4 ms·

There are two kinds of software: software no one uses, and software people complain about.

by ses1984 7y ago

notyourday 7y ago
There's also software that was created to solve a specific problem that got misappropriated to do something else There used to be an ISP called pilot.net. It was a crappy ISP but to solve its ISP billing problem it wrote a billing system for telcos. There was a company that tried competing with AWS selling hosting based on hyperthreads of CPUs. It wrote its own provisioning system because it did not want to pay for Virtuozzo. The company's name used to be dotCloud.
- otabdeveloper4 7y ago
  > There's also software that was created to solve a specific problem that got misappropriated to do something else Docker is a classic case. Docker must be the craziest, most over-engineered solution for packaging developer artifacts in the Universe.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    In the same way that Dropbox is the most over-engineered solution for file sharing, when all you need is an SVN-backed directory with curltmpfs. ;)
- oblio 7y ago
  What's the link between pilot.net and dotCloud? Did dotCloud use the billing system from pilot.net?
draw_down 7y ago
Mmm, very clever.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
james_s_tayler 7y ago
Why have I not heard this before? Brilliant. I'm going to file this right alongside "software is never finished, only abandoned"
- ses1984 7y ago
  I don't know if I would call it brilliant, it's pretty funny though. I didn't make it up. Your quote is first said about art and attributed to Da Vinci.
e_proxus 7y ago
There's also the almost never used software that people complain about being forced to use.
Kaiyou 7y ago
Also feature complete software that is regularly used by lots of people, but nobody complains about, because devs don't mess with it anymore. Think ls, grep, yes, ...
- oblio 7y ago
  Devs can't mess with it anymore, you mean? There's a myriad alternatives to ls, grep, etc. Dunno about alternatives to yes, maybe there's a si/oui/da out there? :) Sometimes the alternatives are considered superior to the originals (ripgrep) but the originals are just fossilized in place. In 2019 I don't even think we'd be able to have less as the pager instead of more, because we're so conservative about universals defaults, it's sad.
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    Well, sure. There are alternatives, but the original software stands as it is and is available out of the box. It's really useful to learn once and then use everywhere.
- ses1984 7y ago
  I will happily complain about grep. My complaints might not be valid but I'll happily do it. I hate that bsd and gnu grep are different. I can never remember when and which flag I need to pass when my expression has stuff in it the default can't handle. I don't like that it's slower than alternatives like ag. I wish it would automatically handle compressed data. Also the saying is not as pithy if you add more kinds of software.

There are two kinds of software: software no one uses, and software people complain about.

There's also software that was created to solve a specific problem that got misappropriated to do something else There used to be an ISP called pilot.net. It was a crappy ISP but to solve its ISP billing problem it wrote a billing system for telcos. There was a company that tried competing with AWS selling hosting based on hyperthreads of CPUs. It wrote its own provisioning system because it did not want to pay for Virtuozzo. The company's name used to be dotCloud.

otabdeveloper4 7y ago
> There's also software that was created to solve a specific problem that got misappropriated to do something else Docker is a classic case. Docker must be the craziest, most over-engineered solution for packaging developer artifacts in the Universe.
- majewsky 7y ago
  In the same way that Dropbox is the most over-engineered solution for file sharing, when all you need is an SVN-backed directory with curltmpfs. ;)
oblio 7y ago
What's the link between pilot.net and dotCloud? Did dotCloud use the billing system from pilot.net?

draw_down 7y ago

Mmm, very clever.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

james_s_tayler 7y ago

Why have I not heard this before? Brilliant. I'm going to file this right alongside "software is never finished, only abandoned"

ses1984 7y ago
I don't know if I would call it brilliant, it's pretty funny though. I didn't make it up. Your quote is first said about art and attributed to Da Vinci.

e_proxus 7y ago

There's also the almost never used software that people complain about being forced to use.

Kaiyou 7y ago

Also feature complete software that is regularly used by lots of people, but nobody complains about, because devs don't mess with it anymore. Think ls, grep, yes, ...

oblio 7y ago
Devs can't mess with it anymore, you mean? There's a myriad alternatives to ls, grep, etc. Dunno about alternatives to yes, maybe there's a si/oui/da out there? :) Sometimes the alternatives are considered superior to the originals (ripgrep) but the originals are just fossilized in place. In 2019 I don't even think we'd be able to have less as the pager instead of more, because we're so conservative about universals defaults, it's sad.
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  Well, sure. There are alternatives, but the original software stands as it is and is available out of the box. It's really useful to learn once and then use everywhere.
ses1984 7y ago
I will happily complain about grep. My complaints might not be valid but I'll happily do it. I hate that bsd and gnu grep are different. I can never remember when and which flag I need to pass when my expression has stuff in it the default can't handle. I don't like that it's slower than alternatives like ag. I wish it would automatically handle compressed data. Also the saying is not as pithy if you add more kinds of software.