Top all-time · #898
Ted Neward
Personal blog · blogs.tedneward.comprogrammingcareer
Ted Neward's personal blog at blogs.tedneward.com covers programming and career. Since 2008, 76 different Hacker News readers have linked it 95 times, most often “Problems with Object/Relational Mapping (2006)”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Most-linked posts?
- Problems with Object/Relational Mapping (2006)32 people · 39 mentions · first linked 2016-02-18
- The Vietnam of Computer Science15 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2008-07-18
- /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-05-26
- Unlearn, young programmer2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-03-21
- On Finding Learning2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-07-23
What Hacker News says?
The problem space (Business) is not complex, its incredibly simple. Unfortunately the design patterns we use and the tooling is flawed. It has been this way for at least 25 years and the RDBMS, languages, design patterns, and architectures ( 2-tier/ 3-tier) are the cause. They make it simple to get started and even without knowing what you are doing you can easily churn out something that works if it is simple, does…
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “Salesforce is buying Tableau for $15.7B”Submitted Unlearn, young programmer as a story · 143 points
HN discussionTo me it is more of as Ted Neward describes "ORM is Vietnam of Computer Science"[1] "Although it may seem trite to say it, Object/Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science. It represents a quagmire which starts well, gets more complicated as time passes, and before long entraps its users in a commitment that has no clear demarcation point, no clear win conditions, and no clear exit strategy." [1] http://…
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL (2014)”Submitted Problems with Object/Relational Mapping (2006) as a story · 112 points
HN discussion"We Can Do Better Than SQL" SQL is a programming language. Is just too limited and that is why many can't imagine to use it for a full project. But that limitations have no sense. The amount of code, time and efficiency that bring is huge (I know, I code in that kind of lang before) and is discussed in: http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie... In special look a point 5/6 of Summary. The irony…
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “We Can Do Better Than SQL”Submitted Is Programming Less Exciting Today? as a story · 71 points
HN discussionSince you mention the OR impedance mismatch problem, I have to link to The Vietnam of CS article: http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie...
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “SQLite small blob storage: 35% Faster Than the Filesystem”Submitted Reclaiming Design Patterns 20 Years Later as a story · 41 points
HN discussionThis breaks down when you deal with classic object oriented concepts like inheritance, encapsulation, or polymorphism. This is why object/relational mapping (ORM) has been called the Vietnam of Computer Science[0]. [0]: http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie...
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “SQL is 43 years old – Here’s why we still use it today”Submitted What is "news", and what is "unethical"? as a story · 29 points
HN discussionIf you have not read The Vietnam of Computer Science[1] I highly suggest it. http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie...
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL (2014)”Submitted Object-Relational Mapping Is the Vietnam of Computer Science (2006) as a story · 17 points
HN discussionThis thread demonstrates that ORM is still (one of several of?) our field's Vietnam war... http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie... On top of the data/frameworks issue there's the one of data locality. Frameworks make the tradeoff decisions for you, but not always the right ones since the right tradeoffs are application-dependent. In one context using a cluster of commodity machines that do a…
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “How not to structure database-backed web apps: performance bugs in the wild”Submitted Ted Neward evaluates 20 programming languages as a story · 12 points
HN discussion> It's like recommending against the use of HTTP before people learn TCI/IP... This is a false dichotoy. SQL is not TCP/IP because it's nearly on the same level as ORMs. Unless you normalize and understand your entities properly it'll be difficult to write performant systems. ORMs are rightly called the Vietnam of Computer science¹ for this reason. [^1]: http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie...
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “What ORMs Have Taught Me: Just Learn SQL (2014)”Submitted Pro-choice Programmer as a story · 11 points
HN discussionTed Neward's The Vietnam of Computer Science is an interesting read on the topic of ORMs. http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie...
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “ORMs Are Backwards”Submitted Death to Best Practices as a story · 9 points
HN discussionI don't see this anywhere in this thread: http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie... That is essential reading for anyone arguing against or for ORMs.
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “I don't want to learn your query language (2018)”Submitted On the Dark Side of "Craftsmanship" as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSomebody may have already mentioned this, but there's a fantastic essay The Vietnam of Computer Science (2004) on this subject. It's long but so, so worth it. http://blogs.tedneward.com/2006/06/26/The+Vietnam+Of+Compute...
Comment linking /2006/06/26/The+Vietnam+Of+Computer+Science.aspx
on “ORM is an anti-pattern”Submitted The Vietnam of Computer Science as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI assume you've seen "Object-Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science"? http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie...
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “Uncle Bob and Silver Bullets”Submitted Architectural Katas as a story · 5 points
HN discussionAs true now as it was 12 years ago: ORMs are the Vietnam of computer science. http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie... (tl;dr: there is an impedance mismatch / leaky abstraction between relational data and OOP for all but the most trivial use cases, guaranteeing that whatever problems an ORM might solve will be traded for new ORM problems instead)
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “To ORM or Not to ORM”Submitted The Vietnam of Computer Science (2006) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI do, for one, but don't take my word for it... lots of very intelligent people have problems with ORMs. http://blogs.tedneward.com/2006/06/26/The+Vietnam+Of+Compute... presents a good summary of the problems involved (forgive the inflammatory title). Despite its many problems, SQL remains the best way of interacting with a relational database.
Comment linking /2006/06/26/The+Vietnam+Of+Computer+Science.aspx
on “Goji: a web microframework for Go”Submitted Things To Improve Your Development Career as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI imagine it's a reference to https://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-sci...
Comment linking /post/the-vietnam-of-computer-science/
on “The Google Nest Hub is first commercial Fuchsia device”Submitted Agile is treating the symptoms, not the disease as a story · 4 points
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