5 ms·

It seems like this article is basically just restating point by point a classic article / presentation of the same title, https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-tec

by jsnell 6y ago

It seems like this article is basically just restating point by point a classic article / presentation of the same title, https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology This article does link to the original, so it's not uncredited plagiarism. But it still feels a bit odd. The original has been discussed really extensively on HN in the past, and even quite recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9291215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9291215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20323246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20323246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23444594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23444594

amzans 6y ago
Hey thanks for the feedback! I'm the author of the blog post. The topic has been influential for me, and I just wanted to share my perspective on it, specially in the context of a recent project. I don't think any other article talks about Choosing Boring Tech in the context of Kubernetes, and building a one-man SaaS. Could you please clarify what you found odd? I'm just curious.
- jsnell 6y ago
  I mean, it's basically what I wrote above. You used the exact same title as the McKinley's article, the same Maslow's pyramid visualization as their presentation, and went through their basic points in the same order. This meant there was a major feeling of deja vu, it didn't feel like a particularly original take on the subject. Maybe the feeling would not have been there if it had been more obvious. I.e. titled something like "My take on 'Choose Boring Technology'", the link moved to the opening paragraph, and explicitly stating that you were reframing that original article in terms of your own experience. (But to to repeat, I'm not claiming that anything untoward happened here).
  - amzans 6y ago
    Thanks, just updated the article to clarify the context a bit better.
- polote 6y ago
  You didn't want to just share your perspective, you know this subject is popular on HN and you are brute force publishing your article until it reaches the front page (its the 4th time you are posting the link) in order to create an audience for the product your are selling. This is not forbidden as far I know, but not really the kind of behavior HN users like
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - simpleoxygen 6y ago
    Couldn’t have phrased it better myself. I’m guessing the original poster is a member of Indie Hackers, getting on the front page of HN is one of their main mission objectives when it comes to marketing.
    - amzans 6y ago
      I actively participate in both communities for some time already. Not sure what is wrong with sharing my posts? I do mention what I’m doing to build a product, if you find it interesting, great. If not, feel free to ignore it. But that is not at all the point of the article.
      - simpleoxygen 6y ago
        Pull the other one. You know exactly what you are doing.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - amzans 6y ago
    Yes, I posted the article in the past. This time people saw it, and started discussing. That's about it. I'm just trying to share the lessons learned while building a product, and if someone finds my product interesting, that's great, if not, fine too.
bjornedstrom 6y ago
Interesting. Two years earlier, when I worked at Spotify in 2013, I wrote a similar article: https://engineering.atspotify.com/2013/02/25/in-praise-of-boring-technology/ https://engineering.atspotify.com/2013/02/25/in-praise-of-bo...
- Kye 6y ago
  Maybe this is tech's crab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
  - politelemon 6y ago
    Some info about the memes mentioned at the bottom https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/carcinization https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/carcinization
  - afarrell 6y ago
    That is like expecting that carpenters are going to keep making jigs and saying "measure twice, cut once" in various forms. If you could read the advice of a from carpenter 2000 years ago, I think he'd also be talking a lot about how humans make errors and need to account for that.
    - Kye 6y ago
      I think this gets at why people keep going back to old, time-tested tools. All new languages, frameworks, and tools seem to converge on the same things with enough time. Carpentry, computers, and programming languages all end up with a router. They also end up with some kind of cruft, or annoyance. A time-tested tool has time-tested failure modes. Everyone eventually figures out they need to start a nail with taps and remove their hand before swinging. Some people prefer to figure it out on their own, others like to know the path ahead.
- chanux 6y ago
  I remembered the article and came here to comment about it. What a nice surprise to see the author beating me to it :D. Loved it!
mromanuk 6y ago
I don’t think there is a limit on how much you can discuss a subject. Everybody has an opinion and PoV. We always can discuss it a little bit longer
- jsnell 6y ago
  Sure. I'm not trying to shut down the discussion, or flag this as a dupe, or anything like that. It's more of a PSA that if anyone finds this subject interesting and wants more, there's a thousand HN comments already written on it.
- buran77 6y ago
  It seems that this particular link was posted by the same poster 4 times over the past few weeks [0]. Given the pattern of repeat reposts I assumed it's an experiment to see which times are best to post to get more traction. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=panelbear.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=panelbear.com
  - amzans 6y ago
    Hey I'm the OP, the HN rules indicate that if a post didn't get enough attention that's alright. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html "If a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. Otherwise we bury reposts as duplicates." I reposted it several times over the past month. I'm sorry if that was too much, now I know that.
    - buran77 6y ago
      > HN rules indicate that if a post didn't get enough attention that's alright Which is why I explicitly stated I assumed it's just an experiment of sorts and I didn't imply anything nefarious. The optics of posting the same links from the same websites suggest going beyond "I found this interesting" towards something more about getting the clicks. Sometimes HN is used just to garner audience, and while the letter of the rules may be observed, the spirit certainly isn't [0] (you may need to enable seeing dead threads). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=dev.to https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=dev.to
partomniscient 6y ago
It may be a classic article to you, but for the 'N' people who have joined HN and not seen it and not learnt from it yet - this is their opportunity. Do not deny it to them or belittle those that provide said opportunity. Your past is not their past.

