I hope the author means HTTPS, not HTTP - otherwise, I don't think this is a good idea.

Anyway, as everything in software development: it all depends - serving a simple JSON over an existing "full blown web application back-end" is usually more convenient and less confusing for developers than configuring hosting for static content. Although, if you JUST want to serve a JSON then, yeah, you can add it as a static resource.

LOL, just name your stories accordingly and move "as a user I want to" part to description. Haven't you raised that easy-to-fix issue with your team members?

Thankfully I've only had to use them once in the past and that was very brief because everyone kind of tacitly agreed to give up on them very quickly.

> easy-to-fix issue

I see you haven't worked with people! :D

All we talk about here is how to work with people. I'm sorry, but you strike me as more of a talker than a doer, I hope I'm wrong.

You strike me as extremely rude. I hope I'm wrong too.

Yeah, maybe, but I'm not the one who said "I hate them" or "they just sound so damn whiney" and did nothing to change it.

One thing to add in favor of user stories: they have very broad audience - basically every non-technical person will understand it, which is very useful if the domain is specific and you need an input from regular users.

I suspect that this approach might not be the best fit for more "fluent" projects as you are unable to reevaluate how things should work until the whole feature is finished, but that's just my wild guess as I've never worked in such setup.

A user story is good exercise for less technical people to grasp what developers need to know before starting development:

- they are easy to understand as everyone is familiar with concept of telling stories

- they enforce a way of thinking about the feature, e.g.: "when click X, then Y happens", which is easily translatable to workflows

So I wouldn't be so eager to discard them completely - they are very useful tool, although, not the only tool you should use.

What you've said is very true, but implementing it depends heavily on the client. The fundamental rule of agile is that business needs to participate in software development on daily basis (and I agree with that 100%). Although, it is very difficult. The first big obstacle is that business doesn't understand the very nature of software development which is: it is easy to change and it is reusable. The former one means that you can gradually improve your solution instead of coming up with exhaustive description up front. Instead they think about it like about processes their are familiar with, e.g. building house, where if you build a wall it will be hard to move. The latter one (that it is reusable) is a bit easier to grasp for non-software folks, but then again: someone needs to introduce them to this idea, as they are not familiar with the concept that there are building blocks ready and the hardest part is to find best fitting building blocks and glue them together. Those I would call knowledge gaps, sometimes there is some resistance due to the fact that those guys are doing totally different things, so they don't see a need for learning about software development (which is quite naive, if you ask me, since software is basically everywhere nowadays).

But there are more obstacles, like cultural ones: I can't count how many time I heard "client pays, client demands" without want to hear any feedback or guidance.

There are also obstacles on work organization level, for example: people who have final say how should system look/work have no time to even grasp general ideas about the system.

And god forbid if your client has experience with software developers who were silently and blindly (which means: inefficiently) developing everything that client demanded, because it creates a wall that will be very hard to breakthrough.

I think you're addressing an issue that is related to what I talked about in my comment. Rent seeking behavior of big software corporations that provide most of the base platforms and tooling drives a cottage industry of specialists that thrive in their shadow. There are consulting firms with revenue in the billions just working with 'cloud' platform. There are paas companies out there building on paas owned by a different company, which is in turn based on paas by another company. It's madness.

You're dead on with the business vs software cultural divide. It is both bred by this situation and a moat around it. I am trying to come up with a way to find profit in going against the grain, because I think this is the only way to drive change (or at least preserve my sanity).

> I am trying to come up with a way to find profit in going against the grain, because I think this is the only way to drive change (or at least preserve my sanity).

I know what you mean, but I think the profit is already there, with some good soft skills you can show your value to the client by doing it the right way. Although it won't be always pleasurable or smooth sail as you need to speak up or tell harsh words to others, but, you know, if there is no tension in bicycle chain it means you are not pedaling. Of course, you need to do it in gentle and respectful manner - that's why soft skills are so important.

I wouldn't use "them" in this sentence, Mozilla is non-profit organization, but Gecko is open source - anyone is free to send them patch. The problem is that development in this environment is not an easy task. Yup, it is improving overtime, build scripts are constantly updated, but is still huge codebase with a lot of "magic".

Arguably, cities need public transport in from of a metro even more than stadiums, yet, the first underground railway was completely private enterprise.

How did you get from stadium to police? The whole idea why people organize themselves in countries is to ensure internal and external safety and thus that everyone pay taxes for police, army and courts. Everything else is an addition and in my opinion even undesired to fund by whole community - you can always organize fundraiser or start a private enterprise for such things.

I was interesting that to some people (not me, though) a stadium is a public good and this worthy of public tax dollars to support. Just like the police or schools.

Like you said: it's the matter of opinion, public safety, though, is not.

Then use schools as an example. Or utilities. It’s not hinged on whether or not it’s a a safety issue, it hinges on whether it’s considered a public good.

I have suspicion you haven't read my first comment in this thread.

Possibly not, as it’s not inline with this. But I’m not not sure it negates the point that whether or not an individual values a particular thing does not determine if it’s a public good.

I repeat: public safety is THE reason why we organize in countries, so police, army, justice system is in COMPLETELY different category - it is something essential, the rest is disputable. That's why you cannot compare them with, e.g. schools, there are decent countries without public education, yet, there is no serious country without police/army/courts.

This still does not negate the fact that citizens also organize other public goods. Just because an individual deems them non-essential does not mean they aren’t public goods. As public goods, the collective citizenry has deemed them worthy of public funding. Libraries are not safety essential, yet they are still public goods. Whether or not they are ubiquitous or “essential to safety” has no bearing on whether they are public goods anymore than it matters if a singular individual disagrees with that designation.

Again, you seem to miss the point. The hierarchy of importance does not matter in determining if it's a public good. Nobody is making the point that all public goods are of equal importance. Your personal stance also does not determine whether society deems it a public good. You seem weirdly hung up on a point that is altogether centered on what seems to be your own personal definition. Something can be a low priority or non-essential or not economically viable and still be a public good. You seem determined to have an entirely different conversation but it seems to blind you to the actual points being made. Again, to answer your question, we got from stadiums to police because they are both arguably public goods worthy of tax dollars. That's not to say they are equivalent in utility or that every thinks they are worth the tax dollars spent. If you want to shoehorn a libertarian argument into the discussion it can be done in a more germane approach.

Also, please review the HN guidelines.

> Also, please review the HN guidelines.

Yeah, I know, you downvoted me, I don't mind, enjoy yourself.

But, again, to the point (because you still missing mine): I don't argue libraries shouldn't be subsidized from taxes, I even clearly stated it's the mater of personal opinion (if you read carefully you'd know), I argue that you just cannot mention libraries and the police in one breath like you did, simply because they are not of the same kind - the library (again - kinda tired of repeating myself) CAN be subject of discussion, but police, army, justice system - CANNOT.

It's not about me enjoying myself; the guidelines are there to help ensure a civil discourse. For what it's worth, I was not downvoting, somebody else already did so before I saw your comment.

And for the last time, I was not equivocating. I've said that multiple times; there is no disagreement despite your insistence on pretending there is. The through-line is not that they are equal, it's that they are both public goods of varying degrees. You are reading too much into the comments and inserting arguments that are not there.

I remember times where free market and private enterprises were huge part of American culture. I miss those times, bloody socialists are going to ruin everything.