[HN Gopher] A student asked how I keep us innovative - I don't ___________________________________________________________________ A student asked how I keep us innovative - I don't Author : SerCe Score : 181 points Date : 2023-10-10 12:00 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (ntietz.com) (TXT) w3m dump (ntietz.com) | kubb wrote: | This post seems to be mistaken in its understanding of | innovation. It seems to take it as using new technologies. But | this is a misunderstanding. | | Innovation means inventing novel solutions that solve relevant | problems better than what has been known before. This could be | creating a new tech, and using it, but it could also be applying | existing tech in a novel way. | | So you could be innovative using old technology, and you could | use new technology, but not be innovative. | | I guess the company where the author of the post works is neither | innovative, nor do they use new technology, but there's space on | the market for companies like that. Principal engineers who work | there don't even need to know the meaning of innovation. | mattgreenrocks wrote: | IMO, most people don't want to be working on innovative things, | despite what they say. It is brutally hard sometimes, and you | have to be okay with being alone to figure things out in your | own. | mlindner wrote: | This is a great answer if the thing you're building isn't | innovative. If it's just a nodejs storefront site. However it's a | pretty garbage answer if you're say trying to create a new thing | that's not been seen before. | xnx wrote: | Very sound advice. It's amazing how many projects never identify | what problem they're trying to solve, or lose track of it | immediately to focus on the technology. | mysterydip wrote: | "our project is just like x but written in y!" | sublimefire wrote: | "it is very easy use, I wrote it in a week" | reactordev wrote: | >"Now reduce down the solution" | | I love this part. This is the validation after proof that you | indeed, solved the correct problem. Because if you can't shave | away the complexity to the underlying problem and "get to the | heart of it" then you didn't solve the problem yet. You merely | handled its edge-cases. | datadrivenangel wrote: | The bleeding edge is called the bleeding edge, because you risk | cutting yourself on it! | | Innovation can be good, but you have to understand the | risk/reward profiles. | atomicnature wrote: | However, isn't innovation usually about building something | exciting from output perspective, rather than about the building | materials? We want the most reliable building materials, but how | you put them together to get novel functionality, or other | desirable characteristics at a higher level is what makes a | system innovative. | [deleted] | ngrilly wrote: | I am a proponent of "choosing boring technologies", but I don't | see how it relates to building innovative products and services. | You can create an innovative product or service using boring | technologies under the hood. I really like the post otherwise. | feoren wrote: | I think the article is a good response to the question the | student asked, though: | | > "As a principal engineer, how do you make sure your company | stays at the forefront of innovation?" | | This is most likely about using all the shiny new technologies | in a rapidly changing "forefront of innovation". The article | simply isn't about building innovative products and services. | | Of course, choosing boring technologies is one of the ways that | you can help save engineering brain-cycles for the actual | innovative core product or service you're building. | js8 wrote: | Yeah, I favor a slightly different rule. Choose a conservative | technology in places which are not a core competency of your | new product. Building a new product is risky, and you should | minimize the additional risk coming from a technology choice, | except the parts where you're actually trying to beat the | competition. That should be the focal point of innovation. | ngrilly wrote: | Totally agree. That's why I like the notion of "innovation | tokens", also mentioned in the seminal post "Choose Boring | Technologies" [1]. You choose boring technologies for | everything, except for a few topics that will differentiate | your solution, where you get to spend your "innovation | tokens". | | [1] https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology | bdcravens wrote: | As most companies aren't pure tech, usually the core | competency isn't the software itself. Sometimes when it is, | it's hidden away (for instance, background processing of | data) and the best thing you can do is keep as easy to reason | about as possible. | bdcravens wrote: | It also applies to trying to avoid being clever with the tech | you choose. | mattgreenrocks wrote: | Younger devs conflate tech choices with innovation. | | They'll believe that a computer vision company