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This is the kind of review I love to see. Not just for languages, everything. In my experience, reviews almost exclusively come while something is still novel t

This is the kind of review I love to see. Not just for languages, everything. In my experience, reviews almost exclusively come while something is still novel to the reviewer, not battle tested, and worse, conflated with whatever situations the reviewer just happens to find themselves in at that period of time. What a wonderful post to be able to read and not have to wonder how much of it will hold up given a little time.

saagarjha 6y ago
Of course, since these often take months of up-front effort it’s obvious why they’re not as common :(
- bananaface 6y ago
  It's a shame, though. Content aggregators at least should allow the ones that exist to bubble up.
cxr 6y ago
On the other hand, if you wait too long, you run the risk of being afflicted with the kind of Stockholm syndrome/curse of expertise that explains how bad so much of everything is. When I start playing with something, once the number of papercuts I'm tracking in my head gets above 2–3, then I crack open a fresh notes.markdown file adjacent to the source repo (if there is one) and start recording all my thoughts in the vein of[1], including everything from outright bugs to opportunities for UI improvement. If the project has reasonable bugtracking infrastructure, I'll file them—or for small projects, I'll email the author along with any patches—but since most projects don't, I mostly don't end up doing anything with them. I've often thought that it would be nice if this exercise of "Let's Critique" became a thing, though. If nothing else, it could provide fuel for folks' blogs that have been lying dormant since that one post from 2017. 1. https://pointersgonewild.com/2019/11/02/they-might-never-tell-you-its-broken/ https://pointersgonewild.com/2019/11/02/they-might-never-tel...
Waterluvian 6y ago
Yes!!! I was looking at exercise equipment this week and badly wanted to find reviews for when people had been using it for years. That’s where 98% of the useful info is. Otherwise reviews are pointless things like the packaging quality and shipment speed.
- kbenson 6y ago
  You might have missed this[1], earlier this week. Probably doesn't have what you like yet, but is along the lines of what you're wishing for. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24707407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24707407
  - Waterluvian 6y ago
    Thank you for sharing! Yes that is definitely touching on a big gap (startup opportunity!!!) that I’ve been seeking. Just a matter of time.
- jfim 6y ago
  The issue with that is that oftentimes by the time something has been used for years, the manufacturer has discontinued the model, or even worse, kept the same model number and did some cost engineering to make the new version less durable. I agree with you though that a lot of reviews are useless fluff like shipping speed and packaging, and that there should be a better way to evaluate products.
noneeeed 6y ago
I was thinking about this today in reference to Elixir. I've noticed there seems to be less of the unalloyed fanboyism, and more realism in people's reported experiences with it now they've had a chance to use it for a few years. Reports still seem to be positive, but more balanced, which I think is the sign of a language ecosystem maturing. I generally take breathless coverage of how brilliant some new language (or tech stack) is with a large pinch of salt. The foibles and pitfalls of modern languages are often hard to spot until people have code-bases that are at least a couple of years old. I think the good stuff is generally easier to see at first, while the problems (which are often consequences/side-effects of the good aspects) generally take longer to appear. Programming languages seem to follow a variation of the Gartner Hype Cycle, with the twist that just after you get to the Plateau of Productivity and lots of people are quietly getting stuff done with it everyone starts to declare that "language X is dead/dying".
- thejosh 6y ago
  It's also about using the language/tool in ways that it should be used, was designed to be used. Elixir is great at what it does, but I wouldn't use it for building a CLI tool or something like that.
  - noneeeed 6y ago
    Definitely. That's part of my point about understanding the problems and limitations. After thirty-something years of programming I've seen numerous languages (or model) touted as the one true language that will save us all.
- alephu5 6y ago
  What is the best way to confront this problem? On paper languages like Rust, Elixir/Erlang, and Haskell stand out in non-trivial ways from other languages but as you say they require a considerable investment to evaluate properly. Either you risk years of wasted effort or potentially missing out on a game-changing tool.
  - sobani 6y ago
manojlds 6y ago
Tech youtubers do it for many products (that they deem need it) - unboxing, impressions, review, 6months on etc.

saagarjha 6y ago

Of course, since these often take months of up-front effort it’s obvious why they’re not as common :(

bananaface 6y ago
It's a shame, though. Content aggregators at least should allow the ones that exist to bubble up.

cxr 6y ago

On the other hand, if you wait too long, you run the risk of being afflicted with the kind of Stockholm syndrome/curse of expertise that explains how bad so much of everything is. When I start playing with something, once the number of papercuts I'm tracking in my head gets above 2–3, then I crack open a fresh notes.markdown file adjacent to the source repo (if there is one) and start recording all my thoughts in the vein of[1], including everything from outright bugs to opportunities for UI improvement. If the project has reasonable bugtracking infrastructure, I'll file them—or for small projects, I'll email the author along with any patches—but since most projects don't, I mostly don't end up doing anything with them. I've often thought that it would be nice if this exercise of "Let's Critique" became a thing, though. If nothing else, it could provide fuel for folks' blogs that have been lying dormant since that one post from 2017. 1. https://pointersgonewild.com/2019/11/02/they-might-never-tell-you-its-broken/ https://pointersgonewild.com/2019/11/02/they-might-never-tel...

Waterluvian 6y ago

Yes!!! I was looking at exercise equipment this week and badly wanted to find reviews for when people had been using it for years. That’s where 98% of the useful info is. Otherwise reviews are pointless things like the packaging quality and shipment speed.

kbenson 6y ago
You might have missed this[1], earlier this week. Probably doesn't have what you like yet, but is along the lines of what you're wishing for. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24707407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24707407
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing! Yes that is definitely touching on a big gap (startup opportunity!!!) that I’ve been seeking. Just a matter of time.
jfim 6y ago
The issue with that is that oftentimes by the time something has been used for years, the manufacturer has discontinued the model, or even worse, kept the same model number and did some cost engineering to make the new version less durable. I agree with you though that a lot of reviews are useless fluff like shipping speed and packaging, and that there should be a better way to evaluate products.

noneeeed 6y ago

I was thinking about this today in reference to Elixir. I've noticed there seems to be less of the unalloyed fanboyism, and more realism in people's reported experiences with it now they've had a chance to use it for a few years. Reports still seem to be positive, but more balanced, which I think is the sign of a language ecosystem maturing. I generally take breathless coverage of how brilliant some new language (or tech stack) is with a large pinch of salt. The foibles and pitfalls of modern languages are often hard to spot until people have code-bases that are at least a couple of years old. I think the good stuff is generally easier to see at first, while the problems (which are often consequences/side-effects of the good aspects) generally take longer to appear. Programming languages seem to follow a variation of the Gartner Hype Cycle, with the twist that just after you get to the Plateau of Productivity and lots of people are quietly getting stuff done with it everyone starts to declare that "language X is dead/dying".

thejosh 6y ago
It's also about using the language/tool in ways that it should be used, was designed to be used. Elixir is great at what it does, but I wouldn't use it for building a CLI tool or something like that.
- noneeeed 6y ago
  Definitely. That's part of my point about understanding the problems and limitations. After thirty-something years of programming I've seen numerous languages (or model) touted as the one true language that will save us all.
alephu5 6y ago
What is the best way to confront this problem? On paper languages like Rust, Elixir/Erlang, and Haskell stand out in non-trivial ways from other languages but as you say they require a considerable investment to evaluate properly. Either you risk years of wasted effort or potentially missing out on a game-changing tool.
- sobani 6y ago

manojlds 6y ago

Tech youtubers do it for many products (that they deem need it) - unboxing, impressions, review, 6months on etc.