[HN Gopher] IKEA-Oriented Development
___________________________________________________________________
IKEA-Oriented Development
Author : soopurman
Score : 146 points
Date : 2023-06-17 15:41 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (taylor.town)
(TXT) w3m dump (taylor.town)
| surprisetalk wrote:
| Author here! Thanks for sharing :)
| pimlottc wrote:
| Minor bit of feedback: it's kind of confusing, for the first
| bullet, that the image shown is an example of what NOT to do.
| Most people would assume that's a pic of IKEA packaging, when
| it's actually Amazon. You should add a caption to make it
| clearer.
| pmontra wrote:
| Which language is this? let points = 0;
| const usrs = await sql`select * from usr where country = 'JP'`;
| for (const usr of usrs) { points += usr.points; }
|
| I like the approach of not having an ORM to learn.
| surprisetalk wrote:
| It's JS with the wonderful Postgres.js package!
|
| [1] https://github.com/porsager/postgres
|
| Here's an example where it really shines:
| const users = [ { name: 'Murray', age: 68 },
| { name: 'Walter', age: 80 }, ]; await
| sql`insert into users ${ sql(users) }`;
| [deleted]
| mikercampbell wrote:
| Hey, I like this. More than I thought I would, as there are a
| lot of cheeky patterns, but this really summed up a lot of the
| things I value nicely.
|
| Most definitely bookmarking for later. This is good.
|
| "Flimsiness is a feature" or something - I love this
| hef19898 wrote:
| Also seems to apply to US houses, doesn't it?
| mikercampbell wrote:
| > Flat-pack furniture is not meant to last. It has taken me
| too long to understand that flimsiness is part of its appeal.
|
| Haha
| jonwest wrote:
| The other aspect of IKEA that is criminally underrepresented in
| software that I really feel like should be a part of this
| article is having an incredibly succinct and universal DSL for
| documentation. Say what you will about the memes about people
| not being able to build IKEA furniture because they can't
| follow the documentation. Once you understand the DSL, you'll
| truly understand how incredible their documentation really is.
| It is incredibly succinct. They can guide you in less than 10
| pages on assembling virtually any kind of furniture they sell.
| Think of how powerful something similar like that could be for
| software. How often have you dove into terribly written or
| overly long and dry documentation?
|
| It is universal and approachable. Worldwide, IKEA has one set
| of documentation for assembly. It spans education, language,
| and cultural boundaries.
|
| There is a huge value add in building software in a similar way
| in order to speak a certain way about that software. In some
| cases this may be untenable but in the vast majority of
| business cases I would venture that software and documentation
| inefficiency is born out of ignorance than necessity. I don't
| mean that as a sleight, more that from a business perspective
| there's generally a push for "new" and "more" instead of
| investments in refactoring and optimization.
|
| The more that I am working with organizations looking for areas
| to improve in order to help them scale, the more the points in
| this article ring true for me. Thank you for writing it. It was
| a great read.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > Once you understand the DSL, you'll truly understand how
| incredible their documentation really is. It is incredibly
| succinct.
|
| I guess that's great if you build IKEA furniture for a
| living.
|
| I'm doing that only about once a year and don't remember all
| the subtleties of the DSL. Just a week ago I got caught by
| something which was differentiated by 2 different shades of
| gray which I unfortunately did not notice the first time
| around.
|
| This point applies to computer DSLs as well - if your users
| don't write your DSL at least monthly, then the DSL might be
| more trouble than it's worth.
| switch007 wrote:
| I've had mixed success with their manuals. While I admit
| there is a certain genius to it, I don't fully share your
| enthusiasm. Maybe I'm stupid but I feel like some words could
| really help to speed up the deciphering of the instructions.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| One piece of Ikea furniture I assembled had two different
| depths of the same diameter nut. A single sentence warning
| about using the correct depth nut at one point would have
| saved me approximately 90 minutes of frustration.
| wartijn_ wrote:
| Their manuals start with a list of parts, including the
| part number. You can see that number in the build steps
| too. If there are two parts that look alike, you can put
| them in two separate piles next to each other, so you
| know you should check if you've got the right one when
| you need a part of one of these piles.
|
| I usually sort all the different small parts at the
| beginning of building something. It's nice to know that
| all the parts are there and you don't need to search for
| them.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| At the start of the manual, the fasteners are shown to-
| scale and with a part number. Compare to the scale and
| you don't have issues.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I mentioned it elsewhere - though not that I've learned
| it the hard way - that IKEA instructions have extremely
| good attention to details. Yes, some warnings would've
| been useful, but after being burned by it once, I
| realized that if you look carefully, all elements are
| drawn both to scale, and accurate with respect to shape
| and attachment points - meaning, the steps are actually
| unambiguous, but you have to pay attention to those tiny
| details, sometimes 1mm or less in size.
| swader999 wrote:
| Is this a way to describe code bases that are hard to navigate,
| just like the store?
| porsager wrote:
| No - the store is more like the npm registry!
| nologic01 wrote:
| Analogies between domains are important and occasionally can be
| triggers for really useful thinking.
|
| Modern life and work is so siloed. Deep expertise and wisdom,
| whether that is about efficiency, risk management, community
| building, user interface, simply aesthetics or any other
| challenge can be just _nearby_.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| > Write code that can be replaced. Writing code is easy, but
| editing code is hard. Make inputs and outputs extremely clear;
| everything between is disposable detail. We intuitively call
| irreplacable code "complicated" or "spaghetti".
|
| I like this rule especially for test code. There's already a
| level of abstraction going on with test code which makes it more
| difficult to reason about. Don't make it clever.
