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It's a shot across the bow at the Kool-Aid which everyone here has imbibed to some extent. Of course they're going to shoot the messenger. When I clicked this t

by bfb09 6y ago

It's a shot across the bow at the Kool-Aid which everyone here has imbibed to some extent. Of course they're going to shoot the messenger. When I clicked this thread I said out loud to my team, "oh, this should be good," and I hadn't even fathomed precisely how predictable the discussion would be. It's so far removed from any consideration that it lands something like explaining to an American that they're a subject of the Queen. It makes no sense to objectively review the thinking when you're inside, and buy, the thinking. Bear in mind the livelihood of nearly everyone participating in this conversation is impacted by the situation being lamented. It's telling that CoreOS employees felt compelled to set the record straight and casually "float ideas". It's further curious to note the difference in HN's reaction to an extremely salty and offensive post from, say, Linus Torvalds, versus this one. People are really bad at objectively setting aside their ideology and tone is a kind excuse to get out of having to genuinely think about whether the angry individual might have a point, and when it hits close to home, well. All bets are off. You're 100% correct on your overarching point but the less kind interpretation is "the incentives of modern software engineering value complexity to artificially strengthen a software engineering job economy". The good news is that the more Big Tech screws the pooch with user data management and software engineering, the stronger an argument I have among very receptive ears in government circles to start thinking of Big Web/FAANG as hostile to responsible computing innovation, because they never really bought what Mikey sold them, and the troupe that followed Mikey to Washington didn't hang around to explain the downsides or long-term management needs of the current landscape.

