I upvoted and checked immediately, and you're right: it presents an upvote in the JS interface, but a reload reveals the truth. Not counting reply upvotes does

I upvoted and checked immediately, and you're right: it presents an upvote in the JS interface, but a reload reveals the truth. Not counting reply upvotes does prevent long, mutual karma-generating exchanges, but if it's trying to disguise that reality from users it isn't very effectively disguised. I'm not 100% convinced it's deliberate, but it could be, like that idea of making trolls invisible, but not letting them know they are invisible (not sure how that's applicable here, maybe so people don't explore trickier ways of getting karma) I agree that ORMs are good for the basic impedance mismatch, but are hard to optimize for more complex queries. I do wonder if working directly with the database is becoming a dark art, as most practitioners would prefer to avoid it if possible, and they often can. "So you plan ahead, you build for the future, not for the simplistic view you have today." So you disagree with those agile ideas of "you ain't gonna need it" and "release early, release often". You're describing something like the waterfall model. I'm actually not against the waterfall model, it's just that you need to have done a few similar projects to have the requisite level of judgment, like a carpenter building his 10th kitchen. Most practitioners aren't at this level of expertise - they'll still learning what the problem is. If they try to do what you suggest without your level of experience, they'll really make a mess. It's a matter of a novice knowing that they don't know. I agree that working with experienced folk would help, but such folk are in short supply (though possibly many people are reluctant to find them, and would rather be the "experts" themselves - maybe this is what you find objectionable). I guess he could have gained much more experience in 5 years, if he had done several database projects over that period, instead of improving just the one.