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If your developers are either incapable of pivoting to a new language or flat out refuse to, then they are terrible developers. Regardless, Digg v4 was clearly

by ebbv 15y ago

If your developers are either incapable of pivoting to a new language or flat out refuse to, then they are terrible developers. Regardless, Digg v4 was clearly the problem. I still haven't seen him outright admit that the fact that at launch Digg v4 was basically a blowjob to Mashable, Wired, and other "content" sites and a big middle finger to the average user. If he could honestly own up to the fact it would demonstrate a real understanding of what caused everyone to flee.

jmuguy 15y ago
Yeah anyone that used Digg around that time should attest to this. The launch of v4 basically took the site from pretty great to pretty horrible overnight. As someone that used to check Digg every day it was like they turned the interesting faucet off.
bane 15y ago
The principle mistake I see was also hiring so many people. Didn't Digg at one time have >40 people? What in god's name were all these people doing? "According to Rose, “there is a temptation that you want to throw as many developers as possible at a problem.” As Digg was built on top of PHP, the company would hire too many developers that specialized in this language. Then, however, Rose noted, “you end up with lots of PHP developers, but at some point, PHP isn’t a problem anymore and you are stuck with all of those developers.” At that point, said Rose, you end up having to hire a lot of developers that can do other things and don’t know what to do with the old developers." PHP wasn't the problem, stables full of idle, cash burning developers was the problem. Normally it's hard to do an apples to apples comparison, but having reddit around, and running for a hell of a long time with less than half a dozen people, really allows one to actually do that comparison in a pretty solid way. I'd even argue that even though reddit has only recently surpassed digg in terms of users and page views and all that, it far surpassed digg in terms of content quantity long before it. Yet was still managed with a micro-sized staff. Of course v4 was a huge pile, but at about 8-10x the burn rate of reddit, you almost have to do crazy things to make it work. It's like the Mythical Man-Month was never written.
- trafficlight 15y ago
  According to this article, in 2009 they had around 75 employees. I wonder what they were all doing? http://allthingsd.com/20090122/digg-to-cut-10-percent-of-employees-says-it-will-try-to-be-profitable-in-2009-the-entire-blog-post/ http://allthingsd.com/20090122/digg-to-cut-10-percent-of-emp...
  - ojbyrne 15y ago
    Selling ads.
jm4 15y ago
If your developers are either incapable of pivoting to a new language or flat out refuse to, then they are terrible developers. That's a pretty strong statement. I'm glad I don't work for you. If my employer decides to switch to Cobol and I refuse that makes me a terrible developer? What if they want to switch from an imperative language to a functional language? If I can't easily make the transition I am terrible? What is so wrong with developers that specialize in one thing, even if it's PHP? Regardless of your opinion, there is a place for those kinds of developers. They likely won't advance as far as those with a broader skill set, but they are not terrible or useless. This isn't the developers' fault. Rose hired a whole team of developers that were not qualified to do the required work. That's on him, and he is rightly accepting responsibility.
- ebbv 15y ago
  Just go ahead and assume there's an unwritten "within reason" on any assertion I make. I really don't want to have to type it every time. Of course a developer refusing to switch to Cobol or Brainfuck is completely justified. But switching from PHP to Ruby, Node.js, Python, etc. is a completely reasonable transition to expect a competent developer to be capable of. I'm not saying you should be able to be an expert in the new language overnight, but IMHO any developer worth her salt jumps at the chance to learn a new language on the company dime.
  - jm4 15y ago
    any developer worth her salt jumps at the chance to learn a new language on the company dime I would agree with that sentiment. Another way to put it is I would prefer not to be on a team with a developer that wouldn't do that. Still, I also think competence can be relative. There are lots of developers who prefer to stick with one thing. They usually cost less and are more likely to stick around long term. They can be experts in their domain (even if it is limited to 1 or 2 languages). There's something to be said about someone who is content (or ignorant) to have their career stagnate for years working with older technology and projects that keep the company running. Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's important to keep up with the times, but if you have a requirement for that sort of thing those developers can be the workhorses on projects that some other developers wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. They can also mean certain disaster if you hire a bunch of them for your fast-moving startup.