mekoka 6y ago
You should also consider that the contrarian nature of HN would set it up to exactly the opposite reaction had the post expressed the reverse of its current positions. The big irony is that it's not inconceivable that it would involve some of the same actors voicing different opinions. > "the incentives of modern software engineering value complexity to artificially strengthen a software engineering job economy" Not sure I would agree. Hanlon's razor comes to mind. To me, the referred complexity is reminiscent of a number of other complex patterns that somehow found their ways in software engineering, out of possibly good intentions. Regardless, an idea needs to be sold and when the marketing is well executed the community will ingest the kool-aid. Which it then tries to digest for a few years. Then begins a game of chicken that consists in not being the first to admit that you're in pain, out of fear of being branded an infidel, or out of sunk cost bias. Eventually a few courageous and influential souls finally spit it out in disgust and scream "wtf is this shit?!?" Then the rest awakes from the common stupor and a holy war ensues. I still remember SOAP. I still remember with what verve I was sold Scrum. As for Kubernetes, only time will tell.
- sriku 6y ago
  > " that somehow found their ways in software engineering, out of possibly good intentions" It seems that systems and principles invented for some specific situations get rapidly entrenched as "best practice" due to the wild success of their root corporations. That's twisted much like fashion - "that dress looks great on that model, maybe if I wear that dress, I would look good too".
  - solidasparagus 6y ago
    There's some truth in that, but there's more to it. Successful tech companies build good tech that is often worth adopting: - the companies' successes are often predicated on strong ability to develop technologies - good (well-maintained) technology requires resources and the successful tech companies have those resources.
    - sriku 6y ago
      Valid. The "fashion" point was more about P(adoption worthy tech | successful originator) != P(successful originator | adoption worthy tech)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mdickers47 6y ago
cool story bro. I have no idea what you think I "sold" Washington, but anyone who has kubernetes never talked to me.
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
I think it's pretty drastic to say "everyone here has imbibed" that Kool-Aid; I work in embedded, and am not super familiar with the frameworks he's complaining about, but I found the blog post entertaining nonetheless. Sometimes I feel like the people who are deep down in this "full stack developer" land should come up for air and look around at the bigger picture. There's a much bigger world of software development out there and actually I think this post was kind of an attempt at that. The web-facing industry seems to have dug itself down into a very deep rabbit hole of frameworks-on-frameworks-on-buzzwords, in a way it wasn't 10 years ago when I last played in that space. It looks very weird over there from over here :-)
- bfb09 6y ago
  Rest assured that I am firmly in your camp, and I've been tirelessly making the argument to policymakers that Big Web is not the resident innovative force in computing any more, despite the Obama administration's rapid adoption of their ideals and philosophy to salvage Healthcare.gov. In both the legislative and executive branches I have found many, many sympathetic ears who have been burned by ballooning budgets to handle public cloud and all the concerns that came with it, which folks who advocate for cloud-first deployment tend to overlook when addressing people who genuinely don't know (concerns endemic to Big Web operation of cloud actually need explaining when addressing a sector that's never touched it). There is a watershed coming where Big Web/FAANG will lose this mantle, and DevOps, half-baked Agile because nobody ever bakes it all the way, framework engineering, and a complete fundamental ball-dropping around security and exploitation of user data are rapidly ensuring it. At some point, Big Web/FAANG and everybody delivering Web services of some kind got the idea that the Web was computing. I think the prototypical version of this thinking led to Rob Pike's observations about systems research in the early oughts. This forum tends to operate with that underlying assumption about the lens to view computing through no fault of anyone in particular, which is why I say that.
  - dnr 6y ago
    What would you say is the "resident innovative force in computing" now? I'm a little confused by the reference to healthcare.gov: if Big Web is not the right paradigm to handle a... big web site, then what is?
alexose 6y ago
I'm alarmed by the way you've brought up Mikey Dickerson completely unprompted (both here and in the OP's comment section), and that your account is just two hours old. It's fine if you take issue with the Silicon Valley mindset in government IT, but there's no reason to make it personal.
- bfb10 6y ago
  I’m alarmed by you reading my admitting it’s a shame to actively lobby to disassemble what he’s built and walked away with a sense of attack instead of my deepest respect for him conflicting with my views on the environment he brought with him not necessarily being the answer. For better or worse, he’s the face of bringing Big Web out here, and I mention him to indicate that I know what I’m talking about. Your interpretation conveniently assumes malevolence, and HN conveniently doesn’t let me respond to your allegation on my original account and IP due to ratelimiting. A close family member tried to explain QAnon to me the other day. Working against Mikey’s efforts feels similar. It’s actually incredibly disappointing to give conflicting advice to government than Mikey, but I can’t actively lobby for the Web way of working in government any more. Worth noting he came out here before Kubernetes existed. Or I’m just bashing him for sport, your (disingenuous) call.
  - alexose 6y ago
    The reason it seems like an attack is due to the hostile tone of your comments, the burner account, and the unfounded/unsourced accusation that USDS left its partners behind. I apologize if you just wanted to discuss the merits of a startup-minded approach to government IT, but I'm honestly skeptical of your motivations. USDS ruffled many feathers among the entrenched IT interests, and I've seen what the propaganda response looks like first hand. If you really believe that you're fighting the good fight, then I'd welcome a direct conversation. Even a phone call if you like. I promise that I'm not in any way similar to a QAnon believer.
    - bfb09 6y ago
      Perhaps my beef with your cadre is assuming that questioning its merits is AFS propaganda coming from someone who’s never set foot south of Embarcadero and assuming everyone who mentions principals has an axe to grind. You’ve painted a lovely caricature of who you think your opposition is, but you’re looking in entirely the wrong direction. Hint: Two FAANGs. I don’t speak on the telephone with underhanded accusations, sorry.

by bfb09 6y ago

mekoka 6y ago

You should also consider that the contrarian nature of HN would set it up to exactly the opposite reaction had the post expressed the reverse of its current positions. The big irony is that it's not inconceivable that it would involve some of the same actors voicing different opinions. > "the incentives of modern software engineering value complexity to artificially strengthen a software engineering job economy" Not sure I would agree. Hanlon's razor comes to mind. To me, the referred complexity is reminiscent of a number of other complex patterns that somehow found their ways in software engineering, out of possibly good intentions. Regardless, an idea needs to be sold and when the marketing is well executed the community will ingest the kool-aid. Which it then tries to digest for a few years. Then begins a game of chicken that consists in not being the first to admit that you're in pain, out of fear of being branded an infidel, or out of sunk cost bias. Eventually a few courageous and influential souls finally spit it out in disgust and scream "wtf is this shit?!?" Then the rest awakes from the common stupor and a holy war ensues. I still remember SOAP. I still remember with what verve I was sold Scrum. As for Kubernetes, only time will tell.

