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> Why was -- in this contrived scenario -- Jack's solution a "maintenance nightmare"? Just because. > The result was a combination of Google Protocol Buffers,

by niuzeta 13y ago

> Why was -- in this contrived scenario -- Jack's solution a "maintenance nightmare"? Just because. > The result was a combination of Google Protocol Buffers, node.js, and Cassandra. Elegant, scalable, and totally unmaintainable. If I can venture a guess, Jack went ahead (without asking further questions, as opposed to Dianne) and took what was very hot at that time. 2 years ago, Node.js was extremely hot, in a sense that it was the new thing that somehow combined the hot javascript and made something easier. I remember my collegate excitedly talking about the amazing serverside javascript. I don't know about Google Protocol Buffers and Cassandra but I assume they were what the author had in mind as 'very-hot-but-not-widely-used-yet', and most technology that fits such description generally falls into 'not-reliably-stable' and 'not-many-resources-yet' category. Think how you would do Java EE without help of Javadoc.

steinnes 13y ago
I got the same feeling as you niuzeta, and I feel the article may be getting judged a little too harshly (although I find the assertion of this being the best quality in a developer a little too absolute for my tastes). I think the author stated in the article that the fictional character Jack ".. makes a point of starting each project with at least three new technologies." I personally understand this as three new technologies Jack has not previously worked with, which should be a definite indication of some risk/unknown factors. Plus given the context of this fictional scenario, it seems unlikely that other developers associated with the project/company know them. Now if everyone were so conservative that they'd never try anything new, there would never be any progress, but I think the point of the article is that something isn't better, just because it is new. In fact, to me the rings of the "worse is better" philosophy which I didn't think was taboo in any way here on HN :-) Finally I'd like to add that the author didn't say this was a "maintenance nightmare", he did however say the solution was elegant, scalable and totally unmaintainable.
- _pmf_ 13y ago
  > In fact, to me the rings of the "worse is better" philosophy Which is typically pushed by worse developers. How coincidental!
- jaegerpicker 13y ago
  >Finally I'd like to add that the author didn't say this was a "maintenance nightmare", he did however say the solution was elegant, scalable and totally unmaintainable. Which is impossible, right? If it's elegant, it's maintainable. That's part of the definition of elegant software. A on liner that does amazing things, that very few people understand is not elegant. The same thought scales up to a whole solution IMO.

by niuzeta 13y ago

steinnes 13y ago

I got the same feeling as you niuzeta, and I feel the article may be getting judged a little too harshly (although I find the assertion of this being the best quality in a developer a little too absolute for my tastes). I think the author stated in the article that the fictional character Jack ".. makes a point of starting each project with at least three new technologies." I personally understand this as three new technologies Jack has not previously worked with, which should be a definite indication of some risk/unknown factors. Plus given the context of this fictional scenario, it seems unlikely that other developers associated with the project/company know them. Now if everyone were so conservative that they'd never try anything new, there would never be any progress, but I think the point of the article is that something isn't better, just because it is new. In fact, to me the rings of the "worse is better" philosophy which I didn't think was taboo in any way here on HN :-) Finally I'd like to add that the author didn't say this was a "maintenance nightmare", he did however say the solution was elegant, scalable and totally unmaintainable.

_pmf_ 13y ago
> In fact, to me the rings of the "worse is better" philosophy Which is typically pushed by worse developers. How coincidental!
jaegerpicker 13y ago
>Finally I'd like to add that the author didn't say this was a "maintenance nightmare", he did however say the solution was elegant, scalable and totally unmaintainable. Which is impossible, right? If it's elegant, it's maintainable. That's part of the definition of elegant software. A on liner that does amazing things, that very few people understand is not elegant. The same thought scales up to a whole solution IMO.