://twitter.com/agentdero/status/174965036928868352

I really dislike the anti-intellectualism in fallacious quips like that. People discussing haskell and clojure are not magically prevented from writing code as a result of their intellectual curiosity and desire to explore better tools and methods. The implication that people who are smart and use quality tools never accomplish anything or do any work is quite insidious, as newcomers start taking pride in ignorance b…

I guess strictly speaking it's a false dilemma to say you're either arguing endlessly or shipping, but I don't really think that was the spirit of the quote. Unless there are infinite productive hours in your day you have to choose your stack and go for it, and the less boilerplate you have to do to get your stack running, the more time you'll have for productivity.

It's nuanced. We all of us owe our careers to the people who came before us asking, 'what if we could do it this way?'. But, you have to draw the line between intellectual wanking and thoughtlessness. It's a surprisingly hard line to draw - more for some than for others.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#176

Post by freshhawk »

Swizec wrote: post #128
31reasons wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is scary, we are loosing diversity at an incredible rate.

It stands to reason, therefore, that humans do not want this diversity.

Because humans are rational actors with perfect foresight?

What on earth would make you think that this leap "stands to reason"?

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#178

Post by jh3 »

metaphorm wrote: post #139
jh3 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you make this account to talk about how you think Django is awesome?

its a new account. today there was a discussion about django, and i like django. surely i'll discuss other things on other days. why do you care anyway?

I figured you created a new account in order to berate PHP and praise Django without giving away your regular HN identity.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#179

Post by thwarted »

api wrote: post #148
aditya wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with that if every service is using the right tool for the job and provides a sane API? Maybe maintenance?

A few things: (1) Code reuse, or lack thereof. (2) Multiplication of surface area for things like security bugs... now you have five different stacks to keep track of security updates for instead of just one. (3) Multiplication of deployment resources-- now you need multiple VMs, maybe multiple instances with different stacks to run them on, etc. (4) Developers can't pinch-hit for each other unless they know every da…

(5) If you sell, God help whoever has to support that stuff in your new organization.

It would be interesting to know if an acquisition fell through because due diligence revealed something like this and the purchasing entity didn't want to deal with that mess or it conflicted with their culture.

Re: Web Development: A Crazy World

#180

Post by dgesang »

purephase wrote: post #15

While some might complain or worry, this is what makes this field so fascinating. A myriad of options, toolsets and methodologies means that it is alive, open and thriving. Imagine is Adobe, Oracle or MS had won the Flash/Flex, Java or ActiveX battles, where would we have been today? As much as I use Chrome (and love it), I can't help but admire the work done by Mozilla to rescue the Netscape codebase and mould it in…

> Imagine is Adobe, Oracle or MS had won the Flash/Flex, Java or ActiveX battles, where would we have been today?

I don't know what 'would have been', but I know that we would not be where we are today (in a positive sense) without those companies and the many many technologies and products they have provided us with (even though some of them can only serve as bad examples).

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