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I'm a pragmatic person (I think I am. But then again, Jon here has an interesting point ). Sometimes, the most simple solution to a problem to get the job done is the one that fits best for me, if it's not an utter blasphemy and reproach to any design principles. Check out my answer to this question on Stack Overflow. Simple. Works. Was accepted. Could be improved. Is clearly not perfect and not very elaborate. And along comes this guy. He downvotes me, comments on the question how his answer is better, more accurate etc and when I ask him why he downvoted me, he calls me plain wrong in his comments. Reminds me of this comic strip.

Just to get this straight: His answer is clearly better. But that's not the point!

While on Stack Overflow I can laugh and not really care about these things because those people are far away, in the real world I'm suffering from ideologies every now and then. Heck, I'm not creating a miracle piece of software, I need to keep that huge legacy thing running, and it's an adventure to me every day. I'm good at some things and bad at other things. I'm eager to learn stuff. But I can accept one or two flaws in a system as what they are: flaws. Tomorrow, we're going to refactor all of them, but first let's do what the customer wants, and then have a beer.

My questions are:

  • How do you deal with ideologies / ideologists, when you're a pragmatic person?
  • How do you deal with pragmatism / pragmatists, when you're an ideologic person?

I'm interested in both point of views.

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Lukas Eder
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    Remember: evolution favors pragmatists. In under 100 years your coworkers will probably be dead. However, chances are that people like you will out-reproduce people like them. Woot!!! LOL I am the first (and still the only one) to hold the gold badge in XSLT, the gold badge in XML and the silver badge in XPath. Actually, your solution was weaker, so deal with it. I have been in your shoes. When I see that others understand something better, I try to learn from them. – Job Jan 13 '11 at 16:41
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    I think you need to be careful in drawing the line between pragmatism and arrogance. Pointing out that someone's solution might have problems (especially on a Q&A site) is not a bad thing or an example of someone being an ideologist. – Adam Lear Jan 13 '11 at 16:41
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    @Anna - it's a fair point but calling someone plain wrong for an accepted answer seems odd. Looking at the specifics it's not the best solution but it's a solution so the criticism is harsh in it's phrasing at the very least. – Jon Hopkins Jan 13 '11 at 16:58
  • @Jon. It wasn't even a "bit wrong". It was just **incomplete**... – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 17:01
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    You're complicated wrong. – Aaron McIver Jan 13 '11 at 17:07
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    @Lukas - I don't believe he's saying your solution is wrong, I believe he's saying the he thinks it's wrong not to tell a XSL-T beginner that the apply template method exists and might be an option. Remember that with beginners we aim not just to solve the problem, but also to make them better programmers so they can solve them themselves in the future. If anything it's a criticism of teaching rather than technology if that makes sense? – Jon Hopkins Jan 13 '11 at 17:16
  • @Jon: You do believe in the good in all people, hm? :) That's nice. I wish I could do that. Turns out, though, the "beginner" already knew about the other XSLT option, as he was actually using that. The "beginner" tells me that my solution to his **actual** problem works even if he doesn't use the for-each construct. Hmm... In that sense, we could argue that in the solution space of about 1 gazillion XSLT solutions to his problem, I just picked one that might help and illustrate what he can do and it did the job. Still, my solution/teching/method/etc was obviously **"PLAIN WRONG"**... oh well. – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 17:27
  • @Jon Hopkins: I agree, but like you, I interpreted "plain wrong" as targeting the teaching method rather than Lukas himself. The critic's comments, while strongly worded, don't read all that offensive to me, but that's a matter of perspective, of course. – Adam Lear Jan 13 '11 at 17:59
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    @Lukas : he didn't call your solution plain wrong. He called "showing this without showing another technique" plain wrong. A matter of opinion... But my experience is that mostly ideologists only hear/read what they want to hear/read and often get around the nuances a bit too fast... :-P – Joris Meys Jan 13 '11 at 18:02
  • @Joris: You're right. And as Jon suggested, I'm an ideologist about my pragmatism: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/36443/how-not-to-suffer-from-ideologists-when-youre-a-pragmatic-person/36455#36455 – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 18:13
  • @Anna: True, "The critic's comments" are not offensive at all. That's the whole point of this discussion. As a pragmatist, I just do not have the time for discussing every solution to its perfection. This kind of opinion (or the opposite) is what I wanted to see in this thread... – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 18:15
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    What's pragmatic about worrying about what a person you don't know and will never meet thinks about your answer? – philosodad Jan 13 '11 at 18:32
  • Two questions: 1) What does your story about the question on Stack Overflow have to do with your questions? 2) Which of the [six subjective guidelines](http://meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/350/the-six-subjective-question-guidelines-enforcement-notice) do you think your question meets? –  Jan 13 '11 at 19:32
  • One other thing: the Stack Exchange system is not a discussion board, it's a network of question and answer sites. There are already [established rules](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/faq) for how to ask and answer questions, you don't need to spell them out in your question. If you want to ask follow up questions, create new questions so the answers provided remain relevant to the originally asked question. –  Jan 13 '11 at 19:35
  • Hi Mark. **1)** I think most answerers got that. The story is about what I consider an ideologue, and my question is about how these two types of people interact. **2)** I think the question meets 1 ("how do you deal with it"), 2 (see the actual answers), 3 (I admit that I'm wrong myself and I'd like to hear both sides), 4 (I explicitly ask for experiences), and somewhat 6 (I really face this question in real life). **AND**: Many answers are a lot better than the question itself – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 19:40
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    In the vein of "how to deal with pragmatists", it depends. Some 'pragmatists' are ideologues in disguise, they *refuse* to use certain technologies because they are afraid to try something new, not because they have a good reason, or they *won't* take extra time to plan how to do something well because they know how to do it 'fast'. I dealt with it by going back into academia, where no one cares what tech I'm using as long as I can explain *what* it's doing. – philosodad Jan 13 '11 at 19:49
  • @Mark. Thanks for the hint. I knew about the guidelines, I haven't seen the "established rules" yet, though. I'm trying to phrase my future questions accordingly... – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 19:50

