3 ms·

This is the story of software development. We have no formal way of defining which style is better. It's just anecdotal arguments over and over again with no pr

This is the story of software development. We have no formal way of defining which style is better. It's just anecdotal arguments over and over again with no proof. Like evolution, you would think the technology gets better through natural selection. However, selection pressure in the real world is vague. The best doesn't necessarily win (just what works) and microservices is a form of genetic drift.

petepete 5y ago
Is that because the right answer depends on a multitude of things (ie neither is always better). The problem you're trying to solve, the size/expertise of your team, scale, customer expectations, legacy integrations.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  One answer could actually be better than the other. However these answers and problems are just essays of qualitative experiences. People can debate with each other endlessly on these things but until these answers are formally defined so we can create logical theorems off of them, we will never know definitively which is better. As long as there's no catastrophic failure nature doesn't always necessarily choose the most fittest mutation. Just what works better than the competition. And there are multiple factors at play here. A company with better marketing could do better than a company with better technology, hence selection pressure on technology is negated. What ends up succeeding is the cohesive whole. Every metric of the company including the CEO, funding, marketing, luck and everything else being the best defines "fittest". This means if everything else is the best but your technology is the worst you still succeed. Hence bad technology continues to propagate and exist within the industry. It's sort of the same reason why cancer still exists. Why hasn't natural selection eliminated cancer?
  - petepete 5y ago
    Does the same answer need to apply to a two person startup and a multinational tech giant?

petepete 5y ago

Is that because the right answer depends on a multitude of things (ie neither is always better). The problem you're trying to solve, the size/expertise of your team, scale, customer expectations, legacy integrations.

deltaonefour 5y ago
One answer could actually be better than the other. However these answers and problems are just essays of qualitative experiences. People can debate with each other endlessly on these things but until these answers are formally defined so we can create logical theorems off of them, we will never know definitively which is better. As long as there's no catastrophic failure nature doesn't always necessarily choose the most fittest mutation. Just what works better than the competition. And there are multiple factors at play here. A company with better marketing could do better than a company with better technology, hence selection pressure on technology is negated. What ends up succeeding is the cohesive whole. Every metric of the company including the CEO, funding, marketing, luck and everything else being the best defines "fittest". This means if everything else is the best but your technology is the worst you still succeed. Hence bad technology continues to propagate and exist within the industry. It's sort of the same reason why cancer still exists. Why hasn't natural selection eliminated cancer?
- petepete 5y ago
  Does the same answer need to apply to a two person startup and a multinational tech giant?