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Not the GP but I think that blog post https://web.dev/blog/webdev-migration https://web.dev/blog/webdev-migration you linked explains it pretty clearly? • The

Not the GP but I think that blog post https://web.dev/blog/webdev-migration https://web.dev/blog/webdev-migration you linked explains it pretty clearly? • The people working on web.dev decided to migrate to a common Google site platform, so that they could focus on content rather than maintaining an ad-hoc infrastructure, • That platform happens not to support RSS (yet), so they've done the best they can in the meantime, filing a bug with the platform, creating the https://developer.chrome.com/feeds https://developer.chrome.com/feeds info page acknowledging the issue, and even creating unofficial feeds. You could phrase this as “someone in Google management who decided that RSS could be broken”, but relative to the big decision of whether to spend effort maintaining your own custom infrastructure or just focus on the content, the presence or absence of RSS support is probably just not a big factor. [One could imagine a culture of "never migrate to a new system unless it fully supports every single functionality of the old system", but that (just like "never launch a product/feature unless you're confident you're going to support it forever") is simply not in Google's culture, where there are always ongoing migrations between "the old system that is deprecated and the new system that is not ready yet" — but that is "just" a cultural problem rather than anyone consciously deciding that RSS could be broken.]

lapcat 3y ago
> relative to the big decision of whether to spend effort maintaining your own custom infrastructure or just focus on the content, the presence or absence of RSS support is probably just not a big factor. This is a false dichotomy. I wasn't questioning the decision to migrate platforms, I was questioning "the deadlines, feature freezes, and project reshuffling". > there are always ongoing migrations between "the old system that is deprecated and the new system that is not ready yet" — but that is "just" a cultural problem rather than anyone consciously deciding that RSS could be broken. I disagree, because whenever you migrate, some features are considered essential and others inessential. Someone consciously decided that RSS was among the inessential features in this specific case. The "culture" did not make that specific decision. This is the developer relations team. How can you have relations with developers when they don't even see your announcements? The essential part is the communication with outside developers, not the internal CMS. > they've done the best they can in the meantime, filing a bug with the platform, creating the https://developer.chrome.com/feeds https://developer.chrome.com/feeds info page acknowledging the issue, and even creating unofficial feeds. How were developers supposed to know any of this? I had no idea until now.
- listmaking 3y ago
  The freeze "until after the new year" is just the end-of-year freeze to avoid production breakage when a lot of people are on vacation: it's an extension of the principle of not deploying on Friday evenings / weekends; lots of companies have such a freeze. Once you've decided a couple of months earlier to do a migration, doing it "before the freeze" is also a natural deadline to pick, for migrating to the new infrastructure, and for people working on the old infrastructure to complete the migration and move to other projects. I'm not on the team but these all seem like logical choices. And yes, in the decision between "keep maintaining a custom infrastructure" and "switch to a common infrastructure", someone must have decided that RSS support is not an essential feature whose lack should block (or indefinitely postpone) the migration; this seems reasonable and what my previous post was about, including the "probably just not a big factor" bit you quoted above. It looks like they're planning to add this support though.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > The freeze "until after the new year" is just the end-of-year freeze to avoid production breakage when a lot of people are on vacation There was production breakage! The RSS feeds broke. That's the entire point of this HN submission and discussion. > Once you've decided a couple of months earlier to do a migration, doing it "before the freeze" is also a natural deadline to pick, for migrating to the new infrastructure Why? Migrations almost always break stuff, right? So why would you break stuff when "a lot of people are on vacation" and thus can't fix the breakage? It seems to me the natural and logical choice would be to wait until after the new year to migrate. What sense does it make to break stuff and then go on vacation? > RSS support is not an essential feature whose lack should block (indefinitely postpone) the migration; this seems natural (especially if you think you can add it back in a few weeks / months) It's interesting that you say "indefinitely" postpone but then turn around right away and say "a few weeks/ months".
    - freedomben 3y ago
      I don't really disagree with you, but I've been on the other end of this before and there was a major incentive to get it in before the break: all the context in our heads. If we waited several weeks until after the christmas break, we'd lose a lot of mental context. It's also a horrible dark cloud hanging over your head. When dealing with a big migration, it's really ideal to do it while everything is still fresh. Context switching can be very expensive

lapcat 3y ago

> relative to the big decision of whether to spend effort maintaining your own custom infrastructure or just focus on the content, the presence or absence of RSS support is probably just not a big factor. This is a false dichotomy. I wasn't questioning the decision to migrate platforms, I was questioning "the deadlines, feature freezes, and project reshuffling". > there are always ongoing migrations between "the old system that is deprecated and the new system that is not ready yet" — but that is "just" a cultural problem rather than anyone consciously deciding that RSS could be broken. I disagree, because whenever you migrate, some features are considered essential and others inessential. Someone consciously decided that RSS was among the inessential features in this specific case. The "culture" did not make that specific decision. This is the developer relations team. How can you have relations with developers when they don't even see your announcements? The essential part is the communication with outside developers, not the internal CMS. > they've done the best they can in the meantime, filing a bug with the platform, creating the https://developer.chrome.com/feeds https://developer.chrome.com/feeds info page acknowledging the issue, and even creating unofficial feeds. How were developers supposed to know any of this? I had no idea until now.

listmaking 3y ago
The freeze "until after the new year" is just the end-of-year freeze to avoid production breakage when a lot of people are on vacation: it's an extension of the principle of not deploying on Friday evenings / weekends; lots of companies have such a freeze. Once you've decided a couple of months earlier to do a migration, doing it "before the freeze" is also a natural deadline to pick, for migrating to the new infrastructure, and for people working on the old infrastructure to complete the migration and move to other projects. I'm not on the team but these all seem like logical choices. And yes, in the decision between "keep maintaining a custom infrastructure" and "switch to a common infrastructure", someone must have decided that RSS support is not an essential feature whose lack should block (or indefinitely postpone) the migration; this seems reasonable and what my previous post was about, including the "probably just not a big factor" bit you quoted above. It looks like they're planning to add this support though.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > The freeze "until after the new year" is just the end-of-year freeze to avoid production breakage when a lot of people are on vacation There was production breakage! The RSS feeds broke. That's the entire point of this HN submission and discussion. > Once you've decided a couple of months earlier to do a migration, doing it "before the freeze" is also a natural deadline to pick, for migrating to the new infrastructure Why? Migrations almost always break stuff, right? So why would you break stuff when "a lot of people are on vacation" and thus can't fix the breakage? It seems to me the natural and logical choice would be to wait until after the new year to migrate. What sense does it make to break stuff and then go on vacation? > RSS support is not an essential feature whose lack should block (indefinitely postpone) the migration; this seems natural (especially if you think you can add it back in a few weeks / months) It's interesting that you say "indefinitely" postpone but then turn around right away and say "a few weeks/ months".
  - freedomben 3y ago
    I don't really disagree with you, but I've been on the other end of this before and there was a major incentive to get it in before the break: all the context in our heads. If we waited several weeks until after the christmas break, we'd lose a lot of mental context. It's also a horrible dark cloud hanging over your head. When dealing with a big migration, it's really ideal to do it while everything is still fresh. Context switching can be very expensive