11 Answers11

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Without trying to be funny, as a pragmatist surely you can be pragmatic about it?

Other people are one more constraint you have to work with, the same as late change requests, difficult clients, inadequate tools, limited time and so on. All these are things you say you deal with pragmatically and this is the same.

If you work with someone you believe is difficult then you need to find a solution to the problem which works, even if it's not ideal.

Start by asking yourself how big a deal what they're suggesting is and then based on that work out whether you roll with it (if it's not a big deal), or find a compromise (if that's possible), or fight it out (if they're being entirely unreasonable).

If you do think they're entirely out of order you can always console yourself with the knowledge that when it ends up getting escalated your manager will almost always choose your solution (if it is indeed workable) because managers usually became managers by being, well, pragmatic.

But if you can't do this might I suggest that you're being a bit ideological about your pragmatism and perhaps you're not that pragmatic after all?

Jon Hopkins
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As a pragmatist, I propose you let this notion ring true with you: you are not your code.

You write code. You write it at whatever level and with whatever quality you do. Then you go home.

Let idealists identify their self-worth with their output, and validate themselves by putting their Perfect Solution on a golden pedestal. If that's all they've got, then God bless 'em. Sad little existence they have there.

Dan Ray
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  • It's true that the more creative the work is, the more confusion there is between the value of the person and it's output. That phenomenon contribute to burn outs greatly. –  Jan 13 '11 at 17:04
  • I second the idea that there are people out there whose self worth and by extension weigh someones worth on their code. Not on skill, as a human being! – rsman Jan 13 '11 at 17:37
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I think this idea of "pragmatists vs. idealists" is a false dichotomy. It is a continuum where there are different levels of pragmatism and idealism, and each individual falls on a different part of the continuum, and for different issues. You might be a pragmatist when it comes to software design but an idealist when it comes to politics or art. I might be the opposite. And one "idealist" with software design might consider himself a pragmatist when compared to someone even more ideological.

