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Depends on your domain. Facebook bugs are less costly to deploy fixes for than router firmware bugs. The specific thing I referred to as a myth, though? That

by dimino 10y ago

Depends on your domain. Facebook bugs are less costly to deploy fixes for than router firmware bugs. The specific thing I referred to as a myth, though? That is completely fabricated, the guy lied in his research. Total myth.

meowface 10y ago
A particular study being debunked does not necessarily make its hypothesis a "myth".
MichaelBurge 10y ago
I could publish a study saying smoking is bad for you, intentionally make some mistakes, and have the study withdrawn using strong words like 'fabricated' or 'lied'. The result would be a dimino-compliant way of establishing that smoking is not bad for you. Or at least, that "smoking is bad for you" is a myth. Of course, for smoking we have dozens of studies and a strong understanding of the mechanisms, so this trick wouldn't fool anyone. But, just be careful about letting fraudsters determine your opinion on a topic, whether for or against, whether they're caught or not. As for bugs specifically, there are huge benefits to being able to reason about systems as if they are bug-free. It's a PITA when your libraries, kernel, compiler, upstream API, etc. don't behave as expected. As professional software developers, we can work around them; users can sometimes get really confused when things don't work as expected. Sometimes they're scared to tell you. Smaller companies can probably bear more bugs, since they can give individual users more attention. Larger ones tend to need to work more reliably.
- dimino 10y ago
  I don't think the characterization you're making of my argument is accurate, and I don't get the sense you're interested in understanding what I'm explaining here, so I'm probably done. I'll leave you with a recommendation to read The Startup Owner's Handbook, and listen to the Stanford lectures given by Sam Altman and friends, who talk a lot more about this.

by dimino 10y ago

meowface 10y ago

A particular study being debunked does not necessarily make its hypothesis a "myth".

MichaelBurge 10y ago

I could publish a study saying smoking is bad for you, intentionally make some mistakes, and have the study withdrawn using strong words like 'fabricated' or 'lied'. The result would be a dimino-compliant way of establishing that smoking is not bad for you. Or at least, that "smoking is bad for you" is a myth. Of course, for smoking we have dozens of studies and a strong understanding of the mechanisms, so this trick wouldn't fool anyone. But, just be careful about letting fraudsters determine your opinion on a topic, whether for or against, whether they're caught or not. As for bugs specifically, there are huge benefits to being able to reason about systems as if they are bug-free. It's a PITA when your libraries, kernel, compiler, upstream API, etc. don't behave as expected. As professional software developers, we can work around them; users can sometimes get really confused when things don't work as expected. Sometimes they're scared to tell you. Smaller companies can probably bear more bugs, since they can give individual users more attention. Larger ones tend to need to work more reliably.

dimino 10y ago
I don't think the characterization you're making of my argument is accurate, and I don't get the sense you're interested in understanding what I'm explaining here, so I'm probably done. I'll leave you with a recommendation to read The Startup Owner's Handbook, and listen to the Stanford lectures given by Sam Altman and friends, who talk a lot more about this.