Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Good software knows when to stop

ogirardot.writizzy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 304 posts

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#111

Post by theorchid »

ssaboum wrote: post #3
theorchid wrote: post #2

Oracle Database has now been renamed Oracle AI Database. But I think that in time, they will rename it back to Oracle Database. The hype will pass, but the AI will remain, and the name will no longer need to include the AI prefix. AI will just become the norm.

not exactly what we're asking of database, don't you think ?

We want to maintain the status quo in technology. We want databases to remain as they were five years ago. But for some reason, Oracle implemented AI into its database. Perhaps they surveyed their customers, and most of them supported this initiative. Perhaps they surveyed the wrong audience, and real database users do not want to see AI in them. Or maybe they made this decision to get more investment or because of the hype around AI.

But the decision has been made. And if AI remains in databases after the AI hype, the next generation of developers will no longer know databases without AI. That's why I said it will become the norm. But that's just my guess. Unfortunately, I can't see the future. I don't know what it will actually be like in a few years.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#112

Post by hinkley »

lithobraking wrote: post #84
john_strinlai wrote: post #12

> Ignore feature requests — don't build what users ask for; understand the underlying problem instead not quite in the same area, but this advice reminds me of blizzard and world of warcraft. for years and years, people requested a "classic" WoW (for non-players, the classic version is an almost bug-for-bug copy of the original 2004-2005 version of the game). for years and years, the reply from blizzard was "you thin…

On this note, I'm seeing this pattern crop up in retail WoW addons. (It's maybe an even more literal interpenetration of the title.) Many of the newer addons are heavy vibe-coded due to last-minute WoW API changes, like ArcUI. The addons have _so_ many ways to customize displays that their configuration menus look like lovecraftian B2B products with endless lists of fields, sliders, and dropdowns. I hear a lot of com…

WoW at least figured out sometime around Pandaria or the previous expansion that they needed to launch the game engine changes a month or so before the full release and do beta servers so add on designers had time to adapt to api changes before everyone was trying to make World First achievements happen. It also probably saved their download servers from being slammed.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#113

Post by cwoolfe »

"know the role and place your software fits in" yes! Probably one of the most important lessons of my career. As a junior dev starting out, I had no idea how my software fit into the company's product let alone into the entire ecosystem of what was already available and open source. Now as a senior, I see juniors making the same mistake that naturally arises out of this: needlessly doing things that have already been done or re-inventing the wheel. And now that coding ability is a cheap commodity, product development, and knowing where you fit into the ecosystem becomes the main skillset.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#114

Post by hinkley »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #75
john_strinlai wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that distinction sort of misses the point i was trying to make. sometimes users want something . that something might be a feature request, or it might be a feature removal. it doesnt really matter for the sake of my point(s): a) ignoring your users requests can sometimes be a bad choice. b) you might not necessarily understand every underlying problem that every user has. worse, you might think you understand the pr…

Sid Meier has talked about something similar: he likes to tell designers at Firaxis that "feedback is fact". That is, no matter how strongly you (the designer) believe that something is a good design, if the player says "this isn't fun" then that needs to be taken as the gospel truth. The players might not be able to explain why it isn't fun, and you might be able to tweak the design to make it fun, but what you can'…

What I’ve found is key to UI design is to take this a step farther. Users will often try to explain why it isn’t what they want and they will be wrong about the explanation.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#115

Post by bikelang »

grim_io wrote: post #104
keerthiko wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I may play your game if you trim away a core appeal factor for the people who already play your game by splitting the active player base" is not that convincing a feature request to a gamedev. Many live service games that are punishing for new players are still thriving like LoL and DOTA2. Much that punish-factor can be resolved by good matchmaking, putting new players mostly with each other.

I thought the core appeal was the loot that you get from the PvE. But I'm just an interested outsider, waiting for the crashing player numbers for the devs to come to their senses.