So, I guess my advice would be to not obsess over the labels, and instead try to communicate your viewpoints and convince your coworkers that you are right because your idea is better. If you are my coworker and we disagree, your argument of "my idea is more pragmatic and therefore right" will not fly with me. But if your argument is "my design is better for this and this and this reasons", you very well might convince me.

RationalGeek
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  • Absolutely. Being somewhere in the middle of that axis is probably the best thing. Because pure pragmatics probably have no visions, pure ideologists have no sense of reality... – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 18:27
  • Agreed. And like everyone, I believe I walk the perfect line between the two, and everyone should strike the same balance I do. :-) – RationalGeek Jan 13 '11 at 19:35
  • OK. Now you're being ideologist about your staying in balance. :) – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 19:52
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It's a question of acceptance.

I'm myself very frustrated by cv-driven self called architects. Frustrated enough to give them a nickname ;)

In my experience, it's very difficult to change other people, if not impossible. You must redirect your energy to something more productive and positive.

Negtive toughts are useless.

That's how you should deal with them: by not dealing with them.

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    Come on, don't be a quitter, you quitter! I remember you were then one suggesting that some guy tries to make a positive impact rather than running. http://www.amazon.com/Dealing-People-You-Cant-Stand/dp/0071379444 – Job Jan 13 '11 at 16:57
  • Job: he is not talking about a co-worker that has a direct impact on his work or life. –  Jan 13 '11 at 16:59
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Depends on who you are dealing with. An ideologue will refuse to use certain solutions. An idealist prefers to use certain solutions. There's not much you can do with an ideologue. Idealists will respond positively to sympathy + practicality, I.E. "I'd love to use HTML5 too, and if the budget supports it we can. But we have to deal with all the (enter context appropriate pejorative) who won't upgrade their web browsers, so we need to implement a flash solution first."

philosodad
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  • +1 for the subtle side blow! :) Good comparison between **ideologue** and **idealist**. It kinda goes into the same direction as jkohlhepp's "ideologic-pragmatical continuum" – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 19:08
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Understanding where I'm pragmatic and where I'm idealistic is a starting point. We all have basic things where we are more likely to be realists as things like food and drink tend to be needs that get met or else you die due to starvation or dehydration, often with imperfect food. At the same time, most of us likely have some values that we'd tend to uphold above all else I'd think. Thus I think there is a bit of both in us and understanding why we have both would be a good place to start though this may be seen as dodging the question it is how I'd handle the problem of being on either end of the seesaw and having to deal with people from the other.

Elizabeth Lesser: Take "The Other" to Lunch is a recent TED Talk that could make a good addition if someone wants a suggestion for how to see this differently. Humanizing that other side can be useful if we want to collectively move forward though I may be a bit of a softy for being idealistic that way.

JB King
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This is really a question of dealing with two types of people who disagree with you: A) Those that may change their mind B) Those that will probably never change their mind.

Group A) you give your argument/opinion your best shot, try to be civil and possibly change your mind along the way. You are more likely to listen to what they have to say. You feel they are open and met you half way. We're more likely to think like people we are comfortable with.

Group B) you get emotional, take the opportunity to dump on them and point out the error of their ways. Some name calling usually finds its way to the conversation. Nothing gets solved and at best you agree to disagree.

Not saying this is the right way to go about it, but usually what ends up happening.

JeffO
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  • How do you deal with ideologies / ideologists, when you're a pragmatic person?
  • How do you deal with pragmatism / pragmatists, when you're an ideologic person?

I believe the best option is to assemble teams with the common mentality. It's probably one way to make things work without having some team members experience mental pain every working day.

