Ask HN: What technical topic were you dogmatic about, but changed your mind?

5 points·appleflaxen··3 comments

As per the title: what technical or programming topic were you very committed to, which subsequently changed.

And of course, please include the reason for the change, and how you realized you needed to update your world view.

Vertical farming. I thought it'd be really sweet to have climate controlled, optimised growth cycles free from parasites in the centre of your city - removing the requirements of seasonal variation, transportation and large swaths of land.

Turns out that the energy requirements for growing even the simplest produce in this way dwarfs the requirements for the legacy dirt based alternatives - even factoring in transportation costs etc.

I still think research in this area is needed - the ability to grow crops in this manner is helpful for a number of reasons (e.g. Antarctic winter research stays, Mars/moon colonies, possible near future environmental catastrophes), but I'm no longer dogmatic about getting everyone on board with the idea.

Yeah traditional farming is quite cheap and productive.

Never testing in production. I used to think it was never a good idea.

Now, I'm convinced it's the ONLY good idea.

https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/2017/09/testing-in-production/ (for one opinion about it)

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