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Slack also grew out of the team that made Glitch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game) That core

Slack also grew out of the team that made Glitch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game) That core team therefore had a lot of frontend web dev experience. It made sense that they'd stick to their strengths

stephenr 7y ago
The performance and resource usage of slack both on the desktop and in a browser indicates that “front end code” is not their strength.
- SkyMarshal 7y ago
  Creating a web app with a multi-billion dollar valuation indicates it is their strength. Who cares about a little superfluous memory usage compared to that.
  - nameismypw 7y ago
    Developers who respect their work, for one.
  - sixstringtheory 7y ago
    Drilling and refining fossil fuels are BP's strengths, who cares about a little oil spilling into the environment? Can you see how maybe other people might have valid concerns about the effects of a product, and ask for more rigor in the company's processes?
    - SkyMarshal 7y ago
      >Drilling and refining fossil fuels are BP's strengths, who cares about a little oil spilling into the environment? That's perhaps the most tortured analogy I've ever heard. I can't even begin to fathom how you think that's comparable or relevant.
      - sixstringtheory 7y ago
        Ah, a popular strawman tactic these days: attack the analogy. Sounds like it got my point across. You just don’t like the point.
  - beatgammit 7y ago
    Slack didn't win because it was better, it won because businesses thought they were better. That's how most business software works: it creates a problem in the customer's mind in such a way as the customer naturally sees the product as the solution. Slack is successful because of marketing, not technical superiority. I worked at a small company that used Google Talk for office chat, and us developers complained because it was difficult to have a group conversation with. We started using Discord (we were familiar with it and liked the dark theme) and it caught on and we were quite productive with it. Our business types saw it and decided to "formalize" it, so they picked Slack and rolled it out company wide. Most people actually preferred Discord, but the business types preferred Slack (probably mostly because of marketing), and now we're all using Slack. Now, Slack also didn't royally screw up as it scaled up (outages were rare and transparently reported), which is a credit to the developers and PR people. That being said, just because something is successful doesn't mean it's good; it could be, but that's tangential to the topic at hand.

stephenr 7y ago

The performance and resource usage of slack both on the desktop and in a browser indicates that “front end code” is not their strength.

SkyMarshal 7y ago
Creating a web app with a multi-billion dollar valuation indicates it is their strength. Who cares about a little superfluous memory usage compared to that.
- nameismypw 7y ago
  Developers who respect their work, for one.
- sixstringtheory 7y ago
  Drilling and refining fossil fuels are BP's strengths, who cares about a little oil spilling into the environment? Can you see how maybe other people might have valid concerns about the effects of a product, and ask for more rigor in the company's processes?
  - SkyMarshal 7y ago
    >Drilling and refining fossil fuels are BP's strengths, who cares about a little oil spilling into the environment? That's perhaps the most tortured analogy I've ever heard. I can't even begin to fathom how you think that's comparable or relevant.
    - sixstringtheory 7y ago
      Ah, a popular strawman tactic these days: attack the analogy. Sounds like it got my point across. You just don’t like the point.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  Slack didn't win because it was better, it won because businesses thought they were better. That's how most business software works: it creates a problem in the customer's mind in such a way as the customer naturally sees the product as the solution. Slack is successful because of marketing, not technical superiority. I worked at a small company that used Google Talk for office chat, and us developers complained because it was difficult to have a group conversation with. We started using Discord (we were familiar with it and liked the dark theme) and it caught on and we were quite productive with it. Our business types saw it and decided to "formalize" it, so they picked Slack and rolled it out company wide. Most people actually preferred Discord, but the business types preferred Slack (probably mostly because of marketing), and now we're all using Slack. Now, Slack also didn't royally screw up as it scaled up (outages were rare and transparently reported), which is a credit to the developers and PR people. That being said, just because something is successful doesn't mean it's good; it could be, but that's tangential to the topic at hand.