California

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/05.html

by mqt • 19 years ago

59 49 19 years ago

joelonsoftware.com

nickb• 19 years ago

Yet another article from Joel that's a thinly-veiled ad for FogBugz... antiquated bug tracking soft.

rms• 19 years ago

It was so easy to vote up because it was entertaining, but no more intellectually stimulating than a typical [pic].

rkts5• 19 years ago

Why is there so much hostility toward Joel here? He writes interesting and popular articles and half the comments just attack him for not being substantive or serious enough.

dcurtis2• 19 years ago

Because his stuff is not substantive or serious enough. His article even cuts off at the end and moves into an advertisement for his software. Tacky.

olavk5• 19 years ago

Joel have written some really insightful and influential pieces about software development and business strategy. When he started blogging, almost every post were a classic.

Of course this were insights he had accumulated through many years, its hard to keep churning out great insights on a regular basis, so I think people just get disappointed.

Also, his insights are mostly related to business and high-level decisions. When he writes about coding, his opinions seem slightly curious: exceptions suck, Hungarian notation rules and so on.

bootload2• 19 years ago

"... Yet another article from "Foo" that's a thinly-veiled ad for 'Bar' ..."

HackerNews is an ad for yc, pg's articles and talks are for publicising yc. I think the real difference b/w blatant advertising and the type Joel and pg (Buchheit, Greenspun, Yegge, maybe 37Sigs) is they impart knowledge, useful knowledge. If they did not entertain, inform and question readers wouldn't bother reading their pieces.

But I do understand the continuous 'Fogbugz' references. Maybe it's the geek in you rejecting someone telling you need something when you don't.

bootload2• 19 years ago

Having said that and re-read the article I couldn't be struck by the adverts (jobs & fogbugz) then the left hand sidebar and lots of black text and hard edged images (images of rego screens), squashed text (lots of spaces on LH & RH side).

Maybe nickb is right. The page design also sucks making it hard to read and possibly needs some attention?

Zak2• 19 years ago

>pg's articles and talks are for publicising yc.

I don't think so. PG was writing essays and giving talks about startups before YC.

motoko• 19 years ago

The only thing Joel is good at making is Digg bait.... and apparently news.combinator bait.

abrown• 19 years ago

Ok, so maybe it's an ad or maybe it's a little interesting post and an update on his FogBugz tour which he has been posting about for months. At least he is consistent. And what is so antiquated about FogBugz? Have you ever used the software? It actually works quite well.

-Joel Fanboy

vlad• 19 years ago

He has a point. Sometimes you look at a product (including software) and you wonder what the certain buttons or phrases are for! Most companies simply do not put thought into their products. They just literally copy the feature with a color, shape, or phrasing change and stick it onto their copy-cat product. No thought is put into why the other company chose to do it and if there are better ways of solving the same problem. This is a great example of this.

dmpayton• 19 years ago

Eh, California isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's crowded, it's expensive, there is insane traffic, and the schools are far below decent.

Sunny beaches and summer fun are one thing... Reality, I'm afraid, is much different.

And I've lived here my whole life.

jey• 19 years ago

Try living elsewhere, then you'll see how much California rocks in comparison.

I grew up in San Diego, never appreciated it fully until I left.

kingnothing• 19 years ago

Did this same conversation take place some months ago, or am I having one wicked case of deja vous?

gibsonf13• 19 years ago

California is a huge state with many different experiences - what city do you live in?

I lived in Pasadena for about a year. Between having to drive forever to get anywhere in dense traffic, the intense smog, and the lack of a cultural core - it made for a terrible experience.

San Francisco, on the other hand, is hard to beat.

danielha• 19 years ago

Central CA is rarely representative of most people's perception of the state.

daniel-cussen• 19 years ago

After visiting Palo Alto for three months when I was five, I lived in Chile for fourteen years. I just got back to Palo Alto two weeks ago, and it's indescribably awesome.

geebee5• 19 years ago

I've noticed "Made In California" as well, and it's an interesting choice of words for Apple.

