4 ms·

By "Vietnam" do you think he means "an entity that they tried to crush and demonize but is actually doing kind of ok in 2014, all things considering".

hnriot 13y ago
I think he meant Vietnam as in a total failure on the part of the US
- laureny 13y ago
  Yeah, the US totally fail at ORM. Wait... wat?
  - cema 13y ago
    Perceptions. Just like US did not fail in Vietnam but failed in the public opinion, ORM are doing a good (well, at least passable) job of doing what they are intended to do, but are generally hated.
    - rodgerd 13y ago
      > Just like US did not fail in Vietnam In the alternate history where the US did not turn tail and run out of Vietnam like a whipped dog, abandoning their former allies in the south to be utterly subsumed by their enemies from the north, how did the 1976 election turn out. Was it still Carter?
      - cema 13y ago
        Let's leave politics to a different thread on a different site.
        GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
        I think it's a legit reply, are you gonna answer it?
        rodgerd 13y ago
        If you don't want politics, feel free to refrain from talking about them.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Just like US did not fail in Vietnam but failed in the public opinion This is self contradictory. Failure of national morale in war is actually how wars are normally lost, not somehow something different than normal defeat. And its relevant to the analogy, in that... > ORM are doing a good (well, at least passable) job of doing what they are intended to do, but are generally hated. If that's true, its because what they are designed to do isn't what the people hating them need done. It indicates a gap between what is available and what is needed; intent may be interesting, but in the end not all that important.
brc 13y ago
No, he means 'there are no good solutions to the situation we find ourselves in'.
ximeng 13y ago
It's a quote from someone else's essay which explains it as a situation where initial results are easy but finishing the job is hard. A strained analogy at best, and the essay is very verbose. "One of the key lessons of Vietnam was the danger of what's colloquially called "the Slippery Slope": that a given course of action might yield some early success, yet further investment into that action yields decreasingly commensurate results and increasibly dangerous obstacles whose only solution appears to be greater and greater commitment of resources and/or action. Some have called this "the Drug Trap", after the way pharmaceuticals (legal or illegal) can have diminished effect after prolonged use, requiring upped dosage in order to yield the same results. Others call this "the Last Mile Problem": that as one nears the end of a problem, it becomes increasingly difficult in cost terms (both monetary and abstract) to find a 100% complete solution. All are basically speaking of the same thing--the difficulty of finding an answer that allows our hero to "finish off" the problem in question, completely and satisfactorily."
- ww520 13y ago
  That describes NoSQL perfectly.
  - collyw 13y ago
    I just got the whole NoSQL marketing talk from a developer I am collaborating with on a project. "Its so quick, just connect Angular to Elasticsearch and blah blah blah". So no thought has been given to security (its going to be a biomedical research application). I can foresee lots problems in the future.
einhverfr 13y ago
I think, as an American, the metaphor carries with it the idea of a situation you think at the outset should be relatively easy but once you get invested in it seems to have no way out until you leave relatively defeated. For history buffs from Europe, the experience of Germanicus (at least as recounted by Tacitus) in the swamps across the Rhine may have a similar implication. Oh look, we're the Roman army, the most powerful army in the world. Defeating a few barbarians should be easy! But then the actual requirements start piling up, one gets into the swamps, can't move about like one would have hoped, logistics gets disrupted, and eventually it takes outside help even to retreat.....
mborch 13y ago
He means that it's a wormhole that you can't get yourself out of, initially because you're too invested to give it up, and going forward, because it's become a part of the application and as such, can't be taken out.

hnriot 13y ago

I think he meant Vietnam as in a total failure on the part of the US

laureny 13y ago
Yeah, the US totally fail at ORM. Wait... wat?
- cema 13y ago
  Perceptions. Just like US did not fail in Vietnam but failed in the public opinion, ORM are doing a good (well, at least passable) job of doing what they are intended to do, but are generally hated.
  - rodgerd 13y ago
    > Just like US did not fail in Vietnam In the alternate history where the US did not turn tail and run out of Vietnam like a whipped dog, abandoning their former allies in the south to be utterly subsumed by their enemies from the north, how did the 1976 election turn out. Was it still Carter?
    - cema 13y ago
      Let's leave politics to a different thread on a different site.
      - GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
        I think it's a legit reply, are you gonna answer it?
      - rodgerd 13y ago
        If you don't want politics, feel free to refrain from talking about them.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Just like US did not fail in Vietnam but failed in the public opinion This is self contradictory. Failure of national morale in war is actually how wars are normally lost, not somehow something different than normal defeat. And its relevant to the analogy, in that... > ORM are doing a good (well, at least passable) job of doing what they are intended to do, but are generally hated. If that's true, its because what they are designed to do isn't what the people hating them need done. It indicates a gap between what is available and what is needed; intent may be interesting, but in the end not all that important.

brc 13y ago

No, he means 'there are no good solutions to the situation we find ourselves in'.

ximeng 13y ago

It's a quote from someone else's essay which explains it as a situation where initial results are easy but finishing the job is hard. A strained analogy at best, and the essay is very verbose. "One of the key lessons of Vietnam was the danger of what's colloquially called "the Slippery Slope": that a given course of action might yield some early success, yet further investment into that action yields decreasingly commensurate results and increasibly dangerous obstacles whose only solution appears to be greater and greater commitment of resources and/or action. Some have called this "the Drug Trap", after the way pharmaceuticals (legal or illegal) can have diminished effect after prolonged use, requiring upped dosage in order to yield the same results. Others call this "the Last Mile Problem": that as one nears the end of a problem, it becomes increasingly difficult in cost terms (both monetary and abstract) to find a 100% complete solution. All are basically speaking of the same thing--the difficulty of finding an answer that allows our hero to "finish off" the problem in question, completely and satisfactorily."

ww520 13y ago
That describes NoSQL perfectly.
- collyw 13y ago
  I just got the whole NoSQL marketing talk from a developer I am collaborating with on a project. "Its so quick, just connect Angular to Elasticsearch and blah blah blah". So no thought has been given to security (its going to be a biomedical research application). I can foresee lots problems in the future.

einhverfr 13y ago

I think, as an American, the metaphor carries with it the idea of a situation you think at the outset should be relatively easy but once you get invested in it seems to have no way out until you leave relatively defeated. For history buffs from Europe, the experience of Germanicus (at least as recounted by Tacitus) in the swamps across the Rhine may have a similar implication. Oh look, we're the Roman army, the most powerful army in the world. Defeating a few barbarians should be easy! But then the actual requirements start piling up, one gets into the swamps, can't move about like one would have hoped, logistics gets disrupted, and eventually it takes outside help even to retreat.....

mborch 13y ago

He means that it's a wormhole that you can't get yourself out of, initially because you're too invested to give it up, and going forward, because it's become a part of the application and as such, can't be taken out.