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Maybe we could say something a bit similar about Express.js and other "boring technologies".

andrewmcwatters 1y ago
I think it starts with us collectively not using boring tech as a term anymore. If boring helps me be productive, that's exciting, not boring. Some people on the React team deciding in 2027 to change how everyone uses React again is NOT exciting, it's an exercise in tolerating senior amateurs and I hate it because it affects all of us down to the experience of speaking to under-qualified people in interview processes "um-ackchyually"-ing you when you forget to wrap some stupid function in some other stupid function. Could you imagine how incredulous it would be if SQLite's C API changed every 2 years? But it doesn't. Because it was apparently designed by real professionals.
- kragen 1y ago
  Hey, didn't you write kjbuckets and Gadfly? Or was that Aaron Watters? I was thinking about that the other day: that was one of the coolest pieces of software for Python 2 (though I think it predated Python 2): an embedded SQL database without needing SQLite's C API. I suppose it's succumbed to "software rot" now. I think "boring software" is a useful term. Exciting things are unpredictable. Predictable things aren't exciting. They're boring. Stock car racing is interesting because it's unpredictable, and, as I understand it, it's okay for a race car to behave unpredictably, as long as it isn't the welds in the roll bars that are behaving unpredictably. But if your excitement is coming from some other source—a beautiful person has invited you to go on a ski trip with them, or your wife needs to get to the hospital within the next half hour—it's better to use a boring car that you know won't overheat halfway there. Similarly, if a piece of software is a means to some other end, and that end is what's exciting you, it's better to use boring software to reach that end instead of exciting software.
  - andrewmcwatters 1y ago
    The name is close, but no cigar. :) I'm known in different circles than Python's.
    - kragen 1y ago
      Doh, sorry!
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 1y ago
    I thought you were about to say go on a ski trip with your mistress while your wife is 9 months pregnant. That'd be exciting too, but in a bad/awful way.
    - kragen 1y ago
      It's probably better to have your wife with you and your mistress in that case.
- righthand 1y ago
  I agree, it’s “understood” tech, not “boring” tech. It’s only boring because it’s simplicity and usefulness is obvious. It’s only boring because there are few to zero use cases left to discover application of the tech. The tech isn’t boring, the person is boring.

I think it starts with us collectively not using boring tech as a term anymore. If boring helps me be productive, that's exciting, not boring. Some people on the React team deciding in 2027 to change how everyone uses React again is NOT exciting, it's an exercise in tolerating senior amateurs and I hate it because it affects all of us down to the experience of speaking to under-qualified people in interview processes "um-ackchyually"-ing you when you forget to wrap some stupid function in some other stupid function. Could you imagine how incredulous it would be if SQLite's C API changed every 2 years? But it doesn't. Because it was apparently designed by real professionals.

kragen 1y ago
Hey, didn't you write kjbuckets and Gadfly? Or was that Aaron Watters? I was thinking about that the other day: that was one of the coolest pieces of software for Python 2 (though I think it predated Python 2): an embedded SQL database without needing SQLite's C API. I suppose it's succumbed to "software rot" now. I think "boring software" is a useful term. Exciting things are unpredictable. Predictable things aren't exciting. They're boring. Stock car racing is interesting because it's unpredictable, and, as I understand it, it's okay for a race car to behave unpredictably, as long as it isn't the welds in the roll bars that are behaving unpredictably. But if your excitement is coming from some other source—a beautiful person has invited you to go on a ski trip with them, or your wife needs to get to the hospital within the next half hour—it's better to use a boring car that you know won't overheat halfway there. Similarly, if a piece of software is a means to some other end, and that end is what's exciting you, it's better to use boring software to reach that end instead of exciting software.
- andrewmcwatters 1y ago
  The name is close, but no cigar. :) I'm known in different circles than Python's.
  - kragen 1y ago
    Doh, sorry!
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 1y ago
  I thought you were about to say go on a ski trip with your mistress while your wife is 9 months pregnant. That'd be exciting too, but in a bad/awful way.
  - kragen 1y ago
    It's probably better to have your wife with you and your mistress in that case.
righthand 1y ago
I agree, it’s “understood” tech, not “boring” tech. It’s only boring because it’s simplicity and usefulness is obvious. It’s only boring because there are few to zero use cases left to discover application of the tech. The tech isn’t boring, the person is boring.