bladelessninja2

I hope the author means HTTPS, not HTTP - otherwise, I don't think this is a good idea.

Anyway, as everything in software development: it all depends - serving a simple JSON over an existing "full blown web application back-end" is usually more convenient and less confusing for developers than configuring hosting for static content. Although, if you JUST want to serve a JSON then, yeah, you can add it as a static resource.

Yeah, maybe, but I'm not the one who said "I hate them" or "they just sound so damn whiney" and did nothing to change it.

I am trying to come up with a way to find profit in going against the grain, because I think this is the only way to drive change (or at least preserve my sanity).

I know what you mean, but I think the profit is already there, with some good soft skills you can show your value to the client by doing it the right way. Although it won't be always pleasurable or smooth sail as you need to speak up or tell harsh words to others, but, you know, if there is no tension in bicycle chain it means you are not pedaling. Of course, you need to do it in gentle and respectful manner - that's why soft skills are so important.

All we talk about here is how to work with people. I'm sorry, but you strike me as more of a talker than a doer, I hope I'm wrong.

LOL, just name your stories accordingly and move "as a user I want to" part to description. Haven't you raised that easy-to-fix issue with your team members?

One thing to add in favor of user stories: they have very broad audience - basically every non-technical person will understand it, which is very useful if the domain is specific and you need an input from regular users.

I suspect that this approach might not be the best fit for more "fluent" projects as you are unable to reevaluate how things should work until the whole feature is finished, but that's just my wild guess as I've never worked in such setup.

A user story is good exercise for less technical people to grasp what developers need to know before starting development:

- they are easy to understand as everyone is familiar with concept of telling stories

- they enforce a way of thinking about the feature, e.g.: "when click X, then Y happens", which is easily translatable to workflows

So I wouldn't be so eager to discard them completely - they are very useful tool, although, not the only tool you should use.

What you've said is very true, but implementing it depends heavily on the client. The fundamental rule of agile is that business needs to participate in software development on daily basis (and I agree with that 100%). Although, it is very difficult. The first big obstacle is that business doesn't understand the very nature of software development which is: it is easy to change and it is reusable. The former one means that you can gradually improve your solution instead of coming up with exhaustive description up front. Instead they think about it like about processes their are familiar with, e.g. building house, where if you build a wall it will be hard to move. The latter one (that it is reusable) is a bit easier to grasp for non-software folks, but then again: someone needs to introduce them to this idea, as they are not familiar with the concept that there are building blocks ready and the hardest part is to find best fitting building blocks and glue them together. Those I would call knowledge gaps, sometimes there is some resistance due to the fact that those guys are doing totally different things, so they don't see a need for learning about software development (which is quite naive, if you ask me, since software is basically everywhere nowadays).

But there are more obstacles, like cultural ones: I can't count how many time I heard "client pays, client demands" without want to hear any feedback or guidance.

There are also obstacles on work organization level, for example: people who have final say how should system look/work have no time to even grasp general ideas about the system.

And god forbid if your client has experience with software developers who were silently and blindly (which means: inefficiently) developing everything that client demanded, because it creates a wall that will be very hard to breakthrough.

I wouldn't use "them" in this sentence, Mozilla is non-profit organization, but Gecko is open source - anyone is free to send them patch. The problem is that development in this environment is not an easy task. Yup, it is improving overtime, build scripts are constantly updated, but is still huge codebase with a lot of "magic".

Also, please review the HN guidelines.

Yeah, I know, you downvoted me, I don't mind, enjoy yourself.

But, again, to the point (because you still missing mine): I don't argue libraries shouldn't be subsidized from taxes, I even clearly stated it's the mater of personal opinion (if you read carefully you'd know), I argue that you just cannot mention libraries and the police in one breath like you did, simply because they are not of the same kind - the library (again - kinda tired of repeating myself) CAN be subject of discussion, but police, army, justice system - CANNOT.

I thought I was talking to an intelligent person - do you understand that "necessary" is totally different category than "nice to have"? What's the point of having libraries if they will be looted or bombarded on the very next day? How can you still don't understand that having or not having the police forces is not comparable to having or not having libraries?

I repeat: public safety is THE reason why we organize in countries, so police, army, justice system is in COMPLETELY different category - it is something essential, the rest is disputable. That's why you cannot compare them with, e.g. schools, there are decent countries without public education, yet, there is no serious country without police/army/courts.

