Indicators and traction…

[Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d]

On 09/29/2015 10:51 AM, ponce wrote:
> On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 15:09:53 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>
>> This is engineering, not fucking fashion. Popularity has no place in
>> decision making here. From everything I've seen, 90% of the problems
>> that exist in computing technology today can be traced back directly
>> to some jackass(es) weighing popularity higher than actual technical
>> merit.
>
> Companies use whatever the money-making competition use, and often bias
> their evaluations to favor doing things in the same way.
>
> Look at all these stories about Twitter/Facebook/WebStartup technology
> stack. They wouldn't be anything interesting if they weren't famous.
>
> But they are visible and make money, so what they use must be the right
> thing.

Yea. I just wish more people understood the fallacy of that (and all the 
other basic, basic fallacies out there). :(

This one is basically what I've seen described as the "Birdmen fallacy":
https://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/the-birdmen-dont-fly/

See birds fly. Blindly imitate the feathers, not the physics. Fail. 
Blame anything but the "imitate feathers" approach. Repeat.