is a dinosaur | because they're using C++ and a glorified CRUD startup is hip | and relevant because it uses Rust. It doesn't help that the | anemic-ness of some domains doesn't set in until 1-2 years | later. | BlackFly wrote: | I agree that novel technical choices are often conflated with | innovation over eagerly. My experience is that in learning | the lesson that these things are different many people over | correct and assume that novel technical choices are only ever | resume padding or useless hype. | | There are no silver bullets and the only way to get an order | of magnitude improvement is iterated marginal improvements. | That something is at best a marginal improvement shouldn't be | taken for a lack of innovation. | kritr wrote: | Using newer technologies sometimes buys development velocity, | which is a good indication of innovation. | LtWorf wrote: | Or it makes development slower due to lack of | documentation, support, and libraries for the chosen | technology. | innagadadavida wrote: | The tearoom is ask is "Can I hire an average software engineer | with 2-5y experience who'll will have no problems keeping this | running 99.999% of the time while doing development and | deployments? | Justsignedup wrote: | Well put, and is a great read for people to understand the | fundamentals of leading an eng team. What sort of thinking goes | into it. I feel like this perfectly explains how I need to think | on a daily basis. | | Lead engs are about bringing order to a chaotic eng process. | __xor_eax_eax wrote: | Meh. Reading the techniques behind the giant GCloud DDoS before | this, if you're not understanding the latest and greatest | technology and you're attackers are, you're going to be | victimized. | | To me this sounds like a stogy old grey-hair being defensive | about why its okay to be obsolete. Its not | dvas wrote: | Socialize the design: _" Find people who you think will be | contrarian, and have them poke holes in the design"_ | | Happy to see this mentioned! By involving everyone, the | experienced engineers will usually ask the harder questions and | test the assumption of your design and the juniors to learn and | re-evaluate assumptions they have about building software. Almost | a win-win for everyone. | | Even though in these discussions there may be a social aspect | where certain individuals are trying that much harder to find | disadvantages of a proposed design (many reasons which readers | are probably familiar with). However, I think this becomes a net | positive to the overall engineering as everyone tries to bring | their A-game to these discussions. | | Anyhow, my experience has been that collectively reasoning about | a design (assuming the team feels comfortable with criticism) | will always get results quicker. | EdgeExplorer wrote: | Unfortunately a lot of contrarian people think "it wasn't my | idea" is a hole in a design even if they would never say it. | indigochill wrote: | Not a problem if they don't say it since then it's not | derailing the conversation. It could even be a benefit if it | motivates them to look for actual holes. | convolvatron wrote: | you just have to refuse to accept input like 'I don't buy | it', 'I tried something like that before and it was a | failure', 'thats a code smell', 'I saw a blog post about | how that is an anti pattern', and other unsubstantiated | disses on an approach. if its so bad, you should really be | able to put some real words behind that. | kjkjadksj wrote: | Seems like that would invite armchair engineering like you seen | in HN comments. "Couldn't you just do the easy and obvious | thing?" The answer is probably a long no and the creator had | your thought already before realizing the true scope of the | work. | delusional wrote: | I find this pretty easy to deal with. You just don't engage | with that question. Make it clear to the people you are | discussion it with what kind of things you want input on | (architecture, design, product market fit), and make it very | clear when you consider their input out of that scope. People | will very quickly learn what sort of comments you care about. | | This form on "collective design" usually uses a | confrontational form of rhetoric, but the exercise is very | much collaborative. | 8note wrote: | That's great stuff to include in your design doc, at least on | an appendix | ar_lan wrote: | It's definitely double-edged. The main thing I've learned | regarding this is to clearly document this answer somewhere, | very early on. | | I recently learned this because I was asked this precise | question and basically had to drudge up all my two-quarters- | ago research that was the answer to this question. My answer | to their question was "yes we could do the easy thing, | but..." and everything trailing the "but" is a very long | string of small points that add up to something that tipped | the scale (at least in my and several other folks