I have suspicion you haven't read my first comment in this thread.

Like you said: it's the matter of opinion, public safety, though, is not.

Arguably, cities need public transport in from of a metro even more than stadiums, yet, the first underground railway was completely private enterprise.

How did you get from stadium to police? The whole idea why people organize themselves in countries is to ensure internal and external safety and thus that everyone pay taxes for police, army and courts. Everything else is an addition and in my opinion even undesired to fund by whole community - you can always organize fundraiser or start a private enterprise for such things.

I remember times where free market and private enterprises were huge part of American culture. I miss those times, bloody socialists are going to ruin everything.

Well, encourage socialistic views, there will be more tax money to "help" those organizations.

Are you talking the country that gained its wealth from years of capitalism and centuries of colonialism? Yep, it will fail soon, like it always do.

Maybe it's not that the government doesn't have power, but more like the government's power has become a tool for the rich and their corporations due to their larger influence.

That's why you need to reduce government power. Socialism do the opposite.

Why is this true? Anyone could state the opposite without proof: that corrupted companies are more effective and thrive.

It's the definition of corruption: you gain personal benefits in cost of organization you work in. Why would I prove the definition?

Their outsized wealth owns things that does that for them.

Yeah... everything just happens on its own. Surely no one ever bankrupted by investing in stocks.

This capitalism you're talking about is an imaginary construction. It never existed, never will.

I hope you understand that we are referring to models there, right? Your point that you can't discuss ideas because model is not reality is ridiculous - with that philosophy we would never had any engineering done. It's like arguing with someone who said "I have wooden house" with an argument "No mate, your door handles are metal".

You know very well what people refer to as capitalism, the one that exist in reality.

And that is exactly what I'm fighting against - total confusion, calling capitalism system where Tax Freedom Day is in August (talking about some European countries) - you want to blame capitalism where there system is far from the idea of capitalism. Like I explained before: you disassemble wheels from a car and wonder why it is not working - here, you are removing the very reason why capitalism works (by restraining economic freedom, expanding welfare) and you are surprised that it isn't working.

Grow up.

I was just referring to your comment about things being obvious where you have clearly some problems explaining your thoughts.

More taxes = more power to people who decide how tax system is designed (there are many, many examples where big companies get away with literally not paying taxes) More money to redistribute = more power to people who decide who will get money and who won't, all those "government investments" are filled with corruption. Not to mention smaller things like ordering friend's company to create report on how spend tax payer's money, of course the report costs millions of dollars and says nothing.

Funny, but we are in an adult conversation now, you can't ignore facts with just some joke. Grow up.

That's my point - there would be never a discussion about saving bankers in 2008 if there was capitalism, capitalism rejects ANY intervention into free market (except maybe anti monopoly laws). That only proofs that it is not capitalism here to blame - it is corrupted politicians that gained too much power through socialism in the name of "social justice" (which has so much in common with "justice" as "electric chair" has with "chair").

Sadly, he's not an exception, people truly believe that, people who have right to vote.

I am a marxist-leninist

How does it feel to support ideology that killed millions of people and sentenced multiple times more to live in poverty?

Reading this topic, I'm so glad there are people who can see this, there is some hope in this nonsense I see around.

doesn't sound great for the vulnerable workers of the company, who have lost out on wages due to said corruption and are now unemployed.

Why would they be unemployed? Why wouldn't they work for someone else or even start their own business? You assume people are helpless, I hope it's not the projection of your own experience.

Sure I do. There's the media, the judicial system, and the ballot box.

How they (except the last one) are doing so far?

You can, for example, buy land and rent it out.

That's already investment, that's already doing something with a risk involved. You can buy a land that no one would rent out.

Besides the things above: you still don't propose any explanation why socialism will work this time, when it happened to lead to tragedy so many times before (I assume you agree with my proof of why the system USA lean towards socialism since you haven't argued with that proof).

You forgot to mention how rules changed - if you are right that is the only way to undo what happened. Instead, you argue "it changed for the worse, let's change it even more in some random direction" - this completely illogical, it looks like you don't know what you are doing, but you (of course) play big intellectual and pretend it is OK to ignore facts.