News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Tyranny of the Marginal User: why software gets worse, not better, over time. Parent comment

Re:Tyranny of the Marginal User: why software gets worse, no... by carabiner on Thursday September 14, 2023 @09:35PM (#37517122)
Well they started off in Boston and were MIT/Harvard grad students. And the backend was a DARPA project. So not really Brooklyn at heart, though some millennial New Yorkers pretended it was. They even had a personality trait for how much a user reminded them of Harvard girls. Like many "only in New York!" things it was really something that had mass appeal and gave a sense of quirkiness that was actually widespread in our generation.

"New Yorkers will say 'only in New York!' and it's the most normal shit ever."

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tyranny of the Marginal User: why software gets worse, no... by a-dub on Friday September 15, 2023 @12:51AM (#37518590)
> And the backend was a DARPA project.

the similarity/CF stuff? what was the DARPA project? other than that it seemed a rather ordinary consumer webapp?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tyranny of the Marginal User: why software gets worse, no... by fader on Friday September 15, 2023 @01:09PM (#37526181)
I think they're referring to the Internet.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tyranny of the Marginal User: why software gets worse, no... by carabiner on Friday September 15, 2023 @02:46PM (#37527528)
https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/papers/okws-usenix04.pdf
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tyranny of the Marginal User: why software gets worse, no... by kerneis on Saturday September 16, 2023 @02:17AM (#37532441)
Not sure if it was DARPA, but the web server used Tame, a custom event-driven framework at a time where the thread vs. events debate was all the rage in the academic community. (I did a PhD on the topic and that's how I learned about Ok Cupid!)

You can read the paper they published: "events can make sense" https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix07/tech/krohn.htm...

I met some ex-OkCupid engineers at a later company who said the framework was smart but a pain to maintain in then long run.

[ Parent | on HN ]