3 ms·

DHH and 37Signals fall into the same traps as so many libertarians: in trying to avoid control of others, they exert undue control over people themselves (we wo

DHH and 37Signals fall into the same traps as so many libertarians: in trying to avoid control of others, they exert undue control over people themselves (we won't be beholden to Apple, because our employees must use Linux), in trying to be in control of their own destiny they end up with home-grown but worse options unless the only goal is control (not using the cloud or cloud tooling and instead writing their own). In trying to remove politics from their workplace they end up making a very strong political statement in support of exclusion. I'm not anti-libertarian, I share some of the values, and I don't even disagree with some of the technical choices at 37Signals. However I think there's a lot of hypocrisy in the space, and DHH frequently comes across as being very tone-deaf and unaware of the impact his decisions have on others, basically an extreme lack of empathy.

ch4s3 1y ago
I’m pretty sure self hosting is really just a cost thing for them.
wild_egg 1y ago
> they end up with home-grown but worse options This seems wildly subjective. Can you give some examples of how Omarchy is worse? I find using macOS to be generally frustrating and cumbersome to use and I'm regularly confused when people say it's unequivocally the better choice for all things.
- danpalmer 1y ago
  My examples for the home-grown tools were things like their deployment tooling which is far less well developed than other tools in the ecosystem. However I can see Omarchy going the same way. It's very easy to quickly build something that solves 80% of your problem, and because it's tailored for what you need and you understand it, it's easy to believe that's better than the existing tools. The problem comes in the long term, in supporting more use-cases. You can decide not to support more, but that's a sacrifice (and in the case of Omarchy the end users may bear the brunt of that), or you need to put the time in to develop it. Omarchy will have less development effort than macOS, their deployment system will have less development than Docker/Terraform/etc, and that's all a trade-off.
  - wild_egg 1y ago
    I asked about "worse", not "home-grown". Anyways you have a false equivalency there. Something being "less developed" doesn't automatically make it "worse". On the contrary, projects with larger active development effort generally trend to enshittification whereas smaller projects can stay focused on solving their core use cases. For a macOS-specific example, see https://x.com/ryolu_/status/1954598993515962707 https://x.com/ryolu_/status/1954598993515962707
  - weikju 1y ago
    > Omarchy will have less development effort than macOS, their deployment system will have less development than Docker/Terraform/etc, and that's all a trade-off. But… their deployement IS docker and terraform and etc. Their platform is Linux, nvim, etc. In total there is MORE development than all of apples platforms. It’s just not unified under one umbrella.
monooso 1y ago
Most of these criticisms don't stand up to scrutiny, but I can understand how you'd arrive at this opinion based on the blog post alone. In reality, this change primarily applies to the engineering team and will be phased in over several years. The company as a whole will continue to run Windows, macOS and Linux. There's also a get-out clause for any developers who just can't get along with Linux and prefer to stick with their beloved Mac. Source: the podcast episode linked from the DHH post (https://37signals.com/podcast/moving-to-omarchy/ https://37signals.com/podcast/moving-to-omarchy/).
hokumguru 1y ago
> in trying to be in control of their own destiny they end up with home-grown but worse options This very well describes many things I saw working in big tech however. Perhaps fully owning an internal implementation adds more weight to the decision than purely quality of the product itself.
pixxel 1y ago
[dead]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mrtrioxin 1y ago
He is slowly devolving into something.... He also now has a vocal bend on parenting and all men should be fathers and need to have more children. Can't wait until that becomes a requirement to work at his company...

ch4s3 1y ago

I’m pretty sure self hosting is really just a cost thing for them.

wild_egg 1y ago

> they end up with home-grown but worse options This seems wildly subjective. Can you give some examples of how Omarchy is worse? I find using macOS to be generally frustrating and cumbersome to use and I'm regularly confused when people say it's unequivocally the better choice for all things.

danpalmer 1y ago
My examples for the home-grown tools were things like their deployment tooling which is far less well developed than other tools in the ecosystem. However I can see Omarchy going the same way. It's very easy to quickly build something that solves 80% of your problem, and because it's tailored for what you need and you understand it, it's easy to believe that's better than the existing tools. The problem comes in the long term, in supporting more use-cases. You can decide not to support more, but that's a sacrifice (and in the case of Omarchy the end users may bear the brunt of that), or you need to put the time in to develop it. Omarchy will have less development effort than macOS, their deployment system will have less development than Docker/Terraform/etc, and that's all a trade-off.
- wild_egg 1y ago
  I asked about "worse", not "home-grown". Anyways you have a false equivalency there. Something being "less developed" doesn't automatically make it "worse". On the contrary, projects with larger active development effort generally trend to enshittification whereas smaller projects can stay focused on solving their core use cases. For a macOS-specific example, see https://x.com/ryolu_/status/1954598993515962707 https://x.com/ryolu_/status/1954598993515962707
- weikju 1y ago
  > Omarchy will have less development effort than macOS, their deployment system will have less development than Docker/Terraform/etc, and that's all a trade-off. But… their deployement IS docker and terraform and etc. Their platform is Linux, nvim, etc. In total there is MORE development than all of apples platforms. It’s just not unified under one umbrella.

monooso 1y ago

Most of these criticisms don't stand up to scrutiny, but I can understand how you'd arrive at this opinion based on the blog post alone. In reality, this change primarily applies to the engineering team and will be phased in over several years. The company as a whole will continue to run Windows, macOS and Linux. There's also a get-out clause for any developers who just can't get along with Linux and prefer to stick with their beloved Mac. Source: the podcast episode linked from the DHH post (https://37signals.com/podcast/moving-to-omarchy/ https://37signals.com/podcast/moving-to-omarchy/).

hokumguru 1y ago

> in trying to be in control of their own destiny they end up with home-grown but worse options This very well describes many things I saw working in big tech however. Perhaps fully owning an internal implementation adds more weight to the decision than purely quality of the product itself.

pixxel 1y ago

[dead]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

mrtrioxin 1y ago

He is slowly devolving into something.... He also now has a vocal bend on parenting and all men should be fathers and need to have more children. Can't wait until that becomes a requirement to work at his company...