Re:Software Engineering at Google (2017)
by StreamBright on Friday January 04, 2019 @06:40AM
(#18823317)
This makes sure there is never 1.0 ever. I think this is one of the biggest mistake in software. We just keep rewriting things that are already doing what they supposed to. Like the Gmail UI. It got rewritten 3 times already and every iteration it gets shittier.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
I think you're imagining much larger rewrites.
A system such as Gmail is composed of many smaller parts. If one of those parts was written years prior for a world that has since changed, it may be accruing technical debt as it's continually extended to fit new requirements. An occasional rewrite helps address this type of decay.
Without the rewrite you may find yourself 10 years later with a system that's both critical and kludgy, and at that point the rewrite will be a much larger project.
> every iteration it gets shittier
I like how you state this like it's an objective fact. I've always been happy with the gmail UI and the latest iteration is great too. Outlook on the other hand...
Outlook has always been shit, but at least it has been shit in the same way for the past 15 years.
Re:Software Engineering at Google (2017)
by StreamBright on Friday January 04, 2019 @03:48PM
(#18827451)
It is not an objective fact but sampling the gmail users around me gives me an idea. Obviously is it not representative.