3 ms·

The author makes a horrible assumption themselves right in their opening argument that "most of the things you are trying to do have been done already". How is

The author makes a horrible assumption themselves right in their opening argument that "most of the things you are trying to do have been done already". How is a business going to find value copying and pasting sql solutions from stack overflow as honestly suggested by the article author? Horrible advice, pick the correct tool for the job, sometimes that tool is brand new because you are doing something brand new. The author completely avoids the real question which is how to select what new technology to use by saying only choose old technology.

luispauloml 3y ago
>The author completely avoids the real question which is how to select what new technology There is a whole section called "When (and how) to use innovative new tech" talking about this, and another one called "My framework for choosing technologies" describing the author's approach.
blincoln 3y ago
It is not a horrible assumption for the vast majority of developers. Even if the business they're supporting is doing something genuinely new (and IMO that's rare), most of the software written for that business is almost certainly going to do something similar to a bunch of existing software. ChatGPT's Vision add-on is able to do things like generate code for a web dashboard from a screenshot of a mockup because nearly every web dashboard is extremely similar except for the branding and labels on the data/elements. Most developers working for a business are writing that kind of code. It's the dev equivalent of hiring an architect and contractor to build a house. The result may very well be unique overall in some way, but nearly all of it would be based on well-tested designs and components. Most people wouldn't want the contractor to fabricate custom roofing panels out of recycled Russian submarine titanium, because even though it might have a "wow" exotic factor and some tangible benefits, having maintenance done on it would be a nightmare, and there are likely to be surprises no one considered because it was the first house to use them. Software is even worse in some ways. I've seen complex products built on flash-in-the-pan frameworks of the moment that ended up with problems so close to the foundation that fixing them would require a complete rewrite or forking the (now unsupported) framework and making low-level architectural changes there. At least with a titanium roof, the worst-case scenario is having to replace the entire roof. There's some audience bias here, because people who read Hacker News are more likely to be working for startups that do something genuinely new, and maybe even writing code that does something genuinely new, but IMO it's still not very common.
turtlebits 3y ago
Disagree - everything novel has been done already. Technology at its basic form is moving/transforming data. Too many engineers fall into the trap of chasing what's new.
marcosdumay 3y ago
I'd bet the people programing the LHC detectors have plenty of their problems already solved in Stack Overflow. If most of the things you are trying to do were never done, you will never achieve anything, with complete certainty. Not even if you are trying to make art.

luispauloml 3y ago

>The author completely avoids the real question which is how to select what new technology There is a whole section called "When (and how) to use innovative new tech" talking about this, and another one called "My framework for choosing technologies" describing the author's approach.

blincoln 3y ago

It is not a horrible assumption for the vast majority of developers. Even if the business they're supporting is doing something genuinely new (and IMO that's rare), most of the software written for that business is almost certainly going to do something similar to a bunch of existing software. ChatGPT's Vision add-on is able to do things like generate code for a web dashboard from a screenshot of a mockup because nearly every web dashboard is extremely similar except for the branding and labels on the data/elements. Most developers working for a business are writing that kind of code. It's the dev equivalent of hiring an architect and contractor to build a house. The result may very well be unique overall in some way, but nearly all of it would be based on well-tested designs and components. Most people wouldn't want the contractor to fabricate custom roofing panels out of recycled Russian submarine titanium, because even though it might have a "wow" exotic factor and some tangible benefits, having maintenance done on it would be a nightmare, and there are likely to be surprises no one considered because it was the first house to use them. Software is even worse in some ways. I've seen complex products built on flash-in-the-pan frameworks of the moment that ended up with problems so close to the foundation that fixing them would require a complete rewrite or forking the (now unsupported) framework and making low-level architectural changes there. At least with a titanium roof, the worst-case scenario is having to replace the entire roof. There's some audience bias here, because people who read Hacker News are more likely to be working for startups that do something genuinely new, and maybe even writing code that does something genuinely new, but IMO it's still not very common.

turtlebits 3y ago

Disagree - everything novel has been done already. Technology at its basic form is moving/transforming data. Too many engineers fall into the trap of chasing what's new.

marcosdumay 3y ago

I'd bet the people programing the LHC detectors have plenty of their problems already solved in Stack Overflow. If most of the things you are trying to do were never done, you will never achieve anything, with complete certainty. Not even if you are trying to make art.