| euroderf wrote:
| Another lesson of Ikea is that often you cannot move them from
| one home/apartment to another, because if you try to take it
| apart and then reassemble it, it's never the same.
|
| To extend this via analogy to the software realm, a deep
| refactoring is problematic whereas OTOH a complete rewrite is a
| better idea.
|
| Which has not borne borne out by industry experience.
| alpinemeadow wrote:
| Your mind will be blown. We have a assemble/disassemble version
| of PAX wardrobes that takes 5 min to break down/put up.
| iso1631 wrote:
| My oldest Ikea furniture dates from 2007, it's moved 5 times
| since I built it.
|
| Most stuff doesn't even need disassembly. My bed is Ikea and
| has been dissasembled and reassembled twice, no problems.
| notatoad wrote:
| is there a way we can extend the metaphor here to cover this
| aspect of ikea furniture?
|
| it's perfectly serviceable and functional, but every time you
| mention the name people will go out of their way to tell you it
| isn't, you're wrong, and when you grow up you'll spend 10x as
| much for the "real" version that does basically the same thing.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Can we extend the anecdote to make it more accurate and say
| the opposite: that is, it's fragile but every time you
| mention it on HN, you'll have 10+ replies saying they
| personally moved it 13 times between apartments all across
| NYC, uphill, through snow, both ways, and then still sold it
| to someone else for a good price?
| taberiand wrote:
| Can we extend the anecdote and say that everyone has unique
| requirements, and a unique situation and experience, that
| may be broadly if inexactly grouped into a few general
| categories but we should all accept that there is no one
| single correct answer; instead there are a myriad of valid
| answers depending on context and we all have something to
| learn from each other?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Would love to, but that reeks of Big Design Up Front, and
| is too large to fit into a sprint anyway. It's not the
| 1980s, we don't think about what we do anymore.
|
| :).
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I disagree out of principle; I've been in half a dozen rewrite
| projects during my career (currently in one too); while I will
| concede that sometimes it's a good call, it's also a really
| expensive one.
|
| At least with a deep refactoring, if done right, the product
| continues to make money. In hindsight, I should've spent that
| 2.5 years at my previous job refactoring, optimizing and
| modernizing the existing PHP + Dojo codebase, instead of try to
| rewrite it in Go + React.
|
| Sure, the API was a factor 100 faster, the UI was faster and
| more responsive, the whole thing was future-proof for the next
| decade. But after 2.5 years I was only about 20-30% there in
| terms of feature parity. The existing codebase was one guy over
| the span of 7-8 years. I asked for reinforcements but never got
| them, only after two years did they carefully start putting up
| ads on e.g. monsterboard. You can see why I called it quits.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| My most recent lesson of IKEA is that quality has gone to shit.
| And prices are pretty high, all considered. Bought a couple new
| Hemnes dressers a few months back and they are just garbage
| compared to the older stuff. Material quality is same as usual,
| but the precision of manufacturing is gone. In the end, only
| one or two drawers actually open correctly. The rest bind up to
| varying degrees. I'm tempted to partially disassemble them and
| rebuild with my own hardware and glue in order to get
| tolerances that are adequate.
| ukuina wrote:
| They have also replaced previously metal joints and screws
| with wooden pieces.
|
| I had to bolster my chest of drawers with additional wooden
| center beams to prevent it from bowing from evenly
| distributed weight.
|
| Oddly, there were already provisions for these additional
| beams, leading me to believe the design was "simplified" on
| the way to manufacturing.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > Oddly, there were already provisions for these additional
| beams, leading me to believe the design was "simplified" on
| the way to manufacturing.
|
| More likely is that an earlier version of the product did
| have those supporting beams. Not on the way to
| manufacturing, during manufacturing.
|
| The typical IKEA experience is that the first 1-2 years of
| a product are built sturdier than later versions. They
| figure out ways to cut the cost of existing products. This
| hurts the consumer, because even if you hear "oh the
| Flybnort is very sturdy", that might no longer be true.
| anjel wrote:
| For quite a few thousand dollars, I bought a preconstructed
| lacquer bedroom set from a pricey national furniture chain. The
| saleman said the bedroom set came with a 10 yr warranty. 4
| years later, I moved to a new residence, right after which the
| bed frame developed a nasty squeak (you know when) that
| definately hadn't been operative before I moved. I made a
| warranty claim to the national brand furniture company and was
| quickly educated as to the warranty fine-print terminating said
| warranty coverage at any address other than the one they
| delivered it to. Moving is rough on furniture in ways too
| costly to address by design, these days.
| civilized wrote:
| > Another lesson of Ikea is that often you cannot move them
| from one home/apartment to another, because if you try to take
| it apart and then reassemble it, it's never the same.
|
| My IKEA desk has survived 13 moves since 2005...
| majjam wrote:
| They dont build em like that any more (from wood).
| filoleg wrote:
| They do, you just gotta be a bit more creative, which will
| also save you money.
|
| Pro-tip for desks: don't buy them in the office section,
| buy desk legs from there, but the desk top itself from the
| kitchen section. Solid wood, no frills, cheaper pricing,
| and you can get some esoteric configs you cannot get from
| the office section. The choice of materials and shapes is
| much larger too. Hell, I imagine you can even get some
| marble-like top workdesk this way (though you might want to
| consider rethinking the desk legs and get something
| sturdier, marble is quite heavy).
|
| Around 2017, I wanted a long desk that could accomodate a
| workstation + area for printer/working on models/3D
| printing out of solid materials without breaking a bank.
| Going the approach I described above, I ended up spending
| under $200 total (and that's including tax) for a solid
| wood butcher's table quality workdesk that was long enough
| to accomodate 2 multi-monitor workstations very very
