A former Uber engineer's disaster story • Hacker News Board

Re: A former Uber engineer's disaster story

#341

Post by deanCommie » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #37

The "curmudgeon" ending line in this story rubs me the wrong way. The ObjC people were right, basically, and it seems like the problem was essentially no one in the right place was going to drop Swift at that point. Seems less like they weren't offering answers, so much as the answer wasn't "but we'll do some stuff and fix Swift!" Though the 6 library limit and how that wasn't a gigantic red flag on the language is b…

Being right isn't enough. You need to be able to convince people of the fact that you're right.

Maybe as a junior engineer, or an intermediate one. But not beyond that. Seniority isn't just being right more often.

Re: A former Uber engineer's disaster story

#342

Post by abenga » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #326

dntrkv wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like Alphabet is just a search engine, and Microsoft is just an operating system, and Amazon is just an online store. Companies grow into new products, services, markets, etc.

Google really is just an advertising company. Everything else "Alphabet" does is a rounding error next to ad revenue. Microsoft and Amazon have multiple profitable lines of business. Is Uber more like Google or more like Amazon? Is "Uber Eats" (underpaid contractors drive around takeaway dinners) distinct from "Uber" (underpaid contractors drive around people), or "Uber Black" (underpaid contractors with unwise car l…

> Google really is just an advertising company. Everything else > "Alphabet" does is a rounding error next to ad revenue.

It's not like people would go and visit a page with just a list of ads; no matter how little revenue the other products around ads bring in, they bring eyeballs to the ads, and serve as a moat around ads.

Re: A former Uber engineer's disaster story

#343

Post by abenga » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 12:04 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #326

dntrkv wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like Alphabet is just a search engine, and Microsoft is just an operating system, and Amazon is just an online store. Companies grow into new products, services, markets, etc.

Google really is just an advertising company. Everything else "Alphabet" does is a rounding error next to ad revenue. Microsoft and Amazon have multiple profitable lines of business. Is Uber more like Google or more like Amazon? Is "Uber Eats" (underpaid contractors drive around takeaway dinners) distinct from "Uber" (underpaid contractors drive around people), or "Uber Black" (underpaid contractors with unwise car l…

> Google really is just an advertising company. Everything else > "Alphabet" does is a rounding error next to ad revenue.

It's not like people would go and visit a page with just a bunch of ads; no matter how little revenue the other Alphabet products bring in, they bring eyeballs to the ads, and serve as a moat around ads.

Re: A former Uber engineer's disaster story

#344

Post by mpweiher » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

CyberRabbi wrote: post #316

mpweiher wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent most of my career doing rewrites, each time reluctantly, and each time it was a resounding success. So easy with the absolutes :-)

Point taken but something tells me we might have different ideas about what it means for a rewrite to succeed.

Hmmm...in one case:

- Performance (which was a major driver) improved 100x-1000x.

- Reliability (other major driver) improved ~100x

- Codebase reduced, features increased, habitability dramatically improved

- Resource usage redcued ~10-20x

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-9299-...

What would you consider a success?