What the hell have you built

The internet just held an intervention for teams turning simple apps into spaghetti factories. A viral rant listed a setup with 15 tiny apps, 8 different databases, 4 message lines, a two-hour build process, and a single server—then asked the terrifying question: could you explain this to a junior without drawing noodles? The mood: complexity is not a flex. One commenter dragged out history receipts, pointing to the classic Coding Horror tweet, like, "we’ve been warning you for 12 years." Another split the room with the meme-y battle cry: “just replace the big database with the little one” (aka “s/postgres/sqlite/g”), triggering a full-on database food fight. Team Postgres got side-eyed as “overhyped,” while the MariaDB squad linked a breakdown to prove their fave is plenty (MariaDB vs PostgreSQL). The spiciest take? One user said all this tinkering is procrastination with vibes: engineers dodging tough conversations with customers by building toys that feel productive. Not everyone saw chaos, though—another shrugged it off as a fairly standard pile: “cloud stuff, one language, a database, plus some extra bits because someone knew Ruby.” Verdict from the crowd: start simple, add the fancy stuff only when it earns its keep.