As of now it's definitely one more thing I watch out while interviewing - is the team built of curious, open-minded, pragmatic and goal-oriented people (that's what I'd like) or is there a smell of architecture astronauts, ideologists and fanatics (that one I'd rather not be a part of).

Granted it's not going to help you now (unless you can move to another team or department) but perhaps a useful hint for the future?

[Responding to a comment - about architecture astronauts...]

Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You

Are the Groove Designers Architecture Astronauts?

Architecture Astronauts Are Back

Architecture astronauts take over

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    +1 for `architecture astronauts`. Oh, I love the feedback I get here! Gladly, I'm not really suffering from these things right now. It was more a general question... – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 17:35
  • *Architecture astronauts* is the term coined by Joel Spolsky. See updates in my answer for some links in just a minute... –  Jan 13 '11 at 17:38
  • Awesome! Unfortunately, I can't +1 you again! :) – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 18:29
  • Haha, no really. The further I'm reading through your blog posts, the more I think you should hold the `accepted answer` :D – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 18:39
  • The problem is that when you fill a team of people who all think alike, you are not only sharing the same strengths but the same blindspots as well. A team that doesn't have a healthy tension is dysfunctional. – Jason Baker Jan 22 '11 at 09:39
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His answer is clearly better. But that's not the point!

Are you sure you're a pragmatist? :)

Most of the time when I see somebody being called an idealist disparagingly, they aren't being idealistic, but simply being pragmatic while taking into account the consequences over a longer time period than the other person.

Sure, dirty code might be pragmatic if all you are looking at is being able to go home on time without any overtime, but once you take into account that people don't often really get the chance to go back and fix things later, and that you may well be stuck with the code for a long time, doing things the right way stops looking like idealism and starts looking more like the actions of a pragmatic person who is simply thinking beyond the immediate future.

Jim
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My experience is that there are two kinds of coders:

  1. The "code first, ask questions later" programmer
  2. The "ponder for two weeks, then code in an hour" programmer

It's easy to assume that this is a pragmatist/ideologue debate, but it really isn't. The thing is that both of these people are using opposite approaches to do the same thing. They both want to get things done. Perhaps you could say that the Type 1 programmer is like a hare (always rushing into doing things) while the Type 2 programmer is like a tortoise (slow and steady wins the race).

What I see happening is something like this: the Type 1 programmer isn't happy unless they're constantly hammering out code. They might stop to think for a little bit, but all in all they view it as a waste of time. They want to roll with the punches and take things as they come rather than planning. The Type 2 programmer wants to have an approach to the code mapped out ahead of time. They won't start coding until they already know what they're going to write, how they're going to write it, and that the approach is the correct one.

If you set a Type 1 programmer and a Type 2 programmer to work on the same task together, the Type 1 programmer will have long started their project by the time the Type 2 programmer decides what approach to take. At this point the Type 1 programmer will notice that the Type 2 programmer hasn't actually started coding and will try to help them get with the program and start doing something. The Type 2 programmer will notice that the Type 1 programmer has started coding with reckless abandon and try to get them to just stop and think for half a second. Without knowledge of what's happening, the Type 1 programmer will label the Type 2 programmer an ideologue who doesn't want to get things done, and the Type 1 programmer will label the Type 2 programmer a cowboy coder who has no appreciation for proper code.

Here's where things get tricky. When the two of them react this way they're both right to a certain degree. The Type 1 programmer needs to learn to stop, breathe, then think about what they're doing before they rush off to code. As the saying goes, "weeks of coding can save you hours of planning". The Type 2 programmer needs to learn to stop planning at some point and just write some code. As the other saying goes "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry".

Organizations need some of both kinds of people. Inexperienced or evil managers like to see their minions spinning their wheels nonstop and will often encourage Type 1 programmers. Micromanagers like to know what, where, when, and how their employees are going to code and will often encourage the Type 2 programmer. Thus, organizations need to make a conscious effort to encourage a balance.

