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It’s interesting to consider that your grandfather was probably wrong about somethings being superfluous. Im not saying that as a criticism — but there are prob

It’s interesting to consider that your grandfather was probably wrong about somethings being superfluous. Im not saying that as a criticism — but there are probably necessities of modern cars you and I find magnificent and essential (whether we our conscious of them or not) that your grandfather disdained. Don’t get me wrong, touchscreen gloveboxes are stupid as hell, but as I get older and things change, i find myself wondering if I’m being discerning or closed-minded.

imtringued 4y ago
That grandpa probably complains about ridiculous things like having to uninstall the bumpers to replace a front lightbulb which don't matter in the grand scheme because I know a mechanic who does it for 20€ (excluding the cost of the parts) but it is still silly because it is something that anyone with zero training could have done.
pmontra 4y ago
Diminishing returns? Let me do an inverse car analogy. I know how to write a complicated SQL query in SQL and in maybe a couple of different ORMs, because customers don't know SQL and want everything in (say) Ruby, Python, Elixir. Then the world inflicts us another ORM and I have to waste hours to learn all of it again only for the ORM to build my original SQL query and send it to the DB. Rolling eyes and WTF!
- tzs 4y ago
  That reminds me of payment processors. They usually have SDKs for PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, and maybe others. Often these just end up doing a simple HTTPS post of name=value pairs. It is almost always easier and cleaner to use their HTTPS name=value post interface directly if they officially allow it and support it. Often you are going to get your payment information from the user in that format anyway, such as via a post from your checkout page, or as a row of named columns when you retrieve on file payment information from your database. In that case submitting name=value pairs mostly just requires translating the field names from your checkout page or column names from database to the names that the payment processor uses, plus adding a few more name=value pairs. Going through their language specific SDKs often requires building up some ridiculous object oriented mess.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> but as I get older and things change, i find myself wondering if I’m being discerning or closed-minded. You're being discerning. And a little over-generous. I'll counter - as a fellow 'older' one :) There's a tendency to be over-conciliatory and exercise excessive tolerance towards folly, for fear of being labelled a throwback. Don't minimise the wisdom your age brings. Some things just get worse, objectively, until a correction occurs. Reality is, there are perverse design incentives and it's also the younger people who are tearing their hair at the madness of gratuitous tech and UX as a cult/ideology.

imtringued 4y ago

That grandpa probably complains about ridiculous things like having to uninstall the bumpers to replace a front lightbulb which don't matter in the grand scheme because I know a mechanic who does it for 20€ (excluding the cost of the parts) but it is still silly because it is something that anyone with zero training could have done.

pmontra 4y ago

Diminishing returns? Let me do an inverse car analogy. I know how to write a complicated SQL query in SQL and in maybe a couple of different ORMs, because customers don't know SQL and want everything in (say) Ruby, Python, Elixir. Then the world inflicts us another ORM and I have to waste hours to learn all of it again only for the ORM to build my original SQL query and send it to the DB. Rolling eyes and WTF!

tzs 4y ago
That reminds me of payment processors. They usually have SDKs for PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, and maybe others. Often these just end up doing a simple HTTPS post of name=value pairs. It is almost always easier and cleaner to use their HTTPS name=value post interface directly if they officially allow it and support it. Often you are going to get your payment information from the user in that format anyway, such as via a post from your checkout page, or as a row of named columns when you retrieve on file payment information from your database. In that case submitting name=value pairs mostly just requires translating the field names from your checkout page or column names from database to the names that the payment processor uses, plus adding a few more name=value pairs. Going through their language specific SDKs often requires building up some ridiculous object oriented mess.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> but as I get older and things change, i find myself wondering if I’m being discerning or closed-minded. You're being discerning. And a little over-generous. I'll counter - as a fellow 'older' one :) There's a tendency to be over-conciliatory and exercise excessive tolerance towards folly, for fear of being labelled a throwback. Don't minimise the wisdom your age brings. Some things just get worse, objectively, until a correction occurs. Reality is, there are perverse design incentives and it's also the younger people who are tearing their hair at the madness of gratuitous tech and UX as a cult/ideology.