by ebbv 15y ago

jmuguy 15y ago

Yeah anyone that used Digg around that time should attest to this. The launch of v4 basically took the site from pretty great to pretty horrible overnight. As someone that used to check Digg every day it was like they turned the interesting faucet off.

bane 15y ago

The principle mistake I see was also hiring so many people. Didn't Digg at one time have >40 people? What in god's name were all these people doing? "According to Rose, “there is a temptation that you want to throw as many developers as possible at a problem.” As Digg was built on top of PHP, the company would hire too many developers that specialized in this language. Then, however, Rose noted, “you end up with lots of PHP developers, but at some point, PHP isn’t a problem anymore and you are stuck with all of those developers.” At that point, said Rose, you end up having to hire a lot of developers that can do other things and don’t know what to do with the old developers." PHP wasn't the problem, stables full of idle, cash burning developers was the problem. Normally it's hard to do an apples to apples comparison, but having reddit around, and running for a hell of a long time with less than half a dozen people, really allows one to actually do that comparison in a pretty solid way. I'd even argue that even though reddit has only recently surpassed digg in terms of users and page views and all that, it far surpassed digg in terms of content quantity long before it. Yet was still managed with a micro-sized staff. Of course v4 was a huge pile, but at about 8-10x the burn rate of reddit, you almost have to do crazy things to make it work. It's like the Mythical Man-Month was never written.

trafficlight 15y ago
According to this article, in 2009 they had around 75 employees. I wonder what they were all doing? http://allthingsd.com/20090122/digg-to-cut-10-percent-of-employees-says-it-will-try-to-be-profitable-in-2009-the-entire-blog-post/ http://allthingsd.com/20090122/digg-to-cut-10-percent-of-emp...
- ojbyrne 15y ago
  Selling ads.

jm4 15y ago

If your developers are either incapable of pivoting to a new language or flat out refuse to, then they are terrible developers. That's a pretty strong statement. I'm glad I don't work for you. If my employer decides to switch to Cobol and I refuse that makes me a terrible developer? What if they want to switch from an imperative language to a functional language? If I can't easily make the transition I am terrible? What is so wrong with developers that specialize in one thing, even if it's PHP? Regardless of your opinion, there is a place for those kinds of developers. They likely won't advance as far as those with a broader skill set, but they are not terrible or useless. This isn't the developers' fault. Rose hired a whole team of developers that were not qualified to do the required work. That's on him, and he is rightly accepting responsibility.

ebbv 15y ago
Just go ahead and assume there's an unwritten "within reason" on any assertion I make. I really don't want to have to type it every time. Of course a developer refusing to switch to Cobol or Brainfuck is completely justified. But switching from PHP to Ruby, Node.js, Python, etc. is a completely reasonable transition to expect a competent developer to be capable of. I'm not saying you should be able to be an expert in the new language overnight, but IMHO any developer worth her salt jumps at the chance to learn a new language on the company dime.
- jm4 15y ago
  any developer worth her salt jumps at the chance to learn a new language on the company dime I would agree with that sentiment. Another way to put it is I would prefer not to be on a team with a developer that wouldn't do that. Still, I also think competence can be relative. There are lots of developers who prefer to stick with one thing. They usually cost less and are more likely to stick around long term. They can be experts in their domain (even if it is limited to 1 or 2 languages). There's something to be said about someone who is content (or ignorant) to have their career stagnate for years working with older technology and projects that keep the company running. Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's important to keep up with the times, but if you have a requirement for that sort of thing those developers can be the workhorses on projects that some other developers wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. They can also mean certain disaster if you hire a bunch of them for your fast-moving startup.