3 ms·

The Shameful Open Secret Behind Southwest’s Failure

4 points by jgwil2 4y ago

quantified 4y ago
This seems like a redefinition of "technical debt". Feature-poor is not technically indebted. Features and platforms implemented in poor or inflexible ways can be considered indebted. Young journalist hearing a term without understanding it? Let's see if this inspires some mainstream media adoption of the term to throw around this year. The reference to Y2K is humorous too. Everything used 2-digit years, from checks you wrote to the form you'd fill out at the dentist when you came for your first appointment. Sure it saved memory, but more importantly it saved you writing and business computing at that point was rooted in the automation of things that had been done by paper.
- jgwil2 4y ago
  Tufecki is definitely not a lightweight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeynep_Tufekci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeynep_Tufekci Having said that, I agree that technical debt could be better explained here. I think the issue is that very old software systems tend to have a lot of technical debt, which could lead to resistance to adding new features. In this instance, the tech debt seems to have led to a fragile system that could not be updated to handle more than baseline levels of traffic, forcing the company to resort to manual solutions when a crisis occurred.
bediger4000 4y ago
Perhaps Southwest has more problems than that. The "let's go brandon" pilot is a SWA pilot: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/southwest-airlines-pilot-lets-go-brandon-biden https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/southwest-ai... The pilot ranting about how much he hates liberals and Hyundais is a SWA pilot: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pilot-hot-mic-san-francisco-b1822656.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pilot-hot-...
yawaramin 4y ago
Duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34208890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34208890

3 ms·

The Shameful Open Secret Behind Southwest’s Failure

4 points by jgwil2 4y ago

quantified 4y ago
This seems like a redefinition of "technical debt". Feature-poor is not technically indebted. Features and platforms implemented in poor or inflexible ways can be considered indebted. Young journalist hearing a term without understanding it? Let's see if this inspires some mainstream media adoption of the term to throw around this year. The reference to Y2K is humorous too. Everything used 2-digit years, from checks you wrote to the form you'd fill out at the dentist when you came for your first appointment. Sure it saved memory, but more importantly it saved you writing and business computing at that point was rooted in the automation of things that had been done by paper.
- jgwil2 4y ago
  Tufecki is definitely not a lightweight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeynep_Tufekci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeynep_Tufekci Having said that, I agree that technical debt could be better explained here. I think the issue is that very old software systems tend to have a lot of technical debt, which could lead to resistance to adding new features. In this instance, the tech debt seems to have led to a fragile system that could not be updated to handle more than baseline levels of traffic, forcing the company to resort to manual solutions when a crisis occurred.
bediger4000 4y ago
Perhaps Southwest has more problems than that. The "let's go brandon" pilot is a SWA pilot: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/southwest-airlines-pilot-lets-go-brandon-biden https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/southwest-ai... The pilot ranting about how much he hates liberals and Hyundais is a SWA pilot: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pilot-hot-mic-san-francisco-b1822656.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pilot-hot-...
yawaramin 4y ago
Duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34208890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34208890