Jason Baker
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Don't know but i get your point. I get so ANGRY when i see some moron bragging about using VIDEO and H.264 because it's "open" (yeah, right, with closed proprietary codec) that'll work on 20% of clients instead of using Flash that'll work for 98% clients (and it's really the SAME H.264 just in different player).

Same when i see a noob that's telling that "SQL" is dead because we have mongo - and those kind of idiot's are unable to use BOTH properly.

And we're having just HORDES of such fucking trolls/morons posting on forums, writing newspaper / press articles today.

And it always makes me mad. One story. Client wanted some video additions to his business page:

  • okay tomorrow it'll be done
  • will it be in HTML5?
  • no, i'll suggest flash and HTML5 fallback, because HTML5 isn't supported on more than 50% devices properly.
  • but that's ok, everyone is saying that it is a future, i want HTML5. I don't want flash, its outdated / evil / whatever.
  • okay but it won't always work.
  • thats not a problem

The next day:
- plain and simple video tag, 2 different encodings, 100% properly done. Of course there is flash fallback i'm showing to client. Performance is pathetic, but works. Now the client takes out his laptop "he wants to check too".
- Goes to the page and BAM. Firefox 3.something. 5 FPS, the sound is skipping, it looks like 100% broken.

  • I don't want it to work like this, it's broken. Make it work right.
  • I have told you that it isn't going to work good
  • But watch this (> youtube.com ) guy clicked the first video => working flawlessly.
  • It's a (fuckin!) flash!
  • Aha, you sure it isn't HTML5
  • Yes im (motherfu***) sure!
  • Ah, so please make it like this.

And there are more and more of such MORONS! They want HTML5 Video, Games on Canvas, mongoDB blogs for 100 visitors and other bullshit! Just FOR THE F*** SAKE F***K ME because all of those fanatic MORONS are hurting IT industry!!!

Now the solution. Tell the fucxxxx idiots you're using HTML5, mongoDB or any other moronic shit on the planet they want. Do it your way, get the job done and let them believe in their fairy tales, santa or whatever they want to believe in! If they propose some moronic / fanatic bullshit instead of your completely working solution - ignore, let them go fxx themselves

