Omar Rizwan
.
@omar,
I feel like I've developed all these micro-tactics for making and finding software that meets this standard https://hachyderm.io/@dubroy/111658490778296619 like
- stuff that's written in C and uses a Makefile tends to work like this
- "single-file libraries"
- stuff that is 20+ years old and hasn't been updated but has elaborate API documentation/header comments
Omar Rizwan
.
@omar,
- PHP and MySQL: stack that has been stable for a long time, has lots of legacy software written in it, is 'part of the platform' to the point where you don't even need to stand it up on shared hosting
Avi Bryant
.
@avi, @cosocial.ca
@omar I propose that if single file C libraries are cold blooded software, PHP and MySQL are fungal software.
Omar Rizwan
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@omar,
I think Amit Patel (https://www.redblobgames.com) originally got me onto this way of thinking -- he would talk about how he'd learned to avoid build systems as much as possible when writing his interactive articles
because he'd revisit them 5/10/20 years later and find that anything with a build step was now impossible to edit (you can't run the node or Python script on your computer 10 years later, the package dependencies are broken/incompatible, ...)
Omar Rizwan
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@omar,
Amit led me to a similar distinction around the edit cycle of a system: systems like facebook.com which are like engines being updated and maintained by engineers every day, vs. a redblobgames article that might get one edit in five years
(and how we often end up w/ tools that are brought forward by big companies and optimized for the former case: https://hopeinsource.com/emotional/#t=07:04)