> It says something about society that asks people to work well beyond their retirement age.
I dont think that's what's going on here. If you click on OP's profile you'll see that he's written a bunch of books. He also mentions Common Lisp and Racket, not exactly go to languages for soul-less corporations. My take is he's doing it for the love of the craft.
I aspire to do this too when I'm at that age. I've been through a few career iterations with the only constant being is that I love to make things.
> I think any attempt to distil hard earned experience and domain awareness will eventually devolve into misplaced generalisms.
Ground up rewrites are a gamble. Classic Spolksy essay [1] about Netscape losing their lead to Internet Explorer is a must read.
Briefly:
1. You think you know how to build the new version, but you really don't. Years of improvements of the old version, years of bug fixes, years of business knowledge are below the surface.
2. The new version is going to have new bugs.
3. While you're rebuilding everything from scratch your competition is improving their product.
I heard someone once say “All that ‘cruft’ you complain about, I call ‘bug fixes.’”
A mature codebase represents a lot of “tribal investment,” which is sort of like “tribal knowledge.”
It’s something that can’t easily be quantified, but, is, nonetheless, a big deal, and represents a really significant investment of resources. Throwing it away, means tossing out that investment, as well. That’s why many large software codebases are still in “non-buzzword-compliant” languages.
At the same time, we don’t want to throw good money after bad, so experience gives us the tools we need, to figure out when it’s time to “clear the decks.”
>> You think you know how to build the new version, but you really don't. Years of improvements of the old version, years of bug fixes, years of business knowledge are below the surface.
This point has always baffled me. The old adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." but then in the past decades of everybody jumping on the JS frameworks and whole heartedly believing by moving to "X" framework, they can eliminate all the issues you have or had with the older version.
In my own experience, it never goes this way. Oh sure, do you want to be working in legacy code that's 10 plus years old? Probably not, but the idea that every new shiny thing has all the answers to all the issues you had before is a sure fire way to get a lot of people fired for overpromising and underdelivering.
Yes, I would. In fact, I'd use any boring technology [0]. Anything that's been around and battle tested.
If I was at a startup trying to solve a business problem, the last thing I'd want to do is bruise my knuckles fighting with my tools. Rails provides an opinionated way to structure your codebase as well as many existing modules that just work. It's not exclusive in this space, but it's a safe bet. You can get any dev that's familiar with rails to ramp up pretty quick. If you rolled a custom web framework in a dialect of javascript you may have a more challenging time.
Rails (and its ecosystem) is anything but boring with Turbo/Hotwire, StimulusJS, a shift away from queues using Redis to the database w/ Solid Queue, a reexamination of how SQLite can be used as a prod database (when tuned), and a new rich text editor on the way…
Some of these are eyebrow raising and certainly not boring!
Shifting to solid queue, backed by your rdbms, is more boring than using redis. Successfully deploying an app without anything but a database server is pretty powerful. Everything just works. I would say that's pretty boring :)
Is it boring technology? I'm actually reluctant to pick up Rails because it had always been sold by the Basecamp cult and Jason Fried gives off Musk vibes.
Many opinionated frameworks are also less reliable because of the layers of abstraction, so I'd also associate opinionated framework = sexy and temporary.
I've never actually used Rails in production, just did some tutorial, so I'm probably wrong about this.
I think this depends on the context. I would argue that opinionated frameworks are *more* reliable, with the caveat that you need to know, and agree with those opinions.
I think of RoR, Laravel, Next.js, and Django etc. like I'm crowdsourcing my apps architecture so I can just worry about building out my business logic.
Even if you don't choose a framework at some point you end up building your own framework and introducing new opinions anyway, what I often see in these homegrown frameworks are.
1. Somewhat conflicting opinions expressed across different layers of abstraction that you build into your app over time.
2. In not having an opinion you try to satisfy many ways of solving problems introducing more edge case problems and serious over engineering.
For context, I've been in mobile for 10 years and in general it's the opposite - frameworks are rigid, but the layer under it shifts a lot. These frameworks tend to collapse in an earthquake like manner after multiple updates. We usually support iOS up to 2-3 years old, that's how bad it is.
The other approach is to build it on a platform that shifts with the changes, i.e. hybrid and web. But if you crack open the source of Cordova, you find all kinds of tangled, unmaintained, bad practice wiring and rewiring. I spent a few months trying to hack Cordova plugins and we decided to just scrap the entire code and build native; fully rewriting the app into a custom framework took 3 months.
However, it sounds like tools like Rails are built on a very sturdy platform that doesn't introduce breaking changes every year? That's an angle I haven't considered.