opinions). | But without that laid clearly out they thought I was just | over-engineering for the sake of job security or something | like that. | reactordev wrote: | Without proper management, you're correct. It would. I would | retort, never start a sentence with a negative. Find | something you do agree upon, make comments about the stuff | that you do like, before going into the details of what you | don't. This way it's clear where those boundaries are and in | what context the disagreed design would need changing, if | any. This also prevents brilliant jerks from completely | destroying the confidence of others to even present designs | to the group. Yes, it's a little showy, using more words than | are necessary, but it keeps the human aspect of agreement and | cooperation in-tact. | Jensson wrote: | > I would retort, never start a sentence with a negative. | | "Could you do the easy and obvious thing?" means the same | thing, I don't see how it makes a difference. | reactordev wrote: | Easy and obvious are subjective. | ozim wrote: | I believe parent was more into "could you do xyz?" Where | xyz is easy and obvious thing, but no one would | explicitly phrase it exactly like "could you do easy and | obvious thing?". | | This way proposing xyz as a solution is positive not a | negative. | _jal wrote: | >"Find people who you think will be contrarian, and have them | poke holes in the design" | | Socializing the design is good advice. | | Seeking out contrarians is not. | | It costs you much more to defend particular engineering | tradeoffs than it does to raise questions about them. So unless | you have a good relationship with your "contrarian" and they | will operate in good faith, you'll quickly end up exhausted and | dispirited after the anklebiters attack. | | Architecture astronauts and other armchair engineers will suck | up all your energy with half-baked ideas they aren't even | invested in, if you let them. | ska wrote: | Contrarian probably isn't the right term, but there is real | value in having someone come at the problem with a different | set of blinders than you have - particularly if they | understand their role is not to redo the design but to stress | test the existing one. I suspect this is what you mean by | "good faith" and "good relationship". | reactordev wrote: | it's a win-win-win. Win for the seniors to ask the harder | questions and make sure there's alignment. Win for the juniors | who learn and re-evaluate assumptions and bias. Win for the | business because they get the best design (at the time, with | the resources on hand) for the ask. | | It's important to make sure that folks who are doing the work, | agree upon the work. Building a bridge only works if the | engineers are building a bridge, not a suspended walkway of | dubious quality because they didn't like the design so some | wood and rope is what you got. | atoav wrote: | Important additional requirment: _do not_ have a manegerial | class that will throw all reasoning of those on the ground out | of the window and demand it to be done a certain way. | | I had a boss like that once. He could literally turn everything | into shit. You had a good plan for an event room, he strikes | everything useful out for "minimalism" and aesthetics reasons. | Then they ended up with a room that was both expensive and | unusable. No wall sockets pure concrete ceiling ("to show the | carrying structure"), a reverb time worse than in a church. | | For him it was always looks above literally everything else, no | matter if it was about architecture, furniture, tools or | graphic design. And he had the habbit of impulsively demand | changes after months of planning, as soon as things started to | take shape. Horrible. | paulryanrogers wrote: | The Jony Ive school of management? | charlie0 wrote: | The issue I see here is that being a contrarian is not enough. | In order to drive change, one must also have influence. It | doesn't matter how good a design is if others are not quick to | agree with it. | intelVISA wrote: | Can be a tough act to balance in reality: "assuming the team | feels comfortable with criticism" is where this well-meaning | process falls over in most shops. | yndoendo wrote: | One of the best design evaluation methods I found was to | teach and train others on the products. Occasionally doing | onsite project installations was a good feedback loop. I | wouldn't let them know I was a principal designer. Would sit | back and see how well they grasped the design and constantly | take notes on how to improve it. | | I want criticism about the designs. Tell me where you think | the product is junk and why. There is not one user but many | users you are designing for in a single product. Each has an | unique take and requirements. Features to sell it, those that | write the checks, and those that use it daily must both be | met. | Exoristos wrote: | If your shop is full of grown