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davidsergey

31 karma · joined August 23, 2018

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davidsergey··on Meta used monolithic architecture to ship Threads in only five months
Microservices are risk mitigation. If you know what are you doing - Monolith is optimal way.

We use microservices, because we acknowledge that we don't know how final product would look like, and we mitigate risks associated with adding and removing unknown number of features.

Facebook was creating clone of Twitter, well known product, well known path. There is no need for microservices.

davidsergey··on Pijul is a free and open source (GPL2) distributed version control system
Github can use/offer Pijul. Sure they named themselves after technology, but nothing prevents them to offer other control systems.
davidsergey··on Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games
I wonder if customer support and warranty is part of the calculation. If they sell open platform – they will have to provide support and potential warranty for it.

But I guess that most people are not interested in open platform, only tinkers like us are. And if they make it officially closed platform, they don't have to deal with our complaints, when something does not work, or more likely underperforms.

davidsergey··on You Shouldn't Start with an SPA
The article talks a lot about technology choice, but not about given product. I do tend to agree – that SPAs are not necessary, but I would not use this article as an argument.

And if somebody would present this article to me – I would not take it seriously. The fact that author is using very interesting language when refering to React and Angular does not help. I'd love to hear customer-centric or product-centric reasoning. * Don't use SPA because customers hate it when you change entire app on them. * Don't use SPA, because customers of our particular product require faster turn-around. * Don't use SPA, because they are harder to test in our organisation.

davidsergey··on Tell HN: How an elderly couple I know had their computer 'stop working'
I had a similar problem with my Windows gaming PC after I upgraded CPU cooler. Motherboard/BIOS decided that I've upgraded my CPU and it would not proceed without me pressing "F2" key on my keyboard.

Obviously my BT keyboard did not yet connect to the computer, since it was before BT drivers loaded or something, so I had to buy a wired keyboard to press "F2" and proceed. Would be nice to have 2-3 buttons right on a case to interact with BIOS. Or you know…load BT drivers.

davidsergey··on Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
I think I'm in the minority, but I just would not order a delivery in 90% of the cases. If I remember myself say in 2005-2010 I would order Pizza once in 1.5 months, and I was ready to come downstairs to receive a package.

These days I order food, knowing that it will allow me uninterrupted work (I'll just receive a package and get back to work). If I have to interrupt my "flow-ish" state anyway, I'll just go out or make an omelette in 10 minutes.

Context: I live 10 minutes away from a high street in London.

davidsergey··on Marko: An HTML-Based Language
JavaScript community keeps re-inventing ColdFusion, MXML, and ActionScript 3.0 :)

Very glad that we've got superb TypeScript datamodel, but jesus, it took a long time.

davidsergey··on Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions
I didn't know about it, thanks.

But I'm software engineer, and I didn't know about it. I don't think most (as in 95%+, even in tech) people would know difference to care. My point is visibly – firefox seem to be just as ad-hungry as competition.

They could be better behind the scenes, but customer wouldn't know it.

davidsergey··on Mozilla to put ads in Firefox address bar suggestions
Indeed. They should just state "It's an Ad". I doubt they actually going to try every product that they are advertising, to make wording "suggestion" be even close to the truth.

That said, I don't understand, why would somebody use Firefox instead of Chrome, Edge, or Safari if they ad in-browser ads.

davidsergey··on Developers don't need ping-pong tables
I couldn't agree more, i shifter from software engineering to software architecture exactly to pursue autonomy.

I was so tired completing user stories that I knew will be either too expensive to maintain or plain useless that decided to climb up towards the source, and help people set up requirements and measurements loops.

So yeah, why do people hire software engineers who are extremely good at analytical thinking, and then try pre-digest every bit of requirement?

davidsergey··on Hard deadlines are not user-first
In finance, it's called risk appetite. Different people and different entities have a different appetite for risk, and they will act accordingly. There is nothing intrinsically wrong guesswork if parties understand the context, and don't lie to themselves.

>12 or 24 months is stable, technically? Hm. Faster iterations are better, usually, again if we understand the context, but I see a lot of companies that are too quick to go into full panic mode. An example would be recession – If you plan to invest for the next 60 month, and a recession hits you on month 20, the right choice would be to ignore the inputs, and keep investing. Those who pull their assets when prices are low usually lose.

Quick or long iterations are not be all solutions, once always have to keep the context in mind and use first principles to understand what is that we are doing, and trying to achieve.

davidsergey··on Hard deadlines are not user-first
It's not really faith, it an educated guess: CEO (or Director of Department) - Makes an educated guess, that if they can release Product A in next 18 months, they will earn $1,000,000. That means that they need to know that A: 1) Product A will be released in next 12-14 months. 2) They will spend less than $700,000. Otherwise they might be better off buying bonds or something.

It's effectively a job of an exec / director to make bets. Hopefully they are educated guesses, but there are times when somebody just have to flip a coin too.