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Comment by dmbass | Hacker News Reader

...the argument that the redesign’s author makes is not quite so persuasive, mostly because it makes some rash assumptions, misses some critical realities and, perhaps worse of all, takes a somewhat inflammatory approach in criticizing the many people who work on the original site.

This guy sounds like the redesigner really hurt his feelings.

Why not share the design constraints that the redesigner failed to consider? Wouldn't that be more productive than complaining about link baiting and criticism?

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How could his feeling not be hurt—at least a little bit—when someone ostensibly knowledgeable comes in and dismisses his work as crap and proceeds to replace it with something stylish and trendy, but failing to meet the requirements?

Vinh's response was measured and appropriate and professional, much more so than Rutledge's original post. I see absolutely no reason why he should waste his time engaging in explanations and dialogue with someone doing a drive-by hit piece on his work.

Often knowledge of design constraints is part of an organization's competitive advantage. These are often painstakingly discovered through mistakes, and any competitor has to make the same mistakes to figure them out. If you tell everyone exactly what you did wrong, it won't take them long to start doing things right.

I was thinking the same thing in different terms: open your sources, hide your test cases.

I'm sure the creators of readability have an awesome regression test suite. It would make no sense for them to publish it.

It's fairly plain to see that the "redesign" completely disregards any presence of advertisement. I'd say that would be a constraint failed to be considered.

"Completely" is unfair. See: http://andyrutledge.com/images09/newsSite/nyt-redux-article....

But just come out and say "we had to cover the site in ads and couldn't do a better design" if that's the case.

I think you're missing the part that says

Since news is accessed only via subscription, most of the ads can be eliminated from the pages.

but...news isn't accessed only via subscription, so you can't really use that justification...

That simply isn't true.

> Since news is accessed only via subscription, most of the ads can be eliminated from the pages. Story pages could still have one or two tastefully-presented ads, but preservation of the content is what will keep readers happy, engaged, and willing to continue paying their subscriptions…just like in olden times.

http://andyrutledge.com/images09/newsSite/nyt-redux-article....

"Considering" a constraint using magic fairy dust and an imaginary world where people pay for news content isn't really addressing it, unfortunately. It's like saying "since people can levitate, we can ditch their shoes. They can wear minimal shoes for times when they might want to land, but unencumbered feet will keep people happy".

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