Slawek
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    Wow, you really **ARE** angry :-) – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 17:16
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    This isn't an answer, it's a rant which doesn't actually address his question. – Jon Hopkins Jan 13 '11 at 17:18
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    Yeah, for the countless hours i wasted explaining to clients and dealing with moronship... i'd really want to meet some of those mongo / HTML5 advocates (may i say >wizards<) and punch them in the face! @Jon at the end there is a preety good solution :) – Slawek Jan 13 '11 at 17:19
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    @Slawek - It's not a solution. You've just told the client to go fxxx themselves and are now out of work and pan handling for dimes to eat. – Jon Hopkins Jan 13 '11 at 17:24
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    -1 for the following: 1- calling your clients idiots. That's a Nick Burns attitude, and doesn't help anyone 2- thinking that HTML5 is a fantasy. It's real, it works, and there are important platforms that don't support flash. 3- assuming that your inability to communicate technical realities is your clients fault. It is not. You are the expert, and it is your responsibility to make things clear. 4. Proposing that the correct course of action is to lie to your clients. At some future point, that client is going to find out, and you will have given a black eye to every developer on earth. – philosodad Jan 13 '11 at 17:44
  • Even you can't admit that H5 is a fantasy. So how can i explain it to non-technical person. Maybe mongoDB is not a fantasy too? Name ONE bank that is using it. Name ONE video site that uses H5 as primary player for multimedia! This spec isn't even finished and support is appaling. What are those "important platforms"? iPads? 0.05 of your audition? These "important" platforms aren't really important, just fashionable. I haven't told the clients to go fuck themselves. I just "thought". i'm the technical person here so F off and believe the bullshit while i'll make it work like it should! – Slawek Jan 13 '11 at 18:10
  • @Slawek: 1: a popular/fashionable platform *is* an important platform, by definition. 2: The fact that Vimeo and YouTube don't use HTML5 as a primary platform does not make HTML5 a 'fantasy', it just means that it isn't the lowest common technology. 3: You can't explain anything to people if you are hostile about the technology to the point of denial. Intuit is not a bank, true, but they do need a secure and reliable backend database, and they *are* using mongo. 4. I downvoted you for *proposing* that lying to your clients was a good idea, not for lying to your clients. – philosodad Jan 13 '11 at 18:27
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    I have to -1 answer for calling the clients morons. They might certainly suggest nonsensical approaches to achieve their needs, and may thus make it impossible for you or other developers to reach that goal, but that is their loss. More importantly, they might be very good at their own area of expertise but their lack of IT understanding shows. I believe that doctors, engineers and other professionals do not treat their clients this way, and that should be the same for IT professionals. – Muhammad Alkarouri Jan 13 '11 at 18:38
  • Well >dad< fashionable is not popular today, by saying fashionable i'm rather mean "good looking / shiny and useless" than adoption rate. iDevices fall below 0.05% where i live. Beside you can always have FLASH and HTML5/VIDEO fallback. This way it'll work for nearly 100% of the clients correctly (instead of 98%)... but nono flash is so evil and not fashionable today. We must use something that's more in sync with fashion, it doesn't matter it won't work if we can put a big HTML5/MONGO banner on our website:)Then it matters, after all:)Im not talking YT/VIMEO im talking ALL big video websites. – Slawek Jan 13 '11 at 18:42
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    @Muhammad - well im a friend with some professionals, and they feel same way. When they see eg. patient that tells them how they should heal him, because he READ something on WIKIPEDIA (!!!), or saw some drug COMMERCIAL (!!!) on TV! MongoDB is not secure. It is scalable. Data is not even quaranteed to be written into storage (go ahead, check the spec - there is no data reporting to calients, just error LOGGING!). It's just memcached than can be saved to disk, but it can drop data as well. And im not hostile about technology but people that "knows" better how to do my job! :) – Slawek Jan 13 '11 at 18:45
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    Not a constructive answer. not suited to this question - nor to a professional site. I suggest blogging this. – Paul Nathan Jan 13 '11 at 19:20
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    @Slawek I realize we're not here to make friends, but ostensibly answers and comments here should be cogent: otherwise, what's the point of putting them on a site other people visit? You might want to tone down the rhetoric and think about how to make your arguments convincing to others so your efforts to illuminate and enlighten aren't in vain. –  Jan 13 '11 at 19:24
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    @slawek- 1. Its a world wide web, not a web that exists where you live. You may think that the iPad, iPhone, and iPod are useless, but that doesn't seem to matter to the millions of people using them. 2. Perhaps you should call the people at Intuit and explain why Mongo was a bad choice for them? Otherwise, you're just moving the goalposts. 3. Yes, you can have Flash with an HTML5 fallback. If you can't explain to your clients why that's a good idea, that's a *you* problem. It has nothing to do with the technology being a "fantasy". – philosodad Jan 13 '11 at 19:37
