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You're assuming that your closed source vendors are perfectly aligned with you. In practice they almost inevitably seem to cause capture (https://en.wikipedia.o

You're assuming that your closed source vendors are perfectly aligned with you. In practice they almost inevitably seem to cause capture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture). Open/closed is a red herring here. Projects slowing down as they succeed seems to be a universal phenomenon, from startups to civilizations. Specialization leads to capture. I think almost exclusively about how to fix this: http://akkartik.name/about http://akkartik.name/about (you've seen and liked this), http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/04/09/the-legibility-tradeoff http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/04/09/the-legibility-tradeoff Disclosure: google employee

drawkbox 12y ago
I agree this is just part of the software iteration game. This has been Microsoft's modus operandi since they started. Microsoft still is with getting people to move to Azure/mobile, the cycling is just happening further up the stack. Some of the iterations are good, some are just for control, mostly though it is to keep developers locked in and chasing rather than innovating. Software has to change and iterate though, but too slow or too fast can be harmful or the worthiness of iterations varies when platforms change. On the topic of Node.js and Express though I think it is production solid and it is very fast (faster than php, ruby, python). I love it and I think here Netflix developers are at fault for not testing something a bit outside of the express default usage that is tested thoroughly. Their solution of changing to Restify so quick on a problem probably tells you how they got into this problem even if Restify is indeed better for this purpose. With any new change comes research/testing/possible problems open source or closed. In the end this is why microframeworks, which both of the node frameworks are, do win out as they are easier to inspect and live on after the hype (monolithic frameworks not so much).
nostrademons 12y ago
Yep, closed source doesn't solve the problem either. If you believe that just because you're paying money for someone to take responsibility for a problem, they will actually solve the problem in a way that's amenable to you...well, there are numerous closed-source software vendors looking to sell you something. In practice, the way to avoid this is to keep the software as simple as possible. Try to adjust to your user's most pressing current needs, not every need they might conceivably have. Killing features and deleting code is as important as launching features and writing code; make sure that your incentive systems reward this. Very often, third-party code gets pulled in to scratch one particular itch; if it's no longer itching, rip the code out. If it is still itching and you've built significant parts of your system around it, you may want to think about replacing the innards with a home-grown system.
- barrkel 12y ago
  When a software provider I use starts ripping out features I relied upon, I start looking for an alternate provider, one that isn't so eager to kill features. And in particular, I try not to learn or rely on any new features, if there is past behaviour of feature removal by the provider. It's better to be careful - very careful - about what you add, and to have a story for migration, than to remove features.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    This depends on industry, of course - in consumer web it's much better to risk pissing off a few customers but make the majority of them happy than to keep all your existing customers but risk losing out on a new innovation that gives a competitor a toe-hold. Enterprise SaaS probably has different trade-offs, and software infrastructure probably different still. This paradox, BTW, could be thought of as the full-employment theorem for entrepreneurs. As long as it is rational for a business to avoid change for fear of having to remove or support it later, then there will exist changes that a company with no customers and no codebase could implement that no incumbent would dare. Some of these are bound to be useful to some segment of the market, and that's why you get continued disruption in technology markets.

drawkbox 12y ago

I agree this is just part of the software iteration game. This has been Microsoft's modus operandi since they started. Microsoft still is with getting people to move to Azure/mobile, the cycling is just happening further up the stack. Some of the iterations are good, some are just for control, mostly though it is to keep developers locked in and chasing rather than innovating. Software has to change and iterate though, but too slow or too fast can be harmful or the worthiness of iterations varies when platforms change. On the topic of Node.js and Express though I think it is production solid and it is very fast (faster than php, ruby, python). I love it and I think here Netflix developers are at fault for not testing something a bit outside of the express default usage that is tested thoroughly. Their solution of changing to Restify so quick on a problem probably tells you how they got into this problem even if Restify is indeed better for this purpose. With any new change comes research/testing/possible problems open source or closed. In the end this is why microframeworks, which both of the node frameworks are, do win out as they are easier to inspect and live on after the hype (monolithic frameworks not so much).

nostrademons 12y ago

Yep, closed source doesn't solve the problem either. If you believe that just because you're paying money for someone to take responsibility for a problem, they will actually solve the problem in a way that's amenable to you...well, there are numerous closed-source software vendors looking to sell you something. In practice, the way to avoid this is to keep the software as simple as possible. Try to adjust to your user's most pressing current needs, not every need they might conceivably have. Killing features and deleting code is as important as launching features and writing code; make sure that your incentive systems reward this. Very often, third-party code gets pulled in to scratch one particular itch; if it's no longer itching, rip the code out. If it is still itching and you've built significant parts of your system around it, you may want to think about replacing the innards with a home-grown system.

barrkel 12y ago
When a software provider I use starts ripping out features I relied upon, I start looking for an alternate provider, one that isn't so eager to kill features. And in particular, I try not to learn or rely on any new features, if there is past behaviour of feature removal by the provider. It's better to be careful - very careful - about what you add, and to have a story for migration, than to remove features.
- nostrademons 12y ago
  This depends on industry, of course - in consumer web it's much better to risk pissing off a few customers but make the majority of them happy than to keep all your existing customers but risk losing out on a new innovation that gives a competitor a toe-hold. Enterprise SaaS probably has different trade-offs, and software infrastructure probably different still. This paradox, BTW, could be thought of as the full-employment theorem for entrepreneurs. As long as it is rational for a business to avoid change for fear of having to remove or support it later, then there will exist changes that a company with no customers and no codebase could implement that no incumbent would dare. Some of these are bound to be useful to some segment of the market, and that's why you get continued disruption in technology markets.