Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Oh, I generally agree.

I didn't mean the graybeard in a bad way at all.

I feel a bit 50-50 on some of the reactions to JSON as a new thing at the time. But, also the practicality of how JSONB finally came to exist, the foundation it was built on and the new index types[1] in Postgres to leverage it felt like it came in the right time and in the right way.

[1] http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2017/03/12/getting-started-wit...




>I didn't mean the graybeard in a bad way at all.

Oh, no offense taken. What you read in my comment was genuine recognition on my part that I've likely crossed over into the graybeard camp--both in experience and disposition.

>I feel a bit 50-50 on some of the reactions to JSON as a new thing at the time.

Yeah, there have certainly been real improvements in tech that are perfectly reasonable. And, actually, I think it's the incremental improvements that add up over time which actually comprise the bulk of our real progress.

I think where things get off track is when we make sudden pronouncements that we must now cease doing everything we've done heretofore with tech Y in favor of new and shiny tech X. Every use case. Period. Whether it's killing XML because, JSON or killing SQL because, NoSQL or adopting J2EE for every "enterprise" app, or never writing Vanilla JS again because, Framework Fill-in-The-Blank; the list goes on.

There's just a tendency in the tech community to lurch in different directions with this extreme vigor. But, when you really think about it, once the foundations are laid there just aren't many quantum leaps that truly merit such strong reactions.

And, what's really strange is that we somehow manage to overlook glaring weaknesses in the new tech, and likewise disregard (or even impugn) the strengths of the tech we're displacing in ways that are obviously unfavorable. For instance, suddenly deciding we don't need ACID transactions. What?

You see that stuff and it's an automatic, "yeah, this will all blow over soon". We then generally a.) forget it ever happened or b.) settle into assigning the proper use-cases, adopting/integrating the best properties of the tech, and moving on. Incremental.


It is greybeard or graybeard?


American spelling is gray, English/UK spelling is grey.

Easy way to remember is use "a" for "American" in the American spelling, and "e" (for English) in UK (and presumably the rest of the Commonwealth).


In American English, both "grey" and "gray" are considered acceptable and it's not uncommon to see both used here in my part of the US. Personally I usually write "grey" but if it's a particularly dark shade I might say "gray" - but that's personal preference rather than any convention I've seen elsewhere.

EDIT: There do seem to be a couple of blogs that come up in Google pushing the idea of a difference between US/UK spellings, but that's definitely not something I or most people I know grew up with. Other search results indicate that there is only a modest correlation with ___location. Perhaps it goes more one-way, with both being in common use in the US but "grey" exclusively preferred in the UK?




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2025 batch! Applications are open till May 13

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: