5 ms·

I am torn. I see this argument and intellectually agree with it (that interfaces need to be more explicit). However it seems that every time there is a choice b

I am torn. I see this argument and intellectually agree with it (that interfaces need to be more explicit). However it seems that every time there is a choice between “better” design and “good enough”, the “good enough” wins handily. Multics vs Unix, xml based soap vs json based rest apis, xhtml’s failure, javascript itself, … I could keep going on. So I’ve resigned myself to admitting that we are doomed to reimplement the “good enough” every time, and continue to apply bandaid after bandaid to gradually fix problems after we rediscover them, slowly.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
antonvs 1y ago
It's the old Worse is Better observation, which is 36 years old now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better It's been confirmed over and over since then. And I say that as someone who naturally gravitates towards "better" solutions.
- xpe 1y ago
  It depends on system boundaries. If an actor doesn't face the consequences of a decision, but another does, that's an externality. When externalities are present, it is often rational (narrowly speaking) for an actor to accept designs that look awful from a broader perspective. In other words, many technical problems flow rather predictably from decision-making boundaries that don't internalize the externalities. Ever heard someone say "if you care about X, run for office"? The same applies to technology. If one cares about good designs, one must promote organizational and societal structures that actually have a fighting chance at bringing those about. The days of nerds and hackers not caring about broader dynamics and structures are long gone. Sitting back and letting the business folks have control is fine if you want them to optimize for the existing incentives. But if you want to change the rules of the game, you gotta jump in at the deep end.
cookiengineer 1y ago
Obligatory minute of silence for xforms 2.0 The world we could have lived in... working web forms validations, working microdata...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

antonvs 1y ago

It's the old Worse is Better observation, which is 36 years old now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better It's been confirmed over and over since then. And I say that as someone who naturally gravitates towards "better" solutions.

xpe 1y ago
It depends on system boundaries. If an actor doesn't face the consequences of a decision, but another does, that's an externality. When externalities are present, it is often rational (narrowly speaking) for an actor to accept designs that look awful from a broader perspective. In other words, many technical problems flow rather predictably from decision-making boundaries that don't internalize the externalities. Ever heard someone say "if you care about X, run for office"? The same applies to technology. If one cares about good designs, one must promote organizational and societal structures that actually have a fighting chance at bringing those about. The days of nerds and hackers not caring about broader dynamics and structures are long gone. Sitting back and letting the business folks have control is fine if you want them to optimize for the existing incentives. But if you want to change the rules of the game, you gotta jump in at the deep end.

cookiengineer 1y ago

Obligatory minute of silence for xforms 2.0 The world we could have lived in... working web forms validations, working microdata...