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You're not really calling out HN, you're calling out the coders here who claim they can recreate StackOverflow. But it is an example of a provocative title that

You're not really calling out HN, you're calling out the coders here who claim they can recreate StackOverflow. But it is an example of a provocative title that lured me into reading.

tsally 17y ago
Same thought process for me, but I decided not to read. I doubt more than 5% of the community thinks they can reimplement StackOverflow in a weekend.
- maukdaddy 17y ago
  Apparently you did read it.
  - tsally 17y ago
    If by it you mean the original thread and/or the parent comment to mine, then yes. Fairly simple to infer the subject on the post from these two pieces of information.
- TomOfTTB 17y ago
  I'd wager even less. If you search the thread he refers to (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678398 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678398) you see the original guy who said it would take a weekend only got 6 upvotes and the guy who claimed he could clone it over a weekend only got 4. So I think someone's just trying to get to the top of HN with a provacative title (which in all fairness was a plan that seems to have worked perfectly)
  - thorax 17y ago
    And I enjoyed reading it. I think it serves as a great reminder to all those who think it's quick to clone stuff. It might not be hard work sometimes for some sites. But it surely isn't trivial and surely isn't cheap (especially time-wise). Guys, that's also why people will pay for your "free" web apps. When they improve their lives and are "easy" for you to write, the time and money to recreate even the easiest site is a barrier that they have.
- icey 17y ago
  It's a pretty interesting article, if you can look past the link-baity title. Although, the topics he covers do address a larger part of HN than just the guy who said he could clone StackOverflow in a weekend.
- MaysonL 17y ago
  And only about .1% of the community could actually do it.
  - tsally 17y ago
    I think the point is that 0% of the community could do it.
    - sho 17y ago
      0% is pretty black and white. Many people here are in control of serious teams and I have no doubt they could duplicate SO in a weekend if they really wanted to. Of course they wouldn't, but still, it's not impossible, which is what "0% could" implies.
ktharavaad 17y ago
Yep, thats me and I'm still going to try do it this weekend =) I think some people takes things way too seriously like the fog creek employee who posted in the original thread whose post this blogpost references. EDIT: it actually appears to be the same guy who wrote this blog post. To me its just a fun little thing I'll try to do over the weekend and hopefully it'll offer a bit of refreshing perspective into web-based app development again since I've been stuck in the flex world (what pays the bills for now) for so long. But actually his post offers a pretty good to-do list for the list of things I need to do to get it working, so basically, there is: 1, Asking and Responding to question 2, can't downvote person too many times in certain amount of time 3, spam bot detection/prevention 4, user icons 5, sanitizing html lbrary 6, karma 7, full-text search with search-as-you-ask 8, user bios 9, important questions that bubbles down slowly 10, bounties 11, email notifications 12, javascript smart tags 13, user configurable badges 14, history of karma, upvotes and downvotes and oh yes, I'm not going to attempt to implement the design, i'll prolly start off by using the stackoverflow css and html as a template like what cnprog did when they started off and perhaps let someone else ( or do it myself ) replace it later.
- Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
  > I think some people takes things way too seriously like the fog creek employee who posted in the original thread whose post this blogpost references Well if he is really an SO dev, or knows the SO devs, he knows how much work has been put into it. SO is definitely not a complicated site, architecturally speaking. But as he points out, it's a very polished site. This may not be important for a programmer, but it is for an user (it is for me as an user at least), as he also points out. Regarding the amount of work wich probably has gone into it, your original statement : >it looks like something that can be thrown together in a weekend. surely sounds disrespectful to the labor of those guys. I'm also quite amazed by the general reaction to this. I don't understand how some commenters on hn, wich is supposed to be oriented towards entrepreneurs, who are by definition people interrested by the end user experience, could so quickly discard in several largely upvoted comments the work that has been put by those individuals, by saying that their success is just due to 'owners reputation'. This is amazingly rude, and seems to be going along just fine. When you provoke an argumentated and well thought out reaction as this one, you should ask yourself, before saying some people takes things too seriously, maybe you're taking what is important to them too lightly. And that's your responsability, not theirs. EDIT: This is not to say your challenge is not a nice one. I'll be interrested to see how it works out =)
adrianwaj 17y ago
"provocative title that lured me into reading" Headline fails are the biggest threat to web usability. Not only are they an abuse of language, but when a genuinely good article with a suitably entitled provocative headline appears, its impact is diminished, the reader is more weary, and the article may be in fact skipped over. "Pushy and manipulative news editors are akin to the boy who cried wolf" --- there, that's an overly provocative headline, isn't it?

