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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why take them apart? Just move them like regular furniture.
Depending on the piece they may not survive the structural stresses, especially the lower end models.
Another lesson of Ikea is that often you cannot move them from one home/apartment to another, because if you try to take it apart and then reassemble it, it's never the same. To extend this via analogy to the software realm, a deep refactoring is problematic whereas OTOH a complete rewrite is a better idea. Which has not borne borne out by industry experience.
I have moved many times with Ikea furniture and purchased it used with no problems. Ikea furniture is some of the most disassemble and reassemble-able furniture I've seen.
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Anecdotally I have had trouble reconciling this seemingly prevalent "you can't disassemble Ikea furniture" with my own experience. It's not made for it sure but bookshelves, bed frames and tables can all be reassembled reasonably well. Anything smaller you can just put in the truck when moving.
For bookshelves in particular (and wardrobes which have it too), I've found that trying to remove the nailed-in particleboard from the back usually goes really poorly. For furniture that doesn't have that, I agree with you.
And lastly, have a 90° gage to make sure all corners have right angles. This is very crucial. Sometimes floors are uneven and trick you into assembling the furniture askewed
Another lesson of Ikea is that often you cannot move them from one home/apartment to another, because if you try to take it apart and then reassemble it, it's never the same. To extend this via analogy to the software realm, a deep refactoring is problematic whereas OTOH a complete rewrite is a better idea. Which has not borne borne out by industry experience.
> Another lesson of Ikea is that often you cannot move them from one home/apartment to another, because if you try to take it apart and then reassemble it, it's never the same. My IKEA desk has survived 13 moves since 2005...
Another lesson of Ikea is that often you cannot move them from one home/apartment to another, because if you try to take it apart and then reassemble it, it's never the same. To extend this via analogy to the software realm, a deep refactoring is problematic whereas OTOH a complete rewrite is a better idea. Which has not borne borne out by industry experience.
At least with a deep refactoring, if done right, the product continues to make money. In hindsight, I should've spent that 2.5 years at my previous job refactoring, optimizing and modernizing the existing PHP + Dojo codebase, instead of try to rewrite it in Go + React.
Sure, the API was a factor 100 faster, the UI was faster and more responsive, the whole thing was future-proof for the next decade. But after 2.5 years I was only about 20-30% there in terms of feature parity. The existing codebase was one guy over the span of 7-8 years. I asked for reinforcements but never got them, only after two years did they carefully start putting up ads on e.g. monsterboard. You can see why I called it quits.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have moved many times with Ikea furniture and purchased it used with no problems. Ikea furniture is some of the most disassemble and reassemble-able furniture I've seen.
IKEA has different levels of "robustness" in their products. The Broder and Värde product lines (both no longer offered) are almost industrial strength and you can be sure that they will survive many relocations, while others, especially cabinest with flimsy backs that are tacked with nails may not survive moving even once.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IKEA has different levels of "robustness" in their products. The Broder and Värde product lines (both no longer offered) are almost industrial strength and you can be sure that they will survive many relocations, while others, especially cabinest with flimsy backs that are tacked with nails may not survive moving even once.
YMMV, but I have succesfully moved such a wardrobe (disassembled, obviously - I pulled all the nails out and removed the "flimsy" back, then removed and packed the rest of the frame). It survived just fine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depending on the piece they may not survive the structural stresses, especially the lower end models.
I've never had a piece of ikea equipment where that applies, I'm typing this on my ikea desk from 2011, next to a 2x2 kallax and another 2x4 kallax that have moved 5 and 3 times respectively.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
YMMV, but I have succesfully moved such a wardrobe (disassembled, obviously - I pulled all the nails out and removed the "flimsy" back, then removed and packed the rest of the frame). It survived just fine.
What's the secret to pull those tiny nails?
Author here! Thanks for sharing :)
The other aspect of IKEA that is criminally underrepresented in software that I really feel like should be a part of this article is having an incredibly succinct and universal DSL for documentation. Say what you will about the memes about people not being able to build IKEA furniture because they can’t follow the documentation. Once you understand the DSL, you’ll truly understand how incredible their documentation r…
I guess that's great if you build IKEA furniture for a living.
I'm doing that only about once a year and don't remember all the subtleties of the DSL. Just a week ago I got caught by something which was differentiated by 2 different shades of gray which I unfortunately did not notice the first time around.
This point applies to computer DSLs as well - if your users don't write your DSL at least monthly, then the DSL might be more trouble than it's worth.