sriku 6y ago
> " that somehow found their ways in software engineering, out of possibly good intentions" It seems that systems and principles invented for some specific situations get rapidly entrenched as "best practice" due to the wild success of their root corporations. That's twisted much like fashion - "that dress looks great on that model, maybe if I wear that dress, I would look good too".
- solidasparagus 6y ago
  There's some truth in that, but there's more to it. Successful tech companies build good tech that is often worth adopting: - the companies' successes are often predicated on strong ability to develop technologies - good (well-maintained) technology requires resources and the successful tech companies have those resources.
  - sriku 6y ago
    Valid. The "fashion" point was more about P(adoption worthy tech | successful originator) != P(successful originator | adoption worthy tech)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mdickers47 6y ago

cool story bro. I have no idea what you think I "sold" Washington, but anyone who has kubernetes never talked to me.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

I think it's pretty drastic to say "everyone here has imbibed" that Kool-Aid; I work in embedded, and am not super familiar with the frameworks he's complaining about, but I found the blog post entertaining nonetheless. Sometimes I feel like the people who are deep down in this "full stack developer" land should come up for air and look around at the bigger picture. There's a much bigger world of software development out there and actually I think this post was kind of an attempt at that. The web-facing industry seems to have dug itself down into a very deep rabbit hole of frameworks-on-frameworks-on-buzzwords, in a way it wasn't 10 years ago when I last played in that space. It looks very weird over there from over here :-)

bfb09 6y ago
Rest assured that I am firmly in your camp, and I've been tirelessly making the argument to policymakers that Big Web is not the resident innovative force in computing any more, despite the Obama administration's rapid adoption of their ideals and philosophy to salvage Healthcare.gov. In both the legislative and executive branches I have found many, many sympathetic ears who have been burned by ballooning budgets to handle public cloud and all the concerns that came with it, which folks who advocate for cloud-first deployment tend to overlook when addressing people who genuinely don't know (concerns endemic to Big Web operation of cloud actually need explaining when addressing a sector that's never touched it). There is a watershed coming where Big Web/FAANG will lose this mantle, and DevOps, half-baked Agile because nobody ever bakes it all the way, framework engineering, and a complete fundamental ball-dropping around security and exploitation of user data are rapidly ensuring it. At some point, Big Web/FAANG and everybody delivering Web services of some kind got the idea that the Web was computing. I think the prototypical version of this thinking led to Rob Pike's observations about systems research in the early oughts. This forum tends to operate with that underlying assumption about the lens to view computing through no fault of anyone in particular, which is why I say that.
- dnr 6y ago
  What would you say is the "resident innovative force in computing" now? I'm a little confused by the reference to healthcare.gov: if Big Web is not the right paradigm to handle a... big web site, then what is?

alexose 6y ago

I'm alarmed by the way you've brought up Mikey Dickerson completely unprompted (both here and in the OP's comment section), and that your account is just two hours old. It's fine if you take issue with the Silicon Valley mindset in government IT, but there's no reason to make it personal.

bfb10 6y ago
I’m alarmed by you reading my admitting it’s a shame to actively lobby to disassemble what he’s built and walked away with a sense of attack instead of my deepest respect for him conflicting with my views on the environment he brought with him not necessarily being the answer. For better or worse, he’s the face of bringing Big Web out here, and I mention him to indicate that I know what I’m talking about. Your interpretation conveniently assumes malevolence, and HN conveniently doesn’t let me respond to your allegation on my original account and IP due to ratelimiting. A close family member tried to explain QAnon to me the other day. Working against Mikey’s efforts feels similar. It’s actually incredibly disappointing to give conflicting advice to government than Mikey, but I can’t actively lobby for the Web way of working in government any more. Worth noting he came out here before Kubernetes existed. Or I’m just bashing him for sport, your (disingenuous) call.
- alexose 6y ago
  The reason it seems like an attack is due to the hostile tone of your comments, the burner account, and the unfounded/unsourced accusation that USDS left its partners behind. I apologize if you just wanted to discuss the merits of a startup-minded approach to government IT, but I'm honestly skeptical of your motivations. USDS ruffled many feathers among the entrenched IT interests, and I've seen what the propaganda response looks like first hand. If you really believe that you're fighting the good fight, then I'd welcome a direct conversation. Even a phone call if you like. I promise that I'm not in any way similar to a QAnon believer.
  - bfb09 6y ago
    Perhaps my beef with your cadre is assuming that questioning its merits is AFS propaganda coming from someone who’s never set foot south of Embarcadero and assuming everyone who mentions principals has an axe to grind. You’ve painted a lovely caricature of who you think your opposition is, but you’re looking in entirely the wrong direction. Hint: Two FAANGs. I don’t speak on the telephone with underhanded accusations, sorry.