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Comment by swsieber | Hacker News Reader

The real question is (and I think this is why they commissioned the study) "how much code should they have not written in the first place?" Stripes answer is "well, definitely not the payment processing portion"

The report is basically leads one to conclude that with well developed API, the world would be more productive if we can outsource common business logic (like payment processing) to we'll encapsulated and designed services. Why? So you can spend more time building new stuff instead of fixing stuff that many other people are also fixing in their own implementations.

Basically, I see this as a "code is a liability, so use a SASS; we aren't biased in our framing of it"

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It's correct though.

90% of code is just reinventing the wheel, over and over again. And not just specialised modules like payments. Its insane that even small companies have "data experts", "UI/UX designers". Best practice is actually quite narrow and less important than we think, better to have 30 great designers working on the best way to allow users to interact with devices than 30.000 wasting time. Likewise, its better to have a bunch of smart people working on abstracting away data storage then everyone digging through AWS docs.

The truth is, WE have not been able to agree on standards of software development that would see the complexity abstracted so we can write applications faster. And because of this, cloud platforms and SAAS providers are filling the gap and increasing in power.

Every time I watch the mother of all demos [1] I feel depressed. Its as if builders were given the power to create new construction materials from scratch, for free. And then spent the next 50 years arguing over whose material is better than actually building cool stuff.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY

90% of code is just reinventing the wheel...

I disagree. More than 99% of code doesn't require to (re)invent anything at all. Actually, if we stopped trying to be too clever, it would be much easier to clean and refactor code.

Edit, to be more specific: mechanic, repetitive, naive code is maybe boring to write, but easier to read and understand.

It is re-inventing the wheel, but in another business context. I have yet to witness "re-usable" business logic, anywhere.

Maybe somewhat off-topic: How much cool stuff is there even left to build in the software world?

The more you build, the more you realize how many more things haven't been built yet and you might want to build after the current one(s)... ad infinitum.

I don't know what's cool to you, but a general artificial intelligence would be cool to me. An operating system + userland without remotely exploitable holes would be pretty great. Working quantum computers would be cool too, but that's more of a hardware problem.

At least in the gamedev area, there's infinite number of games to build (the same way there's infinite amount of novels to write and songs to compose).

Infinitely and beyond

Dependencies are also a liability. There's no free lunch.

Whether or not the source is biased, the advice is sound. NIH can and does kill projects that would otherwise be viable and profitable, not to mention distract from finding product market fit.

Your last sentence was straightforward, correct? (No sarcasm in the 'bias' section.)

I ask because that fits with my reading of both the report and the rest of your comment, but a few replies seem to interpret it as cynical.

Yes and no. I do think Stripe is biased, but that doesn't prevent what they're saying from being true. I think it's mostly true.

At the very least, the report quantifies to some extent the cost of code.

I'd love to see a more in depth study that deals with integrating with services vs libraries vs written in house - each of those have costs, though probably not equally.

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