children, like this, then, face | it, you're doomed regardless. | convolvatron wrote: | so much discussion around software engineering these days | is based on infantilization and making sure you get | _something_ out of your fundamentally dysfunctional team. | its pretty disheartening. | Pannoniae wrote: | Isn't what agile/scrum literally is? Or "equaliser" | languages like Go? Both a trained monkey and a senior | engineer will be equally mediocre in using it. Zero room | for improvement. | mattgreenrocks wrote: | Individual programmer skill is seen as taboo to discuss | despite it having a huge impact on project outcomes. | mattgreenrocks wrote: | Absolutely. It's a toxic, nihilist mentality that leaks | into tools that greatly influence how we think. | | Bad programmers are an organizational failure. You cannot | fix that with tools. | | You can make it easier for devs to fall into a pit of | success, however. But, it's fine line between | facilitating that versus foisting things on users under | the guise of being "opinionated." The reality is it is | often taken to be patronizing, such as views of nextauth | on storing local usernames and passwords. | anotherhue wrote: | I keep waiting for the O'Reilly book "Agile: Managing | Mediocrity". | lfowles wrote: | I've observed it used as a great way to shut down projects | that don't immediately have demonstrable results | ska wrote: | > is where this well-meaning process falls over in most shops | | I would argue that if you have this problem, it is | fundamental, and your team will never be firing on all | cylinders until you fix it. Admit it is not easy if the | dysfunction is well set in. | saulpw wrote: | Great, but then how do you fix it, how long will that take, | and how do you get any work done until then? | ska wrote: | Incrementally is the answer to most of your concerns, but | the specifics will depend a lot on context. More | concretely, this is bread and butter stuff for | engineering leadership. I mean that in the broad | (including experienced staff) sense, not hierarchically. | a1o wrote: | > On my personal projects, I will usually go with whatever sparks | joy. | | I think this is the right thing for personal projects. I think | throwaway toy projects should be free to go that route too. | sublimefire wrote: | I like to think about it like R&D in a company. You do not | spend all of the budget on it but just some part, like 15%. | Similarly you try out new things and spend some time on it, | like 15%. | sdoering wrote: | I agree. I once built a small weather application that changes | the background image based on the weather being reported. | | I wanted to understand single page applications a bit better | and just decided to do it in Vue. Had never done anything | bigger than a bit of web tracking in JS before. So it was quite | a fun experience. I still sometimes enjoy using it (it is still | running and available, so I like to visit it like sn old | friend). | Joel_Mckay wrote: | Thank you for being honest with the kid, as a lot of folks | exploit peoples inexperience for financial reasons as policy. | | In general, there are a few assertions people make: | | A. The industry always changes | | B. The industry always follows the same trend | | Both are incorrect, but rather the truth floats somewhere between | the two. | | A better question is often "what skills will offer long-term | fiscal utility?" | | The answer to that utility question exposes the dirty side of the | tech industry: | | 1. is the concept an orthogonal theme from purely Academic or | Commercial Marketers? If Yes, than the probability it will still | be around in 2 years is vanishingly small. | | 2. is the role occupied by Senior staff over 35 at more than 6 | firms? No, than the probability of redundancy increases | exponentially with time, as the skill demand is under artificial | supply manipulation due to wage suppression, regulatory capture, | and or tax incentives refactored into a subsidy. | | 3. what is the average ratio of staff with the skill still | present at firms over 3 years? if less than 5%, than the roles | still fall under churn-and-burn economics, and at some point the | stock valuation bump will need ritualistic HR sacrifices. if over | 90%, than a roles true value is marginal, and will be bid down in | pay over time. | | 4. An "award for the worlds smartest sucker" is not a certificate | that will hold value. Anyone that claims they know what will | happen in 5 years is a fool selling something like nonsense | vendor certifications, media packages, and or political rhetoric | (STEM etc.) | | 5. Does the skill require physical presence? No, than the law of | outsourcing bids down skill value over time due to irrational | competitors. | | 6. Integrity in whatever you choose to do is important regardless | of the role. For example, someone using an emotionally charged | subject in an 72% LLM generated article will