  • Well that's just ideology. For my country iDevices are 0.05% of total traffic. You "like" them, so claim that these are relevant (eg. for local business). Simply untrue. Or maybe i should offer local businesses iPhone enabled websites that will be visited by 1 person in then next 5 years :) For mongo... well i can't obviously explain it to you, there's spec saying that data is not quaranteed to be written. You can read such specs, how should i explain it to a person that can't when programmers seem not getting it ? :) – Slawek Jan 13 '11 at 19:53
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    @Slawek - At this point in time nearly 30% of all your answers have a negative score. I suggest that you focus some of that energy towards following Mark's advice. – Walter Jan 13 '11 at 19:55
  • Well Walter but there's a couple that have a positive feedback :) You can't please everyone, like they say :) And it's still only 30% the rest is preety good (when i manage to not offend anyone) :) – Slawek Jan 13 '11 at 19:56
  • For the advice... hm... I'll try but when there'll be ideology, noSQL, HTML5/Video bullshit i can't really promise anything :) Anyway, i think we're being brainwashed by all those new tech enthusiasts, you won't check adoption rate, specs, performance... we only read shit in blogs / newspapers by some uneducated journalists how mongoDB will replace Oracle, and how (barely working) HTML5 video player utilizing closed H.264 coded is "cool" and "open". When i'd just said "check the spec, less than 50% adoption", "VIDEO is not open, check papers, codec is patented" nobody would, actually :) – Slawek Jan 13 '11 at 20:08
  • @slawek - I don't like or dislike iDevices. I simply understand that my opinion of the iPlatform doesn't trump reality. Reality is that this is an important platform used by millions. Your local business is a *special*, not a *general* case, and it is your job to explain that to them. 2. I didn't say Mongo was secure, I said that Intuit needs security and uses mongo. Clearly, they – philosodad Jan 13 '11 at 20:20
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    @slawek: Sorry, got lost in edits. To continue: if you actually understood why mongo is appropriate for Intuit, you would probably also understand how to explain why it *won't* work for your clients. – philosodad Jan 13 '11 at 20:33
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    Gosh. Look at this ideologic discussion not leading anywhere... Slawek's customer is still unhappy. Slawek himself is still pissed. And the results? We got confused (if not amused) by all this... Me for example, I don't know anything more about HTML5 than before. See, guys? My point of this whole question. – Lukas Eder Jan 13 '11 at 21:08
  • Nah man, Slawek's customers are happy because i won't fool around using some half-baked bullshit like WebSockets, Canvas, or VIDEO. Just prooven technology with years of developement, bug fixing and fine-tuning. Hm... maybe VIDEO as a flash fallback, when someone is using some crippled iDevice :) Lukas - all you should know is that it's some marketing bullshit that's not suitable for doing anything right now. Go check the spec if you don't believe me... well when it'll be finished because it isn't even on paper yet :) – Slawek Jan 13 '11 at 22:19
  • +1 for calling the clients morons, because for every client who is very good at their own area of expertise but lacks IT understanding, there is one who genuinely *is* a moron. – Carson63000 Jan 13 '11 at 22:31
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    I'm sure that client learned who *not* to hire for their next job. Sometimes you need to take a step back, stop blaming the technology, and accept the blame for yourself. You either did a poor job of communicating with the client (and let's face it, your answers on here point pretty strongly to that conclusion), or you don't know how to write a decent-performing HTML 5-based website (considering it's done all the time, even if YouTube isn't one). HTML 5 is not "marketing bullshit". I suspect you aren't sure the definition of that word. – Cody Gray - on strike Jan 13 '11 at 23:43
  • Ok show me good HTML5 video website if you so clever :) – Slawek Jan 14 '11 at 00:28
  • @slawek: you are missing the point. I did mention that clients may suggest some nonsense, depending on what they heard somewhere. I know about NoSQL, having used redis myself, and yes it suffered from the well known [hype cycle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle) inflated expectation and you seem to correct towards the disillusionment trough. I do know when to use relational db or NoSql. Your current way of labeling clients who come to you with the flavour of the month as morons is not constructive. Try to find a better approach. – Muhammad Alkarouri Jan 14 '11 at 01:33
  • Well ther's nothing wong with asking but if you're trying to do my job, insist that you know better what I should do and then change your mind when it's done... without even talking about compensating my lost time not to mention payment (because it doesnt work like they said in the newspaper)... it is what it is. You're just moron. Mostly happeing on sites like rentacoder, paying for constantly changing spec is an abstraction there. To sum it up - i can any shitty half-baken-not-working spec. WebSockets? No problem. But dont whine it isn't working when done if i already have told you that. – Slawek Jan 14 '11 at 09:15