they should have called it ‘tubes’

internet technology

Poor yahoo. They have a great idea. Get great reviews, and then the darn thing breaks:


Our Pipes are clogged! We've called the plumbers!

is all you see when you click on Yahoo’s pipe project

It does not really matter though: Now the idea is out. The idea is great. There will be 20 other implementations, and some of them will even be working. Should I add one? Nah, busy with other things. I think that ‘pipes’ is one of these things that everybody wants but then gets rarely used. I imagine that 80% of all mechanical tools get sold to the idea of “oh with this I could do that”, but then the urgent need to actually do “that” never arises.

It is kind of sad for Yahoo: The one moment they launch something that people actually care about and it breaks. Good engineering does matter. Even if it looks sometimes as if people could buy their way out of that. In the end they can not.