antagonize the wrong | people eventually. | | 7. Copying what others do... often means one will land in second | place... or worse. | | Good luck out there, =) | taylorbuley wrote: | I feel this. But at the same time, there are these unproven | toolchains that just feel right and I am OK adopting them. | GraphQL is one today. React (and before it, Backbone.js) before. | Hell, even CoffeeScript. Angular 1.0 was one thing, but I don't | regret a single one of those other implementations. | tikhonj wrote: | Another "use popular tech because it's popular" article dressed | up as engineering wisdom. "Nobody gets fired for choosing IBM" | isn't supposed to be aspirational! | | The most effective organizations I've seen have been the ones who | are the most willing to both use "non-standard" technologies | _and_ develop their own tools in-house. There 's a question of | causation--are they more effective because they're open-minded, | or do they get away with weird choices because they're more | effective?--and, from what I've seen, it's a bit of both. But | I've absolutely seen, first-hand, that top-down standardization | on enterprise "best practices" is absolutely _not_ a recipe for | anything beyond passable mediocrity. If anything is a sign of | weak engineering leadership, it 's that. | | I'm not saying that a team should use different technologies _for | the sake of using different technologies_ , I'm saying that | strong engineering leadership means having a clear technical | vision and culture where the popularity of a tool is very low on | the list of considerations when choosing what to use. | [deleted] | pdonis wrote: | _> "use popular tech because it's popular"_ | | ...is not what the article is saying. It's saying that you | should use _boring_ tech when it is sufficient to get the job | done that you need done. "Boring" is not the same as | "popular"; indeed, "popular" is often skewed by hype about the | latest shiny new toy. "Boring", as it is used in the article, | just means "does job X and is proven by much experience to work | for that purpose". | | _> I 'm not saying that a team should use different | technologies for the sake of using different technologies_ | | And this is the same point the article is making. The article | is saying you should only use different technologies to the | extent that you have to to get the job done that you need to | get done. | tikhonj wrote: | "Boring" inevitably means "popular" in these | discussions--"popular" in the sense of "mainstream" and | "widely used" rather than "trendy" or "hyped", but it's still | a popularity contest at the end of the day. | jf22 wrote: | I have never encountered a scenario where "boring" meant | "popular". | ska wrote: | > "Boring" inevitably means "popular" in these discussions | | No it really doesn't. | | In this context it means something more like: we know this | approach has been successfully shipped hundreds of times | for similar use cases. There may be warts, but they are | known, and it will work. | pdonis wrote: | _> "Boring" inevitably means "popular" in these | discussions_ | | Not the way the article is using the term "boring", or the | way the post I responded to was using the term "popular". | | "Boring" means choosing the tech on the basis of it being | proven to work by much experence. That is what the article | is advocating doing _unless_ the boring tech simply won 't | do the job you need it to do. The "boring" tech might well | also be popular, but that is irrelevant to what the article | is saying because the tech is not being chosen for its | popularity, it's being chosen for its technical capability. | | "Popular" means choosing the tech on the basis of its | popularity. That means not even looking at whether the tool | meets technical requirements. That is what the post I | responded to was describing, and arguing against. But the | article is not advocating _for_ doing this, so arguing | against it is not arguing against the article at all. | | _> it 's still a popularity contest at the end of the | day._ | | Not if the criterion is technical merit. See above. | BlackFly wrote: | The person you responded to is using a different definition | of popular than you are. | | Popular: 1. Widely liked or appreciated. 