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This may have been one of the strongest reasons for Google Wave’s failure[0], which was alluded to many times on HN. It was too complex from the start (1M LoC),

by snazz 8y ago

This may have been one of the strongest reasons for Google Wave’s failure[0], which was alluded to many times on HN. It was too complex from the start (1M LoC), did not evolve very fast at all, started with a huge number of engineers, and was prematurely optimized (but still plagued with performance issues). As cool as Wave was from the start, Gall’s Law certainly applies to it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101201

hhs 8y ago
That's a good observation. This also makes me wonder if one key reason why Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu didn't take off was because it was too complex from the start?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- acdha 8y ago
  It was definitely the case with the Semantic Web: a much greater up-front investment with only hypothesized pay-offs down the road. Making simple things hard is rarely going to be a popular choice.
  - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
    IPv6 to a tee.
    - cr0sh 8y ago
      Could systemd be described by Gall's Law as well?
      - acdha 8y ago
        I would argue yes, that it’s a good success story: it took a welter of init scripts, supervisors, logging, event-triggered notification systems, configuration conventions, etc. and provided a single standard mechanism which is easier to work with than any one of those was on its own much less the number of combinations most systems have.
nostrademons 8y ago
Interestingly, the best ideas of Wave made their way into Google Docs, where they are frequently used today. Collaborative web-based editing, inserting images, tracking changes - we take these for granted now. Docs (and its predecessor Writely) was the working simple system. Wave was a great complex system, but it failed and then the carcass was mined for ideas that could be applied to the working simple system.
- senderista 8y ago
  Like Unix looted the corpse of MULTICS, I suppose.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    And how both Windows and Mac looted the corpse of the Alto, and MacOS X + iOS looted the corpse of NextSTEP, and Linux looted the corpse of Gnu, and Android and the iPhone looted the corpse of General Magic, and the WWW looted the corpse of Xanadu, and most modern programming languages are continuing to loot the corpse of Lisp. Actually, it seems like a lot of very successful companies get started by taking a failed project that was too complex, throwing out everything that was difficult, re-doing the core of it in a short period of time, and then slowly bolting back on the features that were discarded in hacky, inelegant ways that nonetheless work. Makes me reconsider my own possibly-too-complex-for-its-own-good startup idea to see if there's a kernel of usefulness that can be more easily achieved.
    - ilovetux 8y ago
      I agree with most of this...except the Linux/GNU thing. Early on GNU was an operating system in need of a kernel and Linux was a kernel in need of an operating system. Today we have a number of distributions which could rightfully be called GNU/Linux systems as its a symbiotic pairing of technologies.

by snazz 8y ago

hhs 8y ago

That's a good observation. This also makes me wonder if one key reason why Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu didn't take off was because it was too complex from the start?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
acdha 8y ago
It was definitely the case with the Semantic Web: a much greater up-front investment with only hypothesized pay-offs down the road. Making simple things hard is rarely going to be a popular choice.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  IPv6 to a tee.
  - cr0sh 8y ago
    Could systemd be described by Gall's Law as well?
    - acdha 8y ago
      I would argue yes, that it’s a good success story: it took a welter of init scripts, supervisors, logging, event-triggered notification systems, configuration conventions, etc. and provided a single standard mechanism which is easier to work with than any one of those was on its own much less the number of combinations most systems have.

nostrademons 8y ago

Interestingly, the best ideas of Wave made their way into Google Docs, where they are frequently used today. Collaborative web-based editing, inserting images, tracking changes - we take these for granted now. Docs (and its predecessor Writely) was the working simple system. Wave was a great complex system, but it failed and then the carcass was mined for ideas that could be applied to the working simple system.

senderista 8y ago
Like Unix looted the corpse of MULTICS, I suppose.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  And how both Windows and Mac looted the corpse of the Alto, and MacOS X + iOS looted the corpse of NextSTEP, and Linux looted the corpse of Gnu, and Android and the iPhone looted the corpse of General Magic, and the WWW looted the corpse of Xanadu, and most modern programming languages are continuing to loot the corpse of Lisp. Actually, it seems like a lot of very successful companies get started by taking a failed project that was too complex, throwing out everything that was difficult, re-doing the core of it in a short period of time, and then slowly bolting back on the features that were discarded in hacky, inelegant ways that nonetheless work. Makes me reconsider my own possibly-too-complex-for-its-own-good startup idea to see if there's a kernel of usefulness that can be more easily achieved.
  - ilovetux 8y ago
    I agree with most of this...except the Linux/GNU thing. Early on GNU was an operating system in need of a kernel and Linux was a kernel in need of an operating system. Today we have a number of distributions which could rightfully be called GNU/Linux systems as its a symbiotic pairing of technologies.