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Comment by XCSme | Hacker News Reader

I was checking the ASML technology page[0] as I haven't heard of them before, it was funny seeing that they are a bleeding-edge tech company and they have an image showing jQuery code next to a paragraph about their software: https://i.snipboard.io/pUT4ot.jpg

[0]: https://www.asml.com/en/technology

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I'm guessing that the page designer just went to a stock photo site, did a search for "code" or something similar, found that image, licensed it, and inserted it. Job done!

I asked TinEye [1] where I can get that stock photo. It turns out you can get it at most of the big stock photo sites. For example, here it is on Shutterstock: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/software-source-cod...

[1] https://tineye.com/

Even calling them a bleeding edge tech company is selling them short. They are the only company in the world that can do what they do. Their website could have pictures of clowns in cars on it, and it wouldn't matter.

How dare they not show a ninja library like React with Redux + Redux Saga + Reselect sprinkled on top. You know - for state management and "full state debuggability". You gotta manage that state. I mean what else - display a simple page with plain JS? Just render html on the server?? That's crazy.

Front end JavaScript sure sounds like pay to win games on the AppStore nowadays…

It’s not about the framework. It should’ve been C code representative of the stuff that goes into ASML machines.

If I was a junior programmer considering to apply at ASML this picture would give me “ok these folks don’t understand software” vibes.

And not the fact they literally refer to software as the Robin to their Batman?

Like all hardware companies, they don’t. Making changes is difficult because there are no unit tests etc pp.

Plenty hardware companies are chock full of unit tests, hardware simulators in-the-loop at multiple levels of abstraction etc etc. I worked at Canon (back then Océ, ie huge pro printers) a long time ago and they had this shit all over. I’ve also seen a litho startup run load tests on the day the hardware was first in one piece, ie the software worked acceptably from day one (incl all the error recovery, edge cases etc etc) because all the hardware had been simulated in software in parallel with it being designed and built.

ASML is not one of these companies.

I doubt they run the website themselves. Like most brochure websites this is almost certainly outsourced to some ad agency.

By the same token, your comment doesn't give 'understand marketing vibes'

I assume both depts in any company don't understand payroll, I don't think that would give anyone cause for concern about actually getting paid.

There's a reason why people specialise. The fact that one dept doesn't understand the work of another dept isn't a surprise.

It's not like they need the site to tell people how good they are. They're ASML. Nobody else is capable if doing what they're doing.

For hiring they do. Plenty options out here for engineers and ASML’s image on this front is “messy and old-fashioned”.

If Messy and Old Fashioned is the secret to ASML's success I'll do things the messy old fashioned way.

This is correct. (source: I worked there)

Maybe they're to busy being one of the most important companies in the world to care about something like this.

There's nothing wrong with using jQuery, especially if you target old browsers or use some of its features that are still more convenient than the ES6 equivalent.

Agree, but I don't think that jQuery really represents the core of their software, I find it funny how big the discrepancy between the text and the image is.

It tells that their marketing department is far from their software department. Their lithography rules, and their software is likely a second class citizen.

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