3. Of, representing, | or carried on by the people at large. | | In the phrase, "use popular tech because it is popular" you | should think of the latter definition: carried on by the | people at large. Hence the comparison to "Nobody got fired | for choosing IBM." Instead some people decide to call this | "boring" technology and you have a movement of people trying | to make boring choices glamorous that the person you are | responding to is lamenting. The article is saying to use | popular technology (definition 3 above) because of the | implications of "at large". | | Pragmatically, the folklore isn't helpful. Choosing boring | technology and then building an ad hoc layer on top of it | compared to using a cutting edge off the shelf solution for | the problem at hand shouldn't be an easy decision based on | engineering folklore. The difficulty is often in seeing that | your actual problem is well adapted (never perfectly) to a | particular novel technical choice and compounding that is the | difficulty of knowing about the novel technology and what | problem it is actually adapted to solving. Hence the need for | technical vision and understanding of the problem. | pdonis wrote: | _> The person you responded to is using a different | definition of popular than you are._ | | No, he's conflating "popular" as he uses the term with | "boring" as the article uses that term, which, as I | explained, is not valid. As the GP uses "popular", I | _agree_ that tech should not be chosen because it is | "popular"; see my response to tikhonj's follow-up post. But | as I noted in that response, the article is not arguing | _for_ choosing tech because it is "popular" in that sense. | | _> The article is saying to use popular technology | (definition 3 above) because of the implications of "at | large"._ | | No, the article is saying that you should not even _care_ | whether tech is "popular" in any of your senses; you | should choose tech based on whether it _does the job_ that | you need done based on much prior experience. I.e., based | on technical criteria, not popularity (in any sense). | | The article does imply that tech that does the job you need | done based on much prior experience will be "popular" in | your sense 3, but that does not mean it is telling you to | _choose_ the tech based on popularity. | kelsey9876543 wrote: | The author makes a horrible assumption themselves right in | their opening argument that "most of the things you are trying | to do have been done already". How is a business going to find | value copying and pasting sql solutions from stack overflow as | honestly suggested by the article author? Horrible advice, pick | the correct tool for the job, sometimes that tool is brand new | because you are doing something brand new. The author | completely avoids the real question which is how to select what | new technology to use by saying only choose old technology. | blincoln wrote: | It is not a horrible assumption for the vast majority of | developers. | | Even if the business they're supporting is doing something | genuinely new (and IMO that's rare), most of the software | written for that business is almost certainly going to do | something similar to a bunch of existing software. | | ChatGPT's Vision add-on is able to do things like generate | code for a web dashboard from a screenshot of a mockup | because nearly every web dashboard is extremely similar | except for the branding and labels on the data/elements. | | Most developers working for a business are writing that kind | of code. It's the dev equivalent of hiring an architect and | contractor to build a house. The result may very well be | unique overall in some way, but nearly all of it would be | based on well-tested designs and components. Most people | wouldn't want the contractor to fabricate custom roofing | panels out of recycled Russian submarine titanium, because | even though it might have a "wow" exotic factor and some | tangible benefits, having maintenance done on it would be a | nightmare, and there are likely to be surprises no one | considered because it was the first house to use them. | | Software is even worse in some ways. I've seen complex | products built on flash-in-the-pan frameworks of the moment | that ended up with problems so close to the foundation that | fixing them would require a complete rewrite or forking the | (now unsupported) framework and making low-level | architectural changes there. At least with a titanium roof, | the worst-case scenario is having to replace the entire roof. | | There's some audience bias here, because people who read | Hacker News are more likely to be working for startups that | do something genuinely new, and _maybe_ even writing code | that does something genuinely new, but IMO it 's still not | very common. | marcosdumay wrote: | I'd bet the people programing the LHC detectors have plenty | of their problems already solved in Stack Overflow. | | If most of the things you are trying to do were never done, | you will never achieve anything, with complete certainty. Not | even if you are trying to make art. | turtlebits wrote: | Disagree - everything novel has been done already. Technology | at its basic form is moving/transforming data. Too many | engineers fall into the trap of chasing what's new. | scubbo wrote: | A relevant slideshow (with captions): | https://boringtechnology.club/ | | You can tell it's getting old because it used Phony Stark as a | symbol for innovation, but the underlying message is timeless. | sublimefire wrote: | Totally, if you want to solve the problem you