It brings to mind PG's counter-example of the iPod to the "Squalor of the man-made bits of America" (in his Made In USA essay). When I lived in Europe, I noticed that general stereotypes of the "USA" differed dramatically from impressions of "LA", "San Francisco", "New York", "California".

When you say "USA", people around the world often think of an economic and military juggernaut. If you say "California", they often think "surfers, technology, Ahnold, the Golden Gate Bridge," and so forth. Various cities in the US also have their own international reputations.

It's pretty clear that the rest of the world has very negative and very positive impressions of the United States, and these can be triggered by how you present yourself. Perhaps Apple is trying to grab a more positive reaction by claiming California rather than the USA? When Bush refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty, there was some talk in England about boycotting US products (pretty hopeless idea there, but it shows the anger). California did raise its international brand by bucking that trend.

I expect the US will regain some of its stature once the current administration is gone, but even if/when it does, I'd expect more local branding. Cities compete with each other more than countries do. What does it even mean to say it was "Made in the USA" anymore? If it's made in Seattle, Sydney, or Barcelona, it isn't made in San Francisco. We may be moving toward a world economy where that's the only thing that actually matters.

anamax5• 19 years ago

> When Bush refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty, there was some talk in England about boycotting US products (pretty hopeless idea there, but it shows the anger).

Actually, it shows ignorance. The US president doesn't ratify treaties, the Senate does. And, the Senate voted Kyoto down 95-0 during the Clinton years.

You got played by Clinton, but you can't object too much because you didn't bother to comply either.

geebee5• 19 years ago

You're absolutely right: that my use of the word "ratify" was incorrect. The senate does indeed ratify treaties. And the senate did reject Kyoto (which may have needed some work), as you have said.

But one debating tactic I've noticed in people with a weak argument: they go quickly to detail, identify flaws in phrasing, redefine words, argue over procedural details. Sometimes this is referred to as a "strawman argument", where you take your opponent's argument in its weakest form, and knock it down. I'd like to invite you to take the argument in its strongest form, and actually say something substantive.

So instead of "refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty," let's instead say "actively undermined efforts to take meaningful action against global warming." That would be taking the argument in a stronger form, and would give you an opportunity to explain how the Bush administration does not deserve a reputation for undermining efforts to combat global warming.

So... would you claim that George Bush has nothing to do with the America's rejection of the Kyoto treaty, or America's remarkable inaction on global warming in general? And would you disagree that his administration has repeatedly tried to undermine California's efforts to do something about it?

Before we start arguing about votes and procedures, I'd like to hear your big picture view on this issue.

choward93• 19 years ago

Ugh, Im tired of Seattle stereotypes. Seattle is a well cultured city, and his generalizations are pretty weak to prove his point, not mention irrelevant. Sorry, I just have to stick up for my home town. BTW, it rains more in NY than Seattle.

davidw• 19 years ago

It may rain more in other places - I'd bet that it rains more in Padova, Italy, than my own Northwest hometown of Eugene, Oregon - but the important thing is that it is gray in the NW. Often. It may rain a bunch in a day somewhere else, but in the NW, it will drizzle for a week.

gibsonf13• 19 years ago

For the one winter I lived in Seattle, we went for 4 months straight without sunshine. When a ray of light fell outside our office on the parking lot, we all ran out to revel in that one ray - I'll never forget how desperately we all missed and needed the sunlight.

dcurtis2• 19 years ago

Well, it's easy to see why Seattle has those stereotypes. The moment you get there, all of the generalizations are instantly confirmed. It's raining, there's a Starbucks on every corner, and there (used to be) an enormous Boeing factory nearby.

herdrick3• 19 years ago

> there (used to be) an enormous Boeing factory nearby

Still is.

jeffumich• 19 years ago

Perception matters more when we're talking about something that involves emotion. Sure, it rains more in inches in NY, but not in a depressing, all day, every day sorta way. Sorry, I just have to be annoyed at the Seattle rain.

JBiserkov• 19 years ago

Sad, but true.

California

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