Re:Things I Regret About Node.js [video]
by jrochkind1 on Thursday June 07, 2018 @09:55AM
(#17255754)
I think you gotta have a good understanding of the domain and use cases you want to hit (which is really hard, especially so when it's a general purpose programming language whose domain is... everything), and design from the start with a vision of hitting those use cases, instead of having to shoe-horn them in later.
Of course, use cases will still evolve, and your initial understanding is always flawed, there's no magic bullet, designing general purpose software (or a language or platform!) meant to hit a wide swath of use cases flexibly is _hard_.
And then, yeah, like others have said, you need skilled, experienced, and strong leadership. You need someone (or a small group of people) who can say 'no' or 'not yet' or 'not like this' to features -- but also who can accurately assess what features _do_ need to be there to make the thing effective. And architects/designers who can design the lower levels of abstraction solidly to allow expected use cases to be built on top of them cleanly.
But yeah, no magic bullet, it's just _hard_.
As developer-consumers of software, we have to realize that _maturity_ is something to be valued, and a trade-off for immature but "clean" is not always the right trade-off -- and not to assume that the immature new shiny "clean" thing will _necessarily_ evolve to do everything you want and be able to stay that way. (On the other hand, just cause something is _old_ doesn't _always_ mean it's actually _mature_ or effective. Some old things do need to be put down). But resist "grass is always greener" evaluation that focuses on what you _don't_ like about the original thing (it's the pain points that come to our attention), forgetting to take into account what it is doing for you effectively.
Of course, use cases will still evolve, and your initial understanding is always flawed, there's no magic bullet, designing general purpose software (or a language or platform!) meant to hit a wide swath of use cases flexibly is _hard_.
And then, yeah, like others have said, you need skilled, experienced, and strong leadership. You need someone (or a small group of people) who can say 'no' or 'not yet' or 'not like this' to features -- but also who can accurately assess what features _do_ need to be there to make the thing effective. And architects/designers who can design the lower levels of abstraction solidly to allow expected use cases to be built on top of them cleanly.
But yeah, no magic bullet, it's just _hard_.
As developer-consumers of software, we have to realize that _maturity_ is something to be valued, and a trade-off for immature but "clean" is not always the right trade-off -- and not to assume that the immature new shiny "clean" thing will _necessarily_ evolve to do everything you want and be able to stay that way. (On the other hand, just cause something is _old_ doesn't _always_ mean it's actually _mature_ or effective. Some old things do need to be put down). But resist "grass is always greener" evaluation that focuses on what you _don't_ like about the original thing (it's the pain points that come to our attention), forgetting to take into account what it is doing for you effectively.