do not want to | create more problems by solving it. Great slides and captions | BTW. | | Nothing pisses me off more that to maintain two stacks at the | same time - the good and the bad. The bad one was enough. | garba_dlm wrote: | > if you want to solve the problem you do not want to create | more problems by solving it. | | but if, in contrast, what you want to create is a business | | then it's easy to argue you actually DO want to create more | problems; partially so you can "solve" them in "the next | version" (or something); this way your "customers" (which | really are looking more like victims) can have a real | motivation to upgrade; to buy the next version, to keep on | being "valued customers" | | this is why making tech products used to be very different | from making consumable goods (e.g. food); right up until all | businesses turned into subscriptions businesses and other | kinds of rent-like schemes | GrumpyYoungMan wrote: | Solid article. The one quibble I have is IMO that there should be | mention that, when the choice is made to use an untried | technology, it needs to be acknowledged and communicated that | this carries some level of risk and an increased chance of not | meeting the project goals. | jackblemming wrote: | Not interested in hearing people parroting the boring technology | mantra over and over. Maybe say something novel for once. Also | maybe choose technology based on pragmatic metrics, not how old | it is. "Choose boring technology" is like MBAs saying "we're data | driven". | | And I guarantee if we look at this persons tech stack it's | probably slathered with a bunch of shiny new AWS crud that's "web | scale". | stouset wrote: | > "Choose boring technology" is like MBAs saying "we're data | driven". | | This is so true. | | "Choose boring technology" is also used to post-hoc justify | whatever choices you've already made. To many, golang is boring | and Rust is unproven. To others, both are unproven and C/C++ | are boring. Who's right? Everyone and no-one. | tikhonj wrote: | C is boring in the same way that weaving through traffic at | full speed on a motorcycle is boring--people have been doing | it forever and some of them haven't even gotten hurt by it... | willcipriano wrote: | Would you consider a different pattern, woven on a old loom a new | technology? | | A app is not a "new technology". A microprocessor is a technology | and the code you run on it is just another pattern on the loom. | terminous wrote: | > Would you consider a different pattern, woven on a old loom a | new technology? A app is not a "new technology". A | microprocessor is a technology and the code you run on it is | just another pattern on the loom. | | It's not useful to get pedantic about the definition of a "new | technology." What is your point? Take the example cited in the | article about deciding whether to store your data in SQL | databases, vector databases, or blockchains. Are you saying | that this is a purely aesthetic choice and not a choice that | bakes in a lot of other patterns and decisions? | willcipriano wrote: | It's a different mindset once you start thinking in those | terms. Inventing a new technology sounds impossible but | writing some code isn't difficult. You'll be less likely to | get paralyzed daydreaming about the lofty future of this new | technology if it's just some code that can be thrown away at | any time for something better. | | When we list humanities technological inventions a century | from now, I don't think we will be listing CockroachDB or | similar. | terminous wrote: | > it's just some code that can be thrown away at any time | for something better. | | That's exactly what the author is arguing against. | Decisions about foundational infrastructure (frameworks, | databases, programming languages) have consequences for the | organizations that decide to use them. Switching costs can | be high. Lock-in of all kinds is real. | | > When we list humanities technological inventions a | century from now, I don't think we will be listing | CockroachDB or similar. | | That isn't at all what I or the author of the article was | saying. | willcipriano wrote: | In this use, sometimes technology will upgrade itself | with new technology that uses technology to prevent the | users from doing things the technology previously had the | technology to do, but it no longer has the technology due | to the technology that was downloaded and installed on | the technology in the user's closet. | MattPalmer1086 wrote: | Everything is built on top of other stuff. Surely a micro | processor is just a product made using chip fabrication | technology? Which itself is just a commoditised production | method based on other... err... technologies. | | You could pick another word at some arbitrary level, but I'm | not sure it's a particularly useful distinction to draw. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-10-10 23:00 UTC)