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Fast

patrickcollison.com

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61–70 of 306 posts

Re: Fast

#61

Post by IshKebab »

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.

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.

Re: Fast

#62

Post by londons_explore »

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #54
crop_rotation wrote: post #23

Having worked at a top 5 big tech company from college hire to a high level position, I have seen many factors that contribute to things being much slower than a startup. Some of them might be valid, but others are just the result of tragedy of large organisations (a big tech company is surprisingly similar to governments in terms of internal bureaucracy). * Large number of people and orgs willing and fighting to tak…

> 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.

Re: Fast

#63

Post by pyrale »

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

Re: Fast

#64

Post by dmix »

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…

What are you going have consequences in the project management office of a gov contractor that probably has no real competition, besides maybe multiple years later when it's politically convenient? Fire the lower level union workers slacking off?

The fact every single major infrastructure project is a decade late and 3x over budget is just normal and tolerated by the people running the show across the US/Canada. The gov workers picking who wins these gov contracts (usually the same small set of companies) doesn't seem to care, despite extensive track records of the same behaviour. They probably have jobs lined up at these companies there afterwards.

It's only natural human behaviour to not put effort in if there's no consequences or risk in doing so. This is Public/private partnerships 101.

Re: Fast

#65

Post by m463 »

valtism wrote: post #2

> Tony Fadell was hired to create the iPod in late January 2001. Steve Jobs greenlit the project in March 2001. They hired a contract manufacturer in April 2001, announced the product in October 2001, and shipped the first production iPod to customers in November 2001, around 290 days after getting started. Source: Tony Fadell. Just 290 days for the iPod to go from idea to customer is crazy fast

I think they leveraged portalplayer and synaptics to put everything together. Still quick to market.

Re: Fast

#66

Post by gowld »

crop_rotation wrote: post #23

Having worked at a top 5 big tech company from college hire to a high level position, I have seen many factors that contribute to things being much slower than a startup. Some of them might be valid, but others are just the result of tragedy of large organisations (a big tech company is surprisingly similar to governments in terms of internal bureaucracy). * Large number of people and orgs willing and fighting to tak…

Credit is free. I love getting work when all it costs is credit.

Re: Fast

#67

Post by dmix »

AYBABTME wrote: post #60
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…

Sure, complications happened. But how efficiently was each day, each hour, used to solve these problems.

Hey if there's some delay caused by your team you can always just go back to the gov with shaking the money tin and explaining some 'unexpected outcomes'. The fact it's the same outcome every project is a feature not a bug.

Re: Fast

#68

Post by nashashmi »

By not overthinking, they come up with very quick and dirty Designs, and leave the rest for future generations to fix.

This is why we get lessons like environmental studies assessment. We become extra careful now.

Re: Fast

#69

Post by londons_explore »

soggybutter wrote: post #31
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 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 repeats.

BASIC/visual basic/VB.net went through that cycle in the 90's. C then C++ went through that in the 2010's. Python/Javascript is going through that now. Go is about to go through the same.

Re: Fast

#70

Post by soperj »

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.

Are all variables still global unless defined not to be?
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