3 ms·

Each one of us has his or her own way of expressing opinions, from my point of view there is more than just those three lines of text in what I wrote, some peop

Each one of us has his or her own way of expressing opinions, from my point of view there is more than just those three lines of text in what I wrote, some people got it, other people didn't, and that's what I find great about HN comments. I really appreciate that people took the time to express their opinions starting from a simple statement like the one I wrote, and I don't think that each and every comment needs to be a complete analysis of every possible nuance of the subject we are commenting about. I'm not a monolithic person, I prefer a conversational approach when discussing opinions, but that's just a matter of personal taste. Anyway, to make my point I'll use as an example two projects I was personally involved and still bring food on the table: NodeJS + MongoDB (started 7 years ago, still on it); MariaDB + PHP + FORTRAN (started 4 years ago, after the first two years only consulting from time to time). Fun fact: right now I could swap one DB for the other and I wouldn't mind the difference, maybe some minor tricks here and there. You can get burned with MongoDB (totally inconsistent data model? Well, that sucks bad), you can get burned with PostgreSQL or other SQL databases (thousand line long business critical stored procedures starts getting inefficient? Self join time explodes after some time in production? Ouch...) The main point I wanted to make is what jeff-davis (your sibling) summarized for me with words way better than my own: "If you are building something and excited, then keep going, don't stop because a blog told you 'never'" Too often I read blog posts like the one we are commenting when I was starting with software development as a job, they scared the shit out of me! I didn't have any experience on the tools so reading that some much more experienced guy working on some Silicon Valley billion dollar corporation was saying "This is shit: you touch it, you die" didn't bring anything useful to me, just stress... Over the years I've heard everything and its contrary about... anything! There is normal people here on HN, there are young devs starting right now that read those comments, not everyone is building mission critical rocket firmware, billion users social networks or AI/ML/Blockchain fanta-finance trading bots (not that you are implying anything like that, far from it) but my advice after some years in the business is what I wrote: know your tools, get to like them, get proficient, use them well and try to build something good... your personal experience, be it success or failure, is worth a thousand times more than the success or failure narrated on a random guy/girl blog from N years ago

pdimitar 6y ago
> The main point I wanted to make is what jeff-davis (your sibling) summarized for me with words way better than my own: "If you are building something and excited, then keep going, don't stop because a blog told you 'never'" This is a weird perspective. Most of us work for money and other people are calling the shots on what's in priority to develop right now. Your statement reads like you're commenting about hobby projects? > Too often I read blog posts like the one we are commenting when I was starting with software development as a job, they scared the shit out of me! Not to be reductionist, just trying to understand: your point of view boils down to "I skipped a good tool because I bought a fear-mongering tech blog article", is that correct? If so, obviously one has to form their own opinions as they gain experience. But I wouldn't feel that strongly about those articles. My takeaways are: (a) critical thinking is important and (b) you can't ban people from posting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ > I didn't have any experience on the tools so reading that some much more experienced guy working on some Silicon Valley billion dollar corporation was saying "This is shit: you touch it, you die" didn't bring anything useful to me, just stress... Not sure what point you're making here. Our job is riddled with stress in general (even if you only take this as an entry point: the brain hates learning and wants us to stay still by default). Confronting that reality means exiting software development for many. > your personal experience, be it success or failure, is worth a thousand times more than the success or failure narrated on a random guy/girl blog from N years ago That is absolutely true. But we should recognize filter bubbles regardless. I for example only heard one successful MongoDB story and the team switched to another DB 3 years later. --- If your general takeaway is: "use whatever you want" then sure, nobody can dispute that since we live in a free world. However: (a) When comparing tools for certain jobs, there are objectively worse tools compared to others. This reality should not be avoided, or denied, or brushed aside with generic statements. (b) "Just use whatever you like" is not a sound career advice. Some tools will give you better career opportunities, others will make people frown at you for being the bleeding edge adopter but can give you a competitive advantage, and some will just burn you. It's not about if you can achieve X with any technology. For the most part, you can do pretty much anything with everything. Still doesn't make it viable or the solution with the least friction and most reward though. I felt your comments were too generic, too optimistic, and rather uninformative. Hence my responses.
- 6y ago

pdimitar 6y ago

> The main point I wanted to make is what jeff-davis (your sibling) summarized for me with words way better than my own: "If you are building something and excited, then keep going, don't stop because a blog told you 'never'" This is a weird perspective. Most of us work for money and other people are calling the shots on what's in priority to develop right now. Your statement reads like you're commenting about hobby projects? > Too often I read blog posts like the one we are commenting when I was starting with software development as a job, they scared the shit out of me! Not to be reductionist, just trying to understand: your point of view boils down to "I skipped a good tool because I bought a fear-mongering tech blog article", is that correct? If so, obviously one has to form their own opinions as they gain experience. But I wouldn't feel that strongly about those articles. My takeaways are: (a) critical thinking is important and (b) you can't ban people from posting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ > I didn't have any experience on the tools so reading that some much more experienced guy working on some Silicon Valley billion dollar corporation was saying "This is shit: you touch it, you die" didn't bring anything useful to me, just stress... Not sure what point you're making here. Our job is riddled with stress in general (even if you only take this as an entry point: the brain hates learning and wants us to stay still by default). Confronting that reality means exiting software development for many. > your personal experience, be it success or failure, is worth a thousand times more than the success or failure narrated on a random guy/girl blog from N years ago That is absolutely true. But we should recognize filter bubbles regardless. I for example only heard one successful MongoDB story and the team switched to another DB 3 years later. --- If your general takeaway is: "use whatever you want" then sure, nobody can dispute that since we live in a free world. However: (a) When comparing tools for certain jobs, there are objectively worse tools compared to others. This reality should not be avoided, or denied, or brushed aside with generic statements. (b) "Just use whatever you like" is not a sound career advice. Some tools will give you better career opportunities, others will make people frown at you for being the bleeding edge adopter but can give you a competitive advantage, and some will just burn you. It's not about if you can achieve X with any technology. For the most part, you can do pretty much anything with everything. Still doesn't make it viable or the solution with the least friction and most reward though. I felt your comments were too generic, too optimistic, and rather uninformative. Hence my responses.

6y ago