4 ms·

The Inner JSON Effect (2016)

38 points by BeefySwain 3y ago

rco8786 3y ago
This belongs in /r/thathappened
- graypegg 3y ago
  Ehh don’t think it’s trying to come off as a real story. Comes off as an allegory about making things more complex than they have to be.
  - nmeofthestate 3y ago
    If you're not familiar with the website, it is for true stories of software development rather than made-up stuff designed to serve as a metaphor. Anything posted on the daily wtf is trying to come off as a real story.
    - jsmith45 3y ago
      Given that on a previous job I found one that about my then current employer (pretty obvious if you worked there), I can certainly attest to at least some of them being true, even if they sound absurd. (The real story with context was a little less ridiculous, but still seems objectively questionable.)
- mock-possum 3y ago
  God yeah, I can’t stand this style of smug storytelling.
kacesensitive 3y ago
Your drank from the fountain? I haven't removed the cyanide from the reservoir!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
xg15 3y ago
> JDSL was written by Tom. He’s a super-genius and wrote JDSL himself. Famous last words.
eternityforest 3y ago
I'm guilty of putting a JSON language in production. In my case it's just an if this then that rules engine with a backend that looks kind of like lisp, [eventName, [[action, param]]] is pretty much the whole language, except for a few bits of special syntax in the eventName (=variable>6 to trigger on greater than 6, @every five minutes to trigger every five minutes). It lets people edit rules visually in a way that anyone can probably use if they can use a spreadsheet. Sometimes the task needs some hackery to shove it into such a limited language, but I'd rather have boring hacks than elegance backed by lots of in house novelty to maintain.
- karmakaze 3y ago
  Nice. Greenspan's tenth rule, which I would say of configs and DSLs. Not always bad but good to be aware of while you're doing it.
- febusravenga 3y ago
  Don't be ashamed. This is actually quite common and correct solution sometimes. Look, like mapbox styling runs on "s-expr"-like based languge encoded as JSON arrays: https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-language#mapboxlanguage https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-language#mapboxlanguage We did it in related project too and worked well enough.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
spiralx 3y ago
Reminds me of a place where every screen, dialog and domain object was specified in a single table with hundreds of fields that could only be accessed or changed via a custom app that looked like a primitive DOS spreadsheet app, and often contained pointers to other objects in this table via their line number "pointer". There was a week-long training course when I joined just to explain how this worked. Oh, and everything in the app was done via messages which were again specified by their line number in the same table as above and processed by a single ginormous switch statement with huge amounts of fall-through being used which led to messages being dealt with in whatever arbitrary order made that work, and which often then sent their own messages in a recursion hell. They were part-way through updating the app to Win32 when I joined, and apparently gave up that project after I left in 2001, to a new job where the world of Java applets running on the Microsoft JVM seemed like a whole new modern world.

38 points by BeefySwain 3y ago

rco8786 3y ago

This belongs in /r/thathappened

graypegg 3y ago
Ehh don’t think it’s trying to come off as a real story. Comes off as an allegory about making things more complex than they have to be.
- nmeofthestate 3y ago
  If you're not familiar with the website, it is for true stories of software development rather than made-up stuff designed to serve as a metaphor. Anything posted on the daily wtf is trying to come off as a real story.
  - jsmith45 3y ago
    Given that on a previous job I found one that about my then current employer (pretty obvious if you worked there), I can certainly attest to at least some of them being true, even if they sound absurd. (The real story with context was a little less ridiculous, but still seems objectively questionable.)
mock-possum 3y ago
God yeah, I can’t stand this style of smug storytelling.

kacesensitive 3y ago

Your drank from the fountain? I haven't removed the cyanide from the reservoir!

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

xg15 3y ago

> JDSL was written by Tom. He’s a super-genius and wrote JDSL himself. Famous last words.

eternityforest 3y ago

I'm guilty of putting a JSON language in production. In my case it's just an if this then that rules engine with a backend that looks kind of like lisp, [eventName, [[action, param]]] is pretty much the whole language, except for a few bits of special syntax in the eventName (=variable>6 to trigger on greater than 6, @every five minutes to trigger every five minutes). It lets people edit rules visually in a way that anyone can probably use if they can use a spreadsheet. Sometimes the task needs some hackery to shove it into such a limited language, but I'd rather have boring hacks than elegance backed by lots of in house novelty to maintain.

karmakaze 3y ago
Nice. Greenspan's tenth rule, which I would say of configs and DSLs. Not always bad but good to be aware of while you're doing it.
febusravenga 3y ago
Don't be ashamed. This is actually quite common and correct solution sometimes. Look, like mapbox styling runs on "s-expr"-like based languge encoded as JSON arrays: https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-language#mapboxlanguage https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-language#mapboxlanguage We did it in related project too and worked well enough.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

spiralx 3y ago

Reminds me of a place where every screen, dialog and domain object was specified in a single table with hundreds of fields that could only be accessed or changed via a custom app that looked like a primitive DOS spreadsheet app, and often contained pointers to other objects in this table via their line number "pointer". There was a week-long training course when I joined just to explain how this worked. Oh, and everything in the app was done via messages which were again specified by their line number in the same table as above and processed by a single ginormous switch statement with huge amounts of fall-through being used which led to messages being dealt with in whatever arbitrary order made that work, and which often then sent their own messages in a recursion hell. They were part-way through updating the app to Win32 when I joined, and apparently gave up that project after I left in 2001, to a new job where the world of Java applets running on the Microsoft JVM seemed like a whole new modern world.