4 ms·
I find the idea that "engineering" is really about BIG SCALING really tiresome. Sure, careless throwing together of random libraries, packages, and stack overfl
by juped 6y ago
I find the idea that "engineering" is really about BIG SCALING really tiresome. Sure, careless throwing together of random libraries, packages, and stack overflow snippets goes against sound engineering principles, but so does nearly everything Google does (I would say "everything" but they do employ careful engineer Junio Hamano, though I'm pretty sure he gets to set his own culture himself).
- mattgreenrocks 6y agoThis is a byproduct of the engineering culture being co-opted by the cult of agile. For some domains, the 80% solution is perfectly fine to launch with. For others, it is quite sloppy and you end up with paper cuts in normal use. Problems arise when you, as a consumer of a library, expect a 100% solution and discover it's only an 80% solution. Worse, most libraries do _not_ tell you what design decisions were made.
- ThrowawayR2 6y agoShe already addressed what you said in her previous post. The original issue wasn't about "BIG SCALING" but just being designed and implemented safely and sensibly; the library used failed at smaller scales too, just with less frequency. Having worked at a FAANG-level company in systems contexts, I think that most people with similar experience would say Rachel is spot on.