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Code that is easier to read is easier to maintain and easier to debug. Code that is easier to read and more intuitive will, more often than not, result in a bet

Code that is easier to read is easier to maintain and easier to debug. Code that is easier to read and more intuitive will, more often than not, result in a better product and better experience for the users.

_jal 6y ago
A: "Your restaurant's food tastes terrible." B: "Nutritious, healthy food will ensure the longevity of my customers, thereby maximizing lifetime customer revenue."
- d3nj4l 6y ago
  That's an awful analogy
  - bb88 6y ago
    I just logged into nest for the first time on a new laptop. It took 15 seconds to load and get to the screen to change the temperature on the thermostat. Then I refreshed the page and it still took 10 seconds to reload. I'm sure their code is also relatively bug free.
  - pc86 6y ago
    It's actually pretty good analogy, when you're searching for an analogy of something being technically accurate while missing literally the entire point. Making your code "more intuitive" does not result in a better product. Making a better product does. The argument is that software development is one of the few jobs where the employees' experience seems to be equal or more important than the client experience. Sacrificing a restaurant goer's experience (taste) because it makes the restauranteur's experience (customer LTV) better is a decent analogy.
- lyjackal 6y ago
  I think a better analogy might be telling a restaurant to cut down their oversized menu so that they can actually make at least one good meal
- newsbinator 6y ago
  A: "I enjoy your restaurant's food but my chef friend said your kitchen is inefficient". B: "As long as you enjoy it, and we can keep making it for you at the same quality you enjoy, we don't care how inefficient our kitchen is".
  - nybble41 6y ago
    A: "Okay, but the new place next door serves identical food with a more efficient kitchen, at lower prices you can't match without making significant changes. If you don't improve efficiency somehow you'll start to lose customers."
r0b05 6y ago
I wholeheartedly agree. Maintainable code can quickly and easily be extended into new features for the customer. Unmaintainable code usually results in a ton of support tickets and late nights hunting and fixing bugs that originated from deploying into production that day. This leads to heartache and frustration for the customer. The customer comes first, yes. Good maintainable code, is a way to achieve this goal.
bananaface 6y ago
I disagree with the premise. "Readability" is an excuse people use for writing slow code. It's not an inevitable tradeoff. Like, most of these people are not saying, "we could do this thing which would speed up the app by an order of magnitude, but we won't because it will decrease readability." They have no idea why their code is slow. Many don't even realise it is slow. My favourite talking point is to remind people that GTA V can simulate & render an entire game world 60 times per second, 144 times on the right monitor. Is that a more complex render than Twitter? Computers are really fast, it doesn't take garbage code to exploit that.
- adamsea 6y ago
  IMHO it’s in part because of what I assume are different business models between a game like GTA and many / most businesses where a website / web app is core to their product. Different business models result in different environments in which to conduct software engineering; different constraints and requirements. IMHO constant and unpredictable change (which I assume happens less for games like GTA) is one of the big differences, as is the relationship between application performance and profit. But I like what you’re saying and would love to see that world.
- hkt 6y ago
  GTA V has graphics card requirements that, I suspect, may be quite large compared to Twitter. Although it is worth noting that GPU acceleration in the browser is increasingly a thing: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-driver... That being said, I don't think it addresses the problems with client side applications, although it may allow more complex ones.
  - peacefulhat 6y ago
    Websites like Twitter are not render bottlenecked. Even a software rendered game from decades ago like doom is doing more on the screen than Twitter.
- gowld 6y ago
syats 6y ago
The article this thread is about clearly shows that your second statement is not true.
- ictebres 6y ago
  Page loading speed is not the only concern the users have.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
Then please explain why the increasing trend in developer convenience is correlated with the decline in user experience.
- aeontech 6y ago
  It’s a false correlation. Because the universal rule is that 90% of everything is terrible, including software. Corollary rule is that work expands to fill all available time, and software expands to fill all available resources. If you go back to before the ascent of age of front-end frameworks, you would find that there were still tons of sites that were slow and poorly performing, despite running entirely in server-side technologies. Something that made Google incredibly appealing when it first came out was it’s instantly-loading front page with a single search box and a single button. This was in drastic, shocking contrast in the age where every other search engine portal had a ton of content on it, including news, stock tickers, and the kitchen sink. In the end, unless the developers of the sites make performance a priority, it makes absolutely no difference what the tech stack is. The problem is that companies don’t prioritize it.
midrus 6y ago
Tell this to Reddit developers