by jsnell 6y ago

amzans 6y ago

Hey thanks for the feedback! I'm the author of the blog post. The topic has been influential for me, and I just wanted to share my perspective on it, specially in the context of a recent project. I don't think any other article talks about Choosing Boring Tech in the context of Kubernetes, and building a one-man SaaS. Could you please clarify what you found odd? I'm just curious.

jsnell 6y ago
I mean, it's basically what I wrote above. You used the exact same title as the McKinley's article, the same Maslow's pyramid visualization as their presentation, and went through their basic points in the same order. This meant there was a major feeling of deja vu, it didn't feel like a particularly original take on the subject. Maybe the feeling would not have been there if it had been more obvious. I.e. titled something like "My take on 'Choose Boring Technology'", the link moved to the opening paragraph, and explicitly stating that you were reframing that original article in terms of your own experience. (But to to repeat, I'm not claiming that anything untoward happened here).
- amzans 6y ago
  Thanks, just updated the article to clarify the context a bit better.
polote 6y ago
You didn't want to just share your perspective, you know this subject is popular on HN and you are brute force publishing your article until it reaches the front page (its the 4th time you are posting the link) in order to create an audience for the product your are selling. This is not forbidden as far I know, but not really the kind of behavior HN users like
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- simpleoxygen 6y ago
  Couldn’t have phrased it better myself. I’m guessing the original poster is a member of Indie Hackers, getting on the front page of HN is one of their main mission objectives when it comes to marketing.
  - amzans 6y ago
    I actively participate in both communities for some time already. Not sure what is wrong with sharing my posts? I do mention what I’m doing to build a product, if you find it interesting, great. If not, feel free to ignore it. But that is not at all the point of the article.
    - simpleoxygen 6y ago
      Pull the other one. You know exactly what you are doing.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- amzans 6y ago
  Yes, I posted the article in the past. This time people saw it, and started discussing. That's about it. I'm just trying to share the lessons learned while building a product, and if someone finds my product interesting, that's great, if not, fine too.

bjornedstrom 6y ago

Interesting. Two years earlier, when I worked at Spotify in 2013, I wrote a similar article: https://engineering.atspotify.com/2013/02/25/in-praise-of-boring-technology/ https://engineering.atspotify.com/2013/02/25/in-praise-of-bo...

Kye 6y ago
Maybe this is tech's crab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
- politelemon 6y ago
  Some info about the memes mentioned at the bottom https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/carcinization https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/carcinization
- afarrell 6y ago
  That is like expecting that carpenters are going to keep making jigs and saying "measure twice, cut once" in various forms. If you could read the advice of a from carpenter 2000 years ago, I think he'd also be talking a lot about how humans make errors and need to account for that.
  - Kye 6y ago
    I think this gets at why people keep going back to old, time-tested tools. All new languages, frameworks, and tools seem to converge on the same things with enough time. Carpentry, computers, and programming languages all end up with a router. They also end up with some kind of cruft, or annoyance. A time-tested tool has time-tested failure modes. Everyone eventually figures out they need to start a nail with taps and remove their hand before swinging. Some people prefer to figure it out on their own, others like to know the path ahead.
chanux 6y ago
I remembered the article and came here to comment about it. What a nice surprise to see the author beating me to it :D. Loved it!

mromanuk 6y ago

I don’t think there is a limit on how much you can discuss a subject. Everybody has an opinion and PoV. We always can discuss it a little bit longer

jsnell 6y ago
Sure. I'm not trying to shut down the discussion, or flag this as a dupe, or anything like that. It's more of a PSA that if anyone finds this subject interesting and wants more, there's a thousand HN comments already written on it.
buran77 6y ago
It seems that this particular link was posted by the same poster 4 times over the past few weeks [0]. Given the pattern of repeat reposts I assumed it's an experiment to see which times are best to post to get more traction. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=panelbear.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=panelbear.com
- amzans 6y ago
  Hey I'm the OP, the HN rules indicate that if a post didn't get enough attention that's alright. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html "If a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. Otherwise we bury reposts as duplicates." I reposted it several times over the past month. I'm sorry if that was too much, now I know that.
  - buran77 6y ago
    > HN rules indicate that if a post didn't get enough attention that's alright Which is why I explicitly stated I assumed it's just an experiment of sorts and I didn't imply anything nefarious. The optics of posting the same links from the same websites suggest going beyond "I found this interesting" towards something more about getting the clicks. Sometimes HN is used just to garner audience, and while the letter of the rules may be observed, the spirit certainly isn't [0] (you may need to enable seeing dead threads). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=dev.to https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=dev.to

partomniscient 6y ago

It may be a classic article to you, but for the 'N' people who have joined HN and not seen it and not learnt from it yet - this is their opportunity. Do not deny it to them or belittle those that provide said opportunity. Your past is not their past.