One of the most common recurring posts on HN is "it is impossible to estimate software projects"
Well yes, if you refuse to use a stable stack you will need 300 hours to chase your tail when you could have solved your client's problem in 30.
Writing the average bizapp as an SPA would be like your doctor cutting off your leg because your knee hurts. In any other field we'd call it malpractice, but is is called being one of the cool kids in computing.
> One of the most common recurring posts on HN is "it is impossible to estimate software projects"
Its not so much that it is impossible to estimate software projects as it is that the analysis necessary to estimate software projects with reasonable accuracy involves doing a substantial portion of the work required to produce the solution -- which means that accurate estimation that is useful for decisionmaking is elusive, not that estimation is impossible.
Is writing "the average bizapp" as an SPA a bad trade off? Depends on the circumstances and the people involved, but it's certainly not clear to me that this is going to take more time, or entail more risk, than writing an "old school webapp".
Doctors are expected to stay up-to-date too, and at least keep an open mind about new treatments and procedures.
Medicine's been a work in progress for centuries, doctors have done and believed all kinds of stuff we can call crazy today to figure out what works.
Your sore knee analogy... probably really did end in wholesale unnecessary amputation and death until we shot and hacked up enough people during wars to learn more accurate ways to treat a sore leg. We learned a lot from crude, violent and deadly experiments by Nazi doctors doing stuff that would be intuitively recognized as illegal in most countries today.
Programming is also in a state of evolution. Maybe one day we'll look back at SPAs and everyone will agree they were as crap as java apps in browsers. We used to think asbestos, lead, oil, cigarettes, opium etc were great solutions too.
One of the most common recurring posts on HN is "it is impossible to estimate software projects"
Well yes, if you refuse to use a stable stack you will need 300 hours to chase your tail when you could have solved your client's problem in 30.
Writing the average bizapp as an SPA would be like your doctor cutting off your leg because your knee hurts. In any other field we'd call it malpractice, but is is called being one of the cool kids in computing.