4 ms·

Feels like a lot of old knowledge was discounted / ignored and the mistakes are being rediscovered. Feels a bit like the Hexagonal Architecture being rediscove

by kopos 6y ago

Feels like a lot of old knowledge was discounted / ignored and the mistakes are being rediscovered. Feels a bit like the Hexagonal Architecture being rediscovered. Micro service with half life of 1.5 years? Does that mean that enough planning is not being done? Or leadership failure at software planning level? Collaboration between teams at scale is very hard but that is what the leadership layer is for - to collaborate more not build more micro services.

sixdimensional 6y ago
Or how about plain old onion architecture... even older than hexagonal. This is literally scaled/distributed domain-driven design (DDD). I have felt strongly that folks got so caught up in the hype of yet another new thing they forgot how to extend what came before. It feels like a reinvention of existing ideas at larger scale, and a pattern we keep repeating. I'm not complaining, of course - new things are possible and being learned through this innovation. I do feel we should be more careful on the cutting edge, to see how it relates to where we came from. Put another way, reinventing the wheel is not pointless if you come out with a better thing, or better wheel. But don't forget what was good about the previous wheel before you throw it out?
- staticassertion 6y ago
  I'm confused. You're saying that people are reinventing existing ideas at larger scale, but you also are saying that people don't know how to extend what came before? Those sound like the same exact thing.
  - sixdimensional 6y ago
    You're not confused, but there is a nuance. I'm trying to walk a fine line of not criticizing them for discovering this late into their process (maybe they knew all along but were busy inventing), but also questioning why they couldn't see this sooner. Trying to get to the heart of what took this innovation/recognition/learning to happen. I am making an observation - when each new "fad" or "hype cycle" tech starts, it seems as though the pattern knowledge of what came before is discarded, or, disregarded as "legacy" or possibly even just forgotten. It feels like a knowledge transfer is missing. It would be terrible if, we, as an industry aren't passing down knowledge and reinventing hard won pattern discoveries efficiently. Did this pattern Uber discovered come from studying onion architecture, DDD, etc first, finding the limitations, and then scaling them? Or did this arise from throwing away everything that came before (or not knowing about it), forging an undiscovered path, and then rediscovering the old patterns could be applied? If the latter, what can be learned to make this process of discovery and linkage to existing patterns more efficient? I think this article shows innovation is tricky, or, the risk (and potential reward) at the bleeding edge. Leaving behind design constraints of what came before might be necessary. Maybe I'm trying to say, as an industry we need to balance exploitation of previous knowledge and our attitudes about how we feel about "legacy", with the unquenchable thirst for the next new innovation?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
pjmlp 6y ago
It means CV driven development for selling conference talks, blog posts,....
- tannhaeuser 6y ago
  I have to agree. Articles about software architecture, figuratively speaking, read like the result of playing connect-the-dots using the buzzwords du jour, as thrown into the mix by cloud providers to advertise solutions to problems no one is having. It's not an entirely new phenomenon, but consumerism, big media dynamics, advertising to clueless decision makers, and self-fulfilling resume padding in IT seems to be the norm this decade.

by kopos 6y ago

sixdimensional 6y ago

Or how about plain old onion architecture... even older than hexagonal. This is literally scaled/distributed domain-driven design (DDD). I have felt strongly that folks got so caught up in the hype of yet another new thing they forgot how to extend what came before. It feels like a reinvention of existing ideas at larger scale, and a pattern we keep repeating. I'm not complaining, of course - new things are possible and being learned through this innovation. I do feel we should be more careful on the cutting edge, to see how it relates to where we came from. Put another way, reinventing the wheel is not pointless if you come out with a better thing, or better wheel. But don't forget what was good about the previous wheel before you throw it out?

staticassertion 6y ago
I'm confused. You're saying that people are reinventing existing ideas at larger scale, but you also are saying that people don't know how to extend what came before? Those sound like the same exact thing.
- sixdimensional 6y ago
  You're not confused, but there is a nuance. I'm trying to walk a fine line of not criticizing them for discovering this late into their process (maybe they knew all along but were busy inventing), but also questioning why they couldn't see this sooner. Trying to get to the heart of what took this innovation/recognition/learning to happen. I am making an observation - when each new "fad" or "hype cycle" tech starts, it seems as though the pattern knowledge of what came before is discarded, or, disregarded as "legacy" or possibly even just forgotten. It feels like a knowledge transfer is missing. It would be terrible if, we, as an industry aren't passing down knowledge and reinventing hard won pattern discoveries efficiently. Did this pattern Uber discovered come from studying onion architecture, DDD, etc first, finding the limitations, and then scaling them? Or did this arise from throwing away everything that came before (or not knowing about it), forging an undiscovered path, and then rediscovering the old patterns could be applied? If the latter, what can be learned to make this process of discovery and linkage to existing patterns more efficient? I think this article shows innovation is tricky, or, the risk (and potential reward) at the bleeding edge. Leaving behind design constraints of what came before might be necessary. Maybe I'm trying to say, as an industry we need to balance exploitation of previous knowledge and our attitudes about how we feel about "legacy", with the unquenchable thirst for the next new innovation?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

pjmlp 6y ago

It means CV driven development for selling conference talks, blog posts,....

tannhaeuser 6y ago
I have to agree. Articles about software architecture, figuratively speaking, read like the result of playing connect-the-dots using the buzzwords du jour, as thrown into the mix by cloud providers to advertise solutions to problems no one is having. It's not an entirely new phenomenon, but consumerism, big media dynamics, advertising to clueless decision makers, and self-fulfilling resume padding in IT seems to be the norm this decade.