3 ms·

How is the number of web frameworks any different from the number of possible building facades? Even if you decide you want a glass facade, there are dozens of

by gregmac 10y ago

How is the number of web frameworks any different from the number of possible building facades? Even if you decide you want a glass facade, there are dozens of companies that can build that for you, and they've all re-invented essentially the same thing. The same can be said for nearly everything else. Insulation systems, HVAC, lighting, interlocking brick, drainage...

jacquesm 10y ago
But, you would expect your house to stand upright, all the fixtures should work (and work in an expected way), the roof won't leak, your house should be solid and so on. And if it is not you'd expect the producer to put a warranty on their product. Choices made are made for aesthetic or engineering reasons or cost or some other constraint, rarely because the tech is 'fancy', 'new' or has been invented by the crew building your house. Bricks will be laid on plumb walls, the roof will be strong enough to support the expected load and so on and if any of it fails you will be surprised. Note that most of this is stuff that has already been engineered elsewhere that is is combined in some novel way, and for the most part all of the materials can be used together, are standardized as much as possible and your average build crew will be able to move on to the next job without having to re-learn their whole knowledge base because what they did last week is now so '2015' that they are essentially useless unless they get with the times. So yes, that's entirely different.
- gregmac 10y ago
  Not all software developers consider something from 2015 'old' and immediately jump to the 'fancy new' stuff that came out this week. See the discussion on "Happiness is a Boring Stack"[0] from yesterday. There are crappy new building materials that don't work (which you often don't figure out until years later when you have to replace your roof or windows or siding or doors), and there are bad crews that do crappy jobs. This is really no different from software, though I'd argue it's easier for the crappy developers to continue working. This partly has to do with your website having ugly-but-working code has little impact to your typically business owner, while having bricks that are crooked and unevenly spaced -- even though they're perfectly functional -- is highly visible to everyone. The bricklayer that does a functional-but-ugly job gets a bad reputation immediately. The website developer that does the same thing isn't found out until much later when you have to modify the code. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12788804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12788804
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    > This is really no different from software, though I'd argue it's easier for the crappy developers to continue working. This partly has to do with your website having ugly-but-working code has little impact to your typically business owner, while having bricks that are crooked and unevenly spaced -- even though they're perfectly functional -- is highly visible to everyone. But in the wonderful world of e-commerce those unevenly spaced bricks are roughly the equivalent of the gap a skilled hackers needs to enter your store or to raid your db. Also, it is probably important to make the distinction between engineers and contractors, engineers design stuff, contractors execute the designs. In the software world we used to have these people called systems analysts, they would be roughly the equivalent of engineers, whereas the programmers were more comparable to bricklayers. Then for a while we had 'analysts-programmers' and now the whole analyst bit has disappeared. This is a pity because I think it was a very valuable role and worthy of being an independent discipline because I believe that there were people that were good at these different aspects of the work but rarely really good at both.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      In software, programmers are the engineers, and the compiler is the contractor. The software equivalent of brick laying was automated away long, long time ago.
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        A compiler is merely a powertool, not the contractor, anything it does you could do by hand but slower. We've tried (several times) to create the software equivalent of brick laying aka 4th generation languages but to date they have all failed to attract mainstream attention, mostly because they simply don't work well: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24308/fourth-generation-programming-language-4gl https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24308/fourth-generatio...
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        > A compiler is merely a powertool, not the contractor, anything it does you could do by hand but slower. Only in a sense in which you could do all the things a contractor does yourself, but slower. In both cases, you'd need to first learn what the compiler/contractor is doing. If anything, the compiler is a powertool that automates away the contractor completely. I dislike comparisons of software to construction and civil engineering anyway. The two seem nothing like software. They have nowhere near enough (literally) moving parts to reflect the way software works. The closest thing to a comparable discipline that comes to my mind would be designing and building jet engines.

by gregmac 10y ago

jacquesm 10y ago

But, you would expect your house to stand upright, all the fixtures should work (and work in an expected way), the roof won't leak, your house should be solid and so on. And if it is not you'd expect the producer to put a warranty on their product. Choices made are made for aesthetic or engineering reasons or cost or some other constraint, rarely because the tech is 'fancy', 'new' or has been invented by the crew building your house. Bricks will be laid on plumb walls, the roof will be strong enough to support the expected load and so on and if any of it fails you will be surprised. Note that most of this is stuff that has already been engineered elsewhere that is is combined in some novel way, and for the most part all of the materials can be used together, are standardized as much as possible and your average build crew will be able to move on to the next job without having to re-learn their whole knowledge base because what they did last week is now so '2015' that they are essentially useless unless they get with the times. So yes, that's entirely different.

gregmac 10y ago
Not all software developers consider something from 2015 'old' and immediately jump to the 'fancy new' stuff that came out this week. See the discussion on "Happiness is a Boring Stack"[0] from yesterday. There are crappy new building materials that don't work (which you often don't figure out until years later when you have to replace your roof or windows or siding or doors), and there are bad crews that do crappy jobs. This is really no different from software, though I'd argue it's easier for the crappy developers to continue working. This partly has to do with your website having ugly-but-working code has little impact to your typically business owner, while having bricks that are crooked and unevenly spaced -- even though they're perfectly functional -- is highly visible to everyone. The bricklayer that does a functional-but-ugly job gets a bad reputation immediately. The website developer that does the same thing isn't found out until much later when you have to modify the code. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12788804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12788804
- jacquesm 10y ago
  > This is really no different from software, though I'd argue it's easier for the crappy developers to continue working. This partly has to do with your website having ugly-but-working code has little impact to your typically business owner, while having bricks that are crooked and unevenly spaced -- even though they're perfectly functional -- is highly visible to everyone. But in the wonderful world of e-commerce those unevenly spaced bricks are roughly the equivalent of the gap a skilled hackers needs to enter your store or to raid your db. Also, it is probably important to make the distinction between engineers and contractors, engineers design stuff, contractors execute the designs. In the software world we used to have these people called systems analysts, they would be roughly the equivalent of engineers, whereas the programmers were more comparable to bricklayers. Then for a while we had 'analysts-programmers' and now the whole analyst bit has disappeared. This is a pity because I think it was a very valuable role and worthy of being an independent discipline because I believe that there were people that were good at these different aspects of the work but rarely really good at both.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    In software, programmers are the engineers, and the compiler is the contractor. The software equivalent of brick laying was automated away long, long time ago.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      A compiler is merely a powertool, not the contractor, anything it does you could do by hand but slower. We've tried (several times) to create the software equivalent of brick laying aka 4th generation languages but to date they have all failed to attract mainstream attention, mostly because they simply don't work well: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24308/fourth-generation-programming-language-4gl https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24308/fourth-generatio...
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        > A compiler is merely a powertool, not the contractor, anything it does you could do by hand but slower. Only in a sense in which you could do all the things a contractor does yourself, but slower. In both cases, you'd need to first learn what the compiler/contractor is doing. If anything, the compiler is a powertool that automates away the contractor completely. I dislike comparisons of software to construction and civil engineering anyway. The two seem nothing like software. They have nowhere near enough (literally) moving parts to reflect the way software works. The closest thing to a comparable discipline that comes to my mind would be designing and building jet engines.