4 ms·
So the goal is to get rid of the people who have all the internal knowledge?
by HNisCIS 6mo ago
So the goal is to get rid of the people who have all the internal knowledge?
- throwway120385 6mo agoYeah domain knowledge is expensive. Can you imagine how much it would cost to run a business where everyone knows the ins and outs of all of the customer use cases?
- freediddy 6mo agoSpeaking as a greybeard, it's not really that valuable. Younger people are just as smart, if not smarter, and they can figure it out if I get hit by a bus. There's literally nothing I know that someone younger couldn't learn or figure out.
- aggakake 6mo agoMicrosoft uses React Native in their Start menu because the kids don't know Windows programming anymore.
- petcat 6mo ago[flagged]
- wbxp99 6mo agoThe start menu just.... doesn't open sometimes these days.
- jadamson 6mo agoIt's a laggy resource hog. It's slow to open. You can spam the windows key and watch CPU usage increase. Putting words in someone's mouth to defend that dreck sounds ridiculous, yes.
- petcat 6mo agoWell I don't use Windows so I can't comment on the quality. And I actually don't even really care about it. I was just commenting on the curmudgeonly perspective that young people can't do things right.
- xienze 6mo agoThe more sensible take is “don’t use new technology where it doesn’t make sense.” The start menu should need a web browser engine and a heavy JS framework because…?
- oblio 6mo agoThat new technology could be Zig or Rust, if that's the spiel. Or it could be Ada, old and boring but generally safe. New for the sake of new is vanity.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- colonwqbang 6mo agoAnother way to look at it: Microsoft APIs have fallen from grace. Even their own devs don't dogfood anymore. They download something that Facebook made instead and reimplement the Holy Start Menu using that.
- xboxnolifes 6mo agoLet me introduce you to a new concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
- croes 6mo agoLet's use new technology just because it's new. You see how ridiculous that sounds
- ajayvk 6mo agoMakes no sense if you look at the start menu as an interface to the operating system. Makes perfect sense if you look at it as one more place to show ads
- esafak 6mo agoWindows native app development is a mess https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47475938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47475938
- johnnyanmac 6mo ago>There's literally nothing I know that someone younger couldn't learn or figure out. Learn, yes. Will they get the time and training for that, given that they are taking on 30+ year legacy code? I'm less confident.
- avidiax 6mo agoI think it was perhaps useful, at least in knowing which things are Chesterton's Fence. I doubt that AI can figure that out, since it's not always possible for humans to figure that out either. But with AI, simple codebase understanding or even just paving over everything, including the fence, is potentially easy, and getting easier each month. Certainly, a certain amount of senior experience is needed. The AI lacks taste and discretion. But the greybeard sensibilities the come with increasing seniority will probably hold back the new pace of things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...
- daemin 6mo agoAh, but can they tell the same tales as you can? Maybe in time when their beard starts getting grey in it, but that time is not now.
- croes 6mo agoThere is a difference between figuring out and already knowing. Especially if time is a limiting factor
- darth_avocado 6mo agoThey’re probably not the only people who keep the lights on. And if a few people are gate keeping information, you already have a problem that needs fixing.
- chongli 6mo agoHow do you go about fixing the problem if you end up buying out all the people with the domain knowledge you were hoping to preserve? That's like burning all the treasure maps before you set sail.
- darth_avocado 6mo agoNot saying a move like this won’t have any impact, but over emphasizing on domain knowledge is detrimental to engineering orgs. Some things will break, some things will be rediscovered by sinking more time, some things will be lost forever. But you also gain flexibility, fresh direction and the ability to move forward. When you work at a company for 20 years, you may be valuable when it comes to things that are done “the company way” but are also partially blind to how the industry has moved forward in those 20 years.
- chongli 6mo agoMicrosoft is a services company with engineering roots. That can be a dangerous combination in the long run if they forget where their bread is buttered. I would hope the Windows 11 backlash serves as a warning that they can’t just ignore their customers in pursuit of a vision.
- petcat 6mo agoit's more like just giving the employees that are nearing retirement an option to retire early if they want to.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- ChrisLTD 6mo agoall the people that knew how to keep Github running and make a clean version of Windows are already gone, I suppose
- not_doctorq 6mo agoAbsolutely true for GitHub; there was an exodus a few years after the acquisition presumably once some key vesting dates hit…
- kevmo 6mo agoGet rid of their highest-paid employees, replace them with off-shoring and AI. Eventually the fact that the US military and government is getting tech support from overseas will catch up. Microsoft is a walking national security disaster. But all they care about is "line go up next quarter". Their monopoly has made them lazy.
- IncreasePosts 6mo agoThere might be these wizards, but probably most of them are dudes who were attached to something successful 15 years ago and have been riding out their time at an inflated level.