You're not really calling out HN, you're calling out the coders here who claim they can recreate StackOverflow. But it is an example of a provocative title that lured me into reading.

tsally 17y ago

Same thought process for me, but I decided not to read. I doubt more than 5% of the community thinks they can reimplement StackOverflow in a weekend.

maukdaddy 17y ago
Apparently you did read it.
- tsally 17y ago
  If by it you mean the original thread and/or the parent comment to mine, then yes. Fairly simple to infer the subject on the post from these two pieces of information.
TomOfTTB 17y ago
I'd wager even less. If you search the thread he refers to (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678398 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678398) you see the original guy who said it would take a weekend only got 6 upvotes and the guy who claimed he could clone it over a weekend only got 4. So I think someone's just trying to get to the top of HN with a provacative title (which in all fairness was a plan that seems to have worked perfectly)
- thorax 17y ago
  And I enjoyed reading it. I think it serves as a great reminder to all those who think it's quick to clone stuff. It might not be hard work sometimes for some sites. But it surely isn't trivial and surely isn't cheap (especially time-wise). Guys, that's also why people will pay for your "free" web apps. When they improve their lives and are "easy" for you to write, the time and money to recreate even the easiest site is a barrier that they have.
icey 17y ago
It's a pretty interesting article, if you can look past the link-baity title. Although, the topics he covers do address a larger part of HN than just the guy who said he could clone StackOverflow in a weekend.
MaysonL 17y ago
And only about .1% of the community could actually do it.
- tsally 17y ago
  I think the point is that 0% of the community could do it.
  - sho 17y ago
    0% is pretty black and white. Many people here are in control of serious teams and I have no doubt they could duplicate SO in a weekend if they really wanted to. Of course they wouldn't, but still, it's not impossible, which is what "0% could" implies.

ktharavaad 17y ago

Yep, thats me and I'm still going to try do it this weekend =) I think some people takes things way too seriously like the fog creek employee who posted in the original thread whose post this blogpost references. EDIT: it actually appears to be the same guy who wrote this blog post. To me its just a fun little thing I'll try to do over the weekend and hopefully it'll offer a bit of refreshing perspective into web-based app development again since I've been stuck in the flex world (what pays the bills for now) for so long. But actually his post offers a pretty good to-do list for the list of things I need to do to get it working, so basically, there is: 1, Asking and Responding to question 2, can't downvote person too many times in certain amount of time 3, spam bot detection/prevention 4, user icons 5, sanitizing html lbrary 6, karma 7, full-text search with search-as-you-ask 8, user bios 9, important questions that bubbles down slowly 10, bounties 11, email notifications 12, javascript smart tags 13, user configurable badges 14, history of karma, upvotes and downvotes and oh yes, I'm not going to attempt to implement the design, i'll prolly start off by using the stackoverflow css and html as a template like what cnprog did when they started off and perhaps let someone else ( or do it myself ) replace it later.

Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
> I think some people takes things way too seriously like the fog creek employee who posted in the original thread whose post this blogpost references Well if he is really an SO dev, or knows the SO devs, he knows how much work has been put into it. SO is definitely not a complicated site, architecturally speaking. But as he points out, it's a very polished site. This may not be important for a programmer, but it is for an user (it is for me as an user at least), as he also points out. Regarding the amount of work wich probably has gone into it, your original statement : >it looks like something that can be thrown together in a weekend. surely sounds disrespectful to the labor of those guys. I'm also quite amazed by the general reaction to this. I don't understand how some commenters on hn, wich is supposed to be oriented towards entrepreneurs, who are by definition people interrested by the end user experience, could so quickly discard in several largely upvoted comments the work that has been put by those individuals, by saying that their success is just due to 'owners reputation'. This is amazingly rude, and seems to be going along just fine. When you provoke an argumentated and well thought out reaction as this one, you should ask yourself, before saying some people takes things too seriously, maybe you're taking what is important to them too lightly. And that's your responsability, not theirs. EDIT: This is not to say your challenge is not a nice one. I'll be interrested to see how it works out =)

adrianwaj 17y ago

"provocative title that lured me into reading" Headline fails are the biggest threat to web usability. Not only are they an abuse of language, but when a genuinely good article with a suitably entitled provocative headline appears, its impact is diminished, the reader is more weary, and the article may be in fact skipped over. "Pushy and manipulative news editors are akin to the boy who cried wolf" --- there, that's an overly provocative headline, isn't it?