The loot itself is - quite literally - mostly trash. Sometimes you may find a high end weapon (although usually that comes from PvP…) - but typically you’re just bringing stuff back to put in your scrap hoard. The PvP is really the highlight - which is not to say it’s all about fighting to the death (certainly you can do that) but instead making friends with morally ambiguous strangers to fight the biggest robots. They may be a friend, they may be a jerk, they may be YOUR jerk. Sometimes the entire map will come together to take down a gigantic robot - but after that robot dies? It may be every man for himself in a huge firefight - or it might be a big party.

That’s the core draw - and it’s not necessarily for everyone.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#116

Post by bigyabai »

grim_io wrote: post #104
keerthiko wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I may play your game if you trim away a core appeal factor for the people who already play your game by splitting the active player base" is not that convincing a feature request to a gamedev. Many live service games that are punishing for new players are still thriving like LoL and DOTA2. Much that punish-factor can be resolved by good matchmaking, putting new players mostly with each other.

I thought the core appeal was the loot that you get from the PvE. But I'm just an interested outsider, waiting for the crashing player numbers for the devs to come to their senses.

There are much better games for PvE looting, honestly. My recommendation is the STALKER: Anomaly modpacks like EFP and GAMMA, both of which are free downloads.

Trying to make ARC Raiders into a PvE shooter would require every map and enemy to get reworked for low-population gameplay. The game just isn't built for it, and their effort is better invested in catering to the preexisting playerbase.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#117

Post by JackSlateur »

john_strinlai wrote: post #12

> Ignore feature requests — don't build what users ask for; understand the underlying problem instead not quite in the same area, but this advice reminds me of blizzard and world of warcraft. for years and years, people requested a "classic" WoW (for non-players, the classic version is an almost bug-for-bug copy of the original 2004-2005 version of the game). for years and years, the reply from blizzard was "you thin…

And the underlying problem is that newer world of warcraft sucks, no ? So when people ask "give us wow classic", what they really want is "give us a nice version of the game"

And the team failed to do that multiple times

Is this wrong ? Probably

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#118

Post by Waterluvian »

john_strinlai wrote: post #12

> Ignore feature requests — don't build what users ask for; understand the underlying problem instead not quite in the same area, but this advice reminds me of blizzard and world of warcraft. for years and years, people requested a "classic" WoW (for non-players, the classic version is an almost bug-for-bug copy of the original 2004-2005 version of the game). for years and years, the reply from blizzard was "you thin…

I think there's possibly more to it. Many, many years passed and the people asking for it changed over time. There's a big difference between, "I wish I could go back 4 years and re-experience it all" and "I wish I could go back 20 years and re-experience it all."

I also wonder if maybe they were generally correct. What percentage of people asking for WoW Classic back in the day actually ended up there?

It's kind of like if my dad encouraged me at 17 to get a minivan because I'm going to want a minivan. And then I'm 35 with kids and I get a minivan and he says, "see? I was always right!"

Another way of reasoning about it is to reframe it as a shared problem: "What should we do with the resources we're committing to WoW?" "Do WoW Classic!" probably was a wrong answer for a long time if the goal is to make the most people happy (and make the most money) rather than make the loudest people happy. This quickly gets into how users (especially tech savvy ones) generally have no clue how things work and have zero sense of the associated cost. WoW was constantly full of people with quick opinions on how hard it should be for a multi-dollar company to do certain things. No appreciation for the mythical man-style difficulties associated with distractions and pivots and whatnot.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#120

Post by layer8 »

kube-system wrote: post #74
theorchid wrote: post #2

Oracle Database has now been renamed Oracle AI Database. But I think that in time, they will rename it back to Oracle Database. The hype will pass, but the AI will remain, and the name will no longer need to include the AI prefix. AI will just become the norm.

That never happened to JavaScript. It still has Java in the name long after the Java hype ended. We never went back to calling it LiveScript.

Well, there was an attempt of sorts with EcmaScript.
Post reply on HN