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Comment by didgeoridoo | Hacker News Reader

The name is just too perfect: https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Busine...

To that point, I’m wondering if all IT initiatives codenamed “Phoenix” are doomed from the start, given that the implication is “let’s burn down everything we have that works, and rise anew from the ashes”...

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Hah! I make this joke all the time with friends. I have literally been on three different failed projects named ‘Phoenix’

Why did they fail?

Well, one possibility is that I am the common factor in all of my bad relationships. But another possibility is that projects tend to get named 'Phoenix' for a reason, and that just as in real life, it's pretty hard to successfully be reborn from a pile of ashes.

What are some projects that succeeded and/or impressed you?

Elaborate?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)

Not just all IT initiatives - I just heard today that the project that would eventually create the Ford Pinto was also named Phoenix. (from Stuff You Should Know podcast)

The Pinto was a good car, though, even with the one design flaw that was actually the result of both best practices for the time and a lack of regulation. Except for that, the Pinto was a landmark subcompact car.

> To that point, I’m wondering if all IT initiatives codenamed “Phoenix” are doomed from the start

Firefox seems to be doing pretty well :-).

There is also the Phoenix web framework for Elixir. However, it's supposed to help people recover and deal with failure :) It's an Erlang thing.

Yeah, but only after two name changes.

It wasn't a bad book, but if you've read anything by Eli Goldratt on the theory of constraints (The Goal, for example) then Phoenix Project just looks like a watered down, IT-focused, and nearly plagiarized variation.

I can literally do that with my DigitalOcean droplet. I can destroy the instance and run a bash script to provision a new, identical machine in around 3 minutes.

It’s a lot of hard work to get every little detail working automatically. Probably 10x as much as just manually setting things up from scratch. But in the long-term it can pay off.

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