_jal 6y ago

A: "Your restaurant's food tastes terrible." B: "Nutritious, healthy food will ensure the longevity of my customers, thereby maximizing lifetime customer revenue."

d3nj4l 6y ago
That's an awful analogy
- bb88 6y ago
  I just logged into nest for the first time on a new laptop. It took 15 seconds to load and get to the screen to change the temperature on the thermostat. Then I refreshed the page and it still took 10 seconds to reload. I'm sure their code is also relatively bug free.
- pc86 6y ago
  It's actually pretty good analogy, when you're searching for an analogy of something being technically accurate while missing literally the entire point. Making your code "more intuitive" does not result in a better product. Making a better product does. The argument is that software development is one of the few jobs where the employees' experience seems to be equal or more important than the client experience. Sacrificing a restaurant goer's experience (taste) because it makes the restauranteur's experience (customer LTV) better is a decent analogy.
lyjackal 6y ago
I think a better analogy might be telling a restaurant to cut down their oversized menu so that they can actually make at least one good meal
newsbinator 6y ago
A: "I enjoy your restaurant's food but my chef friend said your kitchen is inefficient". B: "As long as you enjoy it, and we can keep making it for you at the same quality you enjoy, we don't care how inefficient our kitchen is".
- nybble41 6y ago
  A: "Okay, but the new place next door serves identical food with a more efficient kitchen, at lower prices you can't match without making significant changes. If you don't improve efficiency somehow you'll start to lose customers."

r0b05 6y ago

I wholeheartedly agree. Maintainable code can quickly and easily be extended into new features for the customer. Unmaintainable code usually results in a ton of support tickets and late nights hunting and fixing bugs that originated from deploying into production that day. This leads to heartache and frustration for the customer. The customer comes first, yes. Good maintainable code, is a way to achieve this goal.

bananaface 6y ago

I disagree with the premise. "Readability" is an excuse people use for writing slow code. It's not an inevitable tradeoff. Like, most of these people are not saying, "we could do this thing which would speed up the app by an order of magnitude, but we won't because it will decrease readability." They have no idea why their code is slow. Many don't even realise it is slow. My favourite talking point is to remind people that GTA V can simulate & render an entire game world 60 times per second, 144 times on the right monitor. Is that a more complex render than Twitter? Computers are really fast, it doesn't take garbage code to exploit that.

adamsea 6y ago
IMHO it’s in part because of what I assume are different business models between a game like GTA and many / most businesses where a website / web app is core to their product. Different business models result in different environments in which to conduct software engineering; different constraints and requirements. IMHO constant and unpredictable change (which I assume happens less for games like GTA) is one of the big differences, as is the relationship between application performance and profit. But I like what you’re saying and would love to see that world.
hkt 6y ago
GTA V has graphics card requirements that, I suspect, may be quite large compared to Twitter. Although it is worth noting that GPU acceleration in the browser is increasingly a thing: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-driver... That being said, I don't think it addresses the problems with client side applications, although it may allow more complex ones.
- peacefulhat 6y ago
  Websites like Twitter are not render bottlenecked. Even a software rendered game from decades ago like doom is doing more on the screen than Twitter.
gowld 6y ago

syats 6y ago

The article this thread is about clearly shows that your second statement is not true.

ictebres 6y ago
Page loading speed is not the only concern the users have.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

Then please explain why the increasing trend in developer convenience is correlated with the decline in user experience.

aeontech 6y ago
It’s a false correlation. Because the universal rule is that 90% of everything is terrible, including software. Corollary rule is that work expands to fill all available time, and software expands to fill all available resources. If you go back to before the ascent of age of front-end frameworks, you would find that there were still tons of sites that were slow and poorly performing, despite running entirely in server-side technologies. Something that made Google incredibly appealing when it first came out was it’s instantly-loading front page with a single search box and a single button. This was in drastic, shocking contrast in the age where every other search engine portal had a ton of content on it, including news, stock tickers, and the kitchen sink. In the end, unless the developers of the sites make performance a priority, it makes absolutely no difference what the tech stack is. The problem is that companies don’t prioritize it.

midrus 6y ago

Tell this to Reddit developers