"The Mess We're In" by Joe Armstrong
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN returns to it constantly as a witty, still-accurate diagnosis of why software is bloated and messy, and as a go-to recommendation in any thread on modules, package managers or software quality.
What it is
Joe Armstrong, co-inventor of Erlang, gives a funny and opinionated Strange Loop talk on the tangled state of software: build tools, package managers, entropy and the physical limits of computation. He argues for ideas like naming things by content hash and throwing away your first version.
Recommended by 10 HN commenters across 8 different months, 2014 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec dpeck · 2019-04 · on “Joe Armstrong has died”
That is so sad, he was in his late 60s and it seemed like he had a lot of life left in him, talking about how software can get better and having a great (and sometimes snarky) outlook on the profession. Highly recommend his thesis (2003) and a few of his great interviews/presentations for anyone who isn’t familiar with Joe, it captures a lot of what he thought about and pushed for in his professional life. [LINK] [LINK] [this video] [LINK] I hope his family and friends can find some comfort in how much he was appreciated and admired in the development community.
Strong rec zaph0d_ · 2019-04 · on “Joe Armstrong has died”
This is absolutely devastating! His talk "The Mess We're In" was one of those talks which were incredibly funny and informative at the same time. I absolutely lost it, when he told the story of the single comment his coworker put into the Erlang code.[1] Rest in peace! [1] [this video]
Strong rec leonroy · 2019-05 · on “John Carmack on QuakeWorld latency and business model (1996)”
> "The mess we're in" famous talk by joe amstrong For anyone else: [this video] Fantastic watch, thanks for recommending. Sad to hear that Joe Armstrong passed away a few weeks ago.
Recommends 0xmohit · 2016-10 · on “Ask HN: What's your favorite tech talk?”
How To Design A Good API and Why it Matters [0] The Principles of Clean Architecture [1] The State of the Art in Microservices by Adrian Cockcroft [2] "The Mess We're In" by Joe Armstrong [3] [0] [LINK] [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] [this video]
Recommends hepek · 2017-12 · on “Physical Limits of Computation (2009)”
Joe Armstrong gives a very good talk about ideas in the article in "The Mess We're In" (2014): [this video]
Recommends tosh · 2019-04 · on “Joe Armstrong has died”
Just re-watched his Strangeloop talk: “The mess we’re in”. Still so spot on. He will be dearly missed. [this video]
Recommends camgunz · 2019-08 · on “Software Architecture Guide”
Agree, but people tend to stop at Fowler and live it as gospel. There is a profound richness in the different ways to think and talk about computers, engineering, and information science, far more wonderous than any one person can catalog. Read SICP, Knuth, Code Complete, Codd. Hell, just YouTube around. If your vocabulary is prescribed by literally one guy in a fedora, you gotta get out there. Might I suggest Joe Armstrong [1] :) [1] [this video]
Recommends badsectoracula · 2021-12 · on “C64 OS: make a Commodore 64 feel fast and useful”
Luddite is someone who is opposed to new technology, which doesn't apply here as the sentiment isn't about being opposed to the new tech but about the new tech not being taken advantage of. The software we build today is "vastly" more powerful in the sense that, strictly speaking, you can do more stuff, but it is way less powerful - and often broken - than what it could be, considering what you can see being possible on older hardware and what seems to be done in modern hardware. Also it isn't really something that happens today, here is a nice (and funny) talk from Joe Armstrong on the topic from almost 8 years ago[0]. Though this sort of sentiment goes way back, e.g. Wirth's classic "Plea