Unlike mobile, you have control over the underlying OS and full stack. So usually you aren’t forced to keep pace with your frameworks changes even if they were breaking. So long as you watch and patch security issues you’re fine, it will work forever. But you’ll occasionally likely feel a desire to upgrade things, I find it’s usually out of Want versus Need because it’s already so mature you have time to watch big new versions mature a bit before you roll to it. You might skip a major version or two because of this. Even since very early on I think I had a v1.x app that I continued hacking and building on until eventually moving to v4.x which was maybe 10 years later
I listened to the latest Rails keynote, I never have before. I don't recall the exact details but it was a bit of a weird vibe for me.
> Many opinionated frameworks are also less reliable because of the layers of abstraction, so I'd also associate opinionated framework = sexy and temporary.
That's one of the persistent knocks against rails -- the layers of abstraction. I think that's fair, but it's a tradeoff. You either go along with it because it's advantageous or don't. Once you get familiar with the concepts and the theory of it the framework does what you expect, not a lot of surprises.
I'll push back on "temporary" though. It's been around for 20 years. It's old, so by definition it's not sexy.
Personally, I've built a number of apps in Rails that are still in production so it's a solid choice.
>it had always been sold by the Basecamp cult and Jason Fried gives off Musk vibes.
Not affiliated with either of those things, but what does this even mean? Basecamp is a business. Jason Fried is a businessman. Basecamp is a product developed by 37 Signals, a company Fried co-founded.
How does any of that create "Musk vibes"? I'm seriously wondering what this is all about.
The good news is that I can just say: go ahead and Google “DHH blog”, read his most recent few blog posts and form your own opinions.
I’ve had a negative opinion of him for a good five years or so, but at least right now it’s easy to go read those and form your own strong opinion one way or another.
The Jason Fried and David Hansson Musk/Fascist vibes are real and are a problem. Most of the people in the Ruby community recognize that problem and are taking steps to mitigate that issue. Most of the core Rails committers don't work for 37 signals, and it's not really a thing made just by them.
Definitely use Rails to start a new project. The real hero here is Ruby and the Ruby ecosystem. It's incredibly stable and mature, But also getting faster every year. About 20 years ago Ruby web frameworks agreed on an ad hoc server interface api, Rack, which is one of the secrets that has made Ruby incredibly stable.
The package system, Ruby Gems, is really great. You can find a Gem for just about anything you could ever need or want. With mountains of Open Source projects and code to read to pick up patterns, or to see prior art to solve a unique problem you're encountering.
>The Jason Fried and David Hansson Musk/Fascist vibes are real and are a problem.
What do you mean by this? Where have Jason Fried or David Hansson supported fascism? Your account is ten years old and this is the first comment you've ever made.
I mean that they give off Fascist vibes, and that it's a problem. Adoration for and support of fascist people and regimes are implicit support of fascism. Not explicit.
Go read their blogs, I'm sure you'll find lots of examples.
I think you’ve discovered the corollary to the “Everything I don’t like is woke” that people say right wingers do. “Everything we don’t like is fascist,” says the far left.
Only way to avoid being called either a fascist or woke (and I know some who are accused of both!) nowadays is to never say anything.
It doesn't mean you're not wrong. Is this a personal vendetta?
>I mean that they give off Fascist vibes, and that it's a problem. Adoration for and support of fascist people and regimes are implicit support of fascism.
Where? Link examples where they supported Fascism. "Vibes" are meaningless, I need specific examples of these claims, else they can be tossed outright.
>Go read their blogs, I'm sure you'll find lots of examples.
I'm not interested in prosecuting that David gives off fascist vibes. I don't have to provide proof. Kinda lazy that you're all not out there looking for the proof yourself.
To reorient the discussion around what the original poster talked about, that he gives off Elon Musk Vibes. And that it's a problem. Well it IS a problem. A problem openly, and vigorously discussed in the Ruby community.
Many people have left the Ruby community because of his behavior, and many more have chosen never to come into the community because of it. Because of the perceived strong association between him and the Ruby and Rails community at large.
Anyways, as per my original point, that despite the Fascist vibes from that guy, Ruby and Rails are still really great choices.
>I'm not interested in prosecuting that David gives off fascist vibes. I don't have to provide proof.
Oh, so you don't have any proof, got it. Your claims have been dismissed, David is not fascist.
>Kinda lazy that you're all not out there looking for the proof yourself.
There is no proof.
>To reorient the discussion around what the original poster talked about, that he gives off Elon Musk Vibes. And that it's a problem. Well it IS a problem.
No proof of this either, so your claim is dismissed outright.
>A problem openly, and vigorously discussed in the Ruby community.
Any proof of this? Who claims it's a problem?
