4 ms·

/r/iamverysmart/

by juandazapata 8y ago

/r/iamverysmart/

aaomidi 8y ago
Many products have a key person. It's not really surprising.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  I wouldn’t boast about writing software that “falls apart” by merely not having you around. Not exactly a high quality bar.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    I wouldn't read that much into it without even asking for elaboration, "it fell apart" can mean a lot of things including "they messed it up after I left". That it really just fell apart under its own weight without anyone doing anything is probably the weakest plausible interpretation of what they wrote. After all, if it brought in $100M/year yet was of low quality, why didn't they hire some people to recreate a better version of the thing real quick?
    - amnah 8y ago
      Well he did said > fell apart without me
  - mandelbrotwurst 8y ago
    Well, if he's the sole maintainer and they don't replace him, falling apart is inevitable. Software dies when its dependencies do and that doesn't imply low quality.
    - user5994461 8y ago
      Dependencies take many years to move. It's rotting slowly, not falling apart. A software that brings a hundred million dollars couldn't fall apart, the company would get guys to reboot the server and have a look. The rare cases of software suddenly dying is when the source code and/or the setup is lost. The software or the database stops one day and nobody can figure out how to start it again. There is a lot of blame to put on both development and management for reaching this situation.
  - btilly 8y ago
    That depends on why it fell apart, and what he would have done about it. Here is one possibility. The developer checked on the lead system every day, which mostly ran itself. After the developer left, they checked a few times and then stopped looking at the lead system's reports because it was always good. Then months later another team replaced a key system that the lead system needed. Nobody noticed until sales reports sucked. By the time they fond and fixed it, they lost $X million and the people who got fired got fired for not having followed the recommendation to keep the system monitored. I've seen variations of that story before. And I've seen companies get hurt because of it. Now there might be blame for the developer. But there are enough ways that the developer wouldn't deserve blame that I wouldn't assume the worst.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
fernandotakai 8y ago
this kind of comment not only is useless, but brings nothing to the discussion. not only that but, this is not reddit. citing a subreddit means nothing. and yes, some people are too important for a product.
sctb 8y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19201889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19201889.

/r/iamverysmart/

aaomidi 8y ago

Many products have a key person. It's not really surprising.

ryandrake 8y ago
I wouldn’t boast about writing software that “falls apart” by merely not having you around. Not exactly a high quality bar.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  I wouldn't read that much into it without even asking for elaboration, "it fell apart" can mean a lot of things including "they messed it up after I left". That it really just fell apart under its own weight without anyone doing anything is probably the weakest plausible interpretation of what they wrote. After all, if it brought in $100M/year yet was of low quality, why didn't they hire some people to recreate a better version of the thing real quick?
  - amnah 8y ago
    Well he did said > fell apart without me
- mandelbrotwurst 8y ago
  Well, if he's the sole maintainer and they don't replace him, falling apart is inevitable. Software dies when its dependencies do and that doesn't imply low quality.
  - user5994461 8y ago
    Dependencies take many years to move. It's rotting slowly, not falling apart. A software that brings a hundred million dollars couldn't fall apart, the company would get guys to reboot the server and have a look. The rare cases of software suddenly dying is when the source code and/or the setup is lost. The software or the database stops one day and nobody can figure out how to start it again. There is a lot of blame to put on both development and management for reaching this situation.
- btilly 8y ago
  That depends on why it fell apart, and what he would have done about it. Here is one possibility. The developer checked on the lead system every day, which mostly ran itself. After the developer left, they checked a few times and then stopped looking at the lead system's reports because it was always good. Then months later another team replaced a key system that the lead system needed. Nobody noticed until sales reports sucked. By the time they fond and fixed it, they lost $X million and the people who got fired got fired for not having followed the recommendation to keep the system monitored. I've seen variations of that story before. And I've seen companies get hurt because of it. Now there might be blame for the developer. But there are enough ways that the developer wouldn't deserve blame that I wouldn't assume the worst.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

fernandotakai 8y ago

this kind of comment not only is useless, but brings nothing to the discussion. not only that but, this is not reddit. citing a subreddit means nothing. and yes, some people are too important for a product.

sctb 8y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19201889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19201889.