11 ms·

> I trust the competence of the 37s dev team. I don't, in large part because this shouldn't be a complicated problem to solve.

dasil003 16y ago
Yes, in your armchair analysis that takes into account none of the issues that they've dealt with in getting where they are today, any past architectural decisions that make this particular feature difficult to implement indicate incompetence. Your confidence probably serves you well (let me guess, early 20s?), but in this case you literally don't know what you're talking about.
- latortuga 16y ago
  Are we really taking cheap shots about age now? This is not how an argument is won and not how we do things around here. Your point stands on its own without ageism.
  - dasil003 16y ago
    Fair point, but this type of hubris is far more common (and more forgivable) in youth. Is it ageist to recognize this fact?
    - vog 16y ago
      It is irrelevant and very disturbing for the discussion. So it may not be exactly ageism, but it is definitely inappropriate.
      - dasil003 16y ago
        You're right. That was a mistake on my part, I'll take it into consideration for the future.
    - mkr-hn 16y ago
      I've seen it at about the same rate in old and young. Though older people seem less likely to recognize and correct their error. But that's from personal observation, and I haven't made a point of recording my findings for analysis. I suspect you haven't either.
    - jemfinch 16y ago
      I'm not sure why you consider it hubris for me not to trust the competence of other developers without evidence.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- jemfinch 16y ago
  > (let me guess, early 20s?), No. > but in this case you literally don't know what you're talking about. I don't need to know what exact decisions they made to be able to tell that they were poor decisions. Easy things should be easy, and when they're hard, they're hard because of incompetence somewhere in the process. FWIW, I've worked on a site extremely similar to basecamp (but with far more traffic, at least according to Alexa). I'm not speaking from inexperience: if this problem is hard for 37signals, it's because of failures of the implementation, not because the problem is intrinsically hard. Engineers who don't recognize that are not ones whose competence I would put trust in.
  - kristiandupont 16y ago
    Should you implement something with an array or a linked list? That depends. Should it be fast to locate an element in the middle? Or should it be cheap to add another element regardless of the size? Ideally, both, but you weigh the pros and cons and choose one. And even if it is the right choice, you might still run into situations where the other choice would have been better and people will comment that your decision was stupid.
    - vog 16y ago
      This is not necessarily about whether the denormalized database structure is appropriate. It is more about: Why the h... doesn't their ORM, or even better their database, already take care of cascading updates? Why does it have to be implemented manually for every code that updates something? (... which is of course expensive and prone to errors)
      - gaius 16y ago
        Exactly. I can imagine that they thought they were being very clever using ORM + MySQL instead of writing SQL to run on a more mature RDBMS. Well, decisions like that often result in you painting yourself into a corner. There's a reason that MySQL is free yet people still pay for Oracle...
        16y ago

dasil003 16y ago

Yes, in your armchair analysis that takes into account none of the issues that they've dealt with in getting where they are today, any past architectural decisions that make this particular feature difficult to implement indicate incompetence. Your confidence probably serves you well (let me guess, early 20s?), but in this case you literally don't know what you're talking about.

latortuga 16y ago
Are we really taking cheap shots about age now? This is not how an argument is won and not how we do things around here. Your point stands on its own without ageism.
- dasil003 16y ago
  Fair point, but this type of hubris is far more common (and more forgivable) in youth. Is it ageist to recognize this fact?
  - vog 16y ago
    It is irrelevant and very disturbing for the discussion. So it may not be exactly ageism, but it is definitely inappropriate.
    - dasil003 16y ago
      You're right. That was a mistake on my part, I'll take it into consideration for the future.
  - mkr-hn 16y ago
    I've seen it at about the same rate in old and young. Though older people seem less likely to recognize and correct their error. But that's from personal observation, and I haven't made a point of recording my findings for analysis. I suspect you haven't either.
  - jemfinch 16y ago
    I'm not sure why you consider it hubris for me not to trust the competence of other developers without evidence.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
jemfinch 16y ago
> (let me guess, early 20s?), No. > but in this case you literally don't know what you're talking about. I don't need to know what exact decisions they made to be able to tell that they were poor decisions. Easy things should be easy, and when they're hard, they're hard because of incompetence somewhere in the process. FWIW, I've worked on a site extremely similar to basecamp (but with far more traffic, at least according to Alexa). I'm not speaking from inexperience: if this problem is hard for 37signals, it's because of failures of the implementation, not because the problem is intrinsically hard. Engineers who don't recognize that are not ones whose competence I would put trust in.
- kristiandupont 16y ago
  Should you implement something with an array or a linked list? That depends. Should it be fast to locate an element in the middle? Or should it be cheap to add another element regardless of the size? Ideally, both, but you weigh the pros and cons and choose one. And even if it is the right choice, you might still run into situations where the other choice would have been better and people will comment that your decision was stupid.
  - vog 16y ago
    This is not necessarily about whether the denormalized database structure is appropriate. It is more about: Why the h... doesn't their ORM, or even better their database, already take care of cascading updates? Why does it have to be implemented manually for every code that updates something? (... which is of course expensive and prone to errors)
    - gaius 16y ago
      Exactly. I can imagine that they thought they were being very clever using ORM + MySQL instead of writing SQL to run on a more mature RDBMS. Well, decisions like that often result in you painting yourself into a corner. There's a reason that MySQL is free yet people still pay for Oracle...
      - 16y ago