>Many people have left the Ruby community because of his behavior
Looks like a loud minority of leftist activists may have left. That explains how Ruby has only gotten better since.
>many more have chosen never to come into the community because of it.
Many more have chose to join the community now that the activists are gone.
>Anyways, as per my original point, that despite the Fascist vibes from that guy
Success because of A and attributing it to B. There's a bit of megalomania too. He has a beef against VC funding. He lost 1/3 of staff once when he implemented a policy of no personal opinions at Basecamp. He is often shared because of his unpopular opinions and his successes are used to fortify those opinions.
I'm not saying Fried or Musk are wrong, and they both have brilliant insights at times. If Musk was crazy and wrong all the time, he wouldn't be a brand name.
But both of them also appeal to susceptible people who seem to think that a few good opinions make them good all the time. Basecamp isn't even a good tool, it's a pretty average one, yet prettier than Jira. But it's down this funnel of people who will buy whatever Fried and DHH sell them.
And what I'm getting at is whether Rails is one of those things that is average but prettier than Node?
>he implemented a policy of no personal opinions at Basecamp
Except he didn't do that, what he implemented was not making personal politics a part of Basecamp's workplace culture, which is a much more moderate thing than what you're accusing him of here.
You might not be aware of this, but it's possible to have a personal opinion about something and not bring societal and political discussions to the company account or forum. Here's the text of the new policy:
"People can take the conversations with willing co-workers to Signal, Whatsapp, or even a personal Basecamp account, but it can't happen where the work happens anymore."
Again, this is not at all the same thing as "no personal opinions [allowed] at Basecamp."
I'm on the pro-VC, anti-bootstrap spectrum and so is Elon Musk. American political spectrum of right vs left, authorarian vs libertarian makes little sense to me.
My political compass tends to be BRICS vs G7, religious vs secular. If you're saying they're both G7-secular, I guess that makes sense too.
edit: Also I was not even aware of Musk and the fascist thing before posting the comment, and I can see how it may have been interpreted differently now, lol.
I use and love using rails, but the centrality of influence of the musk-vibes-camp is for me too the biggest downside. Yes in response to a sibling comment, the RailsWorld keynote was super weird culty vibe, agreed. But hey everything's got ups and downs. Rails is great for me to work in. Hopefully it will remain that way. There are other Rails maintainers who are not basecamp-related, some who say that dhh and basecamp's power over Rails is not as great as people think and it really is distributed maintainership and control, hopefully that is true enough and will remain so.
i know what you mean about abstraction and flexibilty, but I think Rails mostly avoids that and is actually quite flexible. But I don't use the new hotwire JS stuff, that is one area where I share your concern. It's easy to use Rails without it, with the JS of your choice.
From what I've read HV originally aimed to add things like supply lines, terrain heights, deformable terrain, and "player created landscapes". Since the original was cancelled and many of its ideas implemented elsewhere, this newer fan effort may not appear as innovative as the OG could've been.
We give them access. They get bored of it because their friends aren't on it. They will swipe on TikTok, but it's missing the social aspect.
When is the last time you met anyone younger than 20 on Instagram? I'd be skeptical on that alone. Reddit and Discord still have teenagers, and those are the ones I would watch.
Influencers do exist in their lives but they seem exclusively from YouTube and Roblox. These tend to funnel into Discord and... wikis?
Things that went viral with my kids in 2024: Sprunki, The Amazing Digital Circus, Fundamental Paper Education. These are not popular on IG, FB, Twitter, TikTok, so I assume these platforms aren't popular with kids either.
Yeah, I find it completely implausible that kids wouldn’t have interest in social media. Perhaps the OP is using a very restrictive definition that excludes TikTok and instagram.
I meant as we use them. Exclusionary of the [HN crowd]. I don't think most of the ones we use market to children anyway. And social networks rely on a network effect to be useful.
They will certainly find a way to socialise on the internet, but unlikely in the form we're used to. I'm saying it's like giving antibiotics to viruses; most of the solutions we have will be ineffective because the next generation will be doing something different.
Many kids will have Roblox and learned to interact in worlds with others without texting, posting, or commenting. If you play mobile games, most even disable typing because of toxicity/language/app store restrictions, and they rely on emoting to communicate.
Curious how this works. I generally don’t drink coffee late..do people come in for coffee and stay a while? I never really thought through the business model.
I dont think that's what's going on here. If you click on OP's profile you'll see that he's written a bunch of books. He also mentions Common Lisp and Racket, not exactly go to languages for soul-less corporations. My take is he's doing it for the love of the craft.
I aspire to do this too when I'm at that age. I've been through a few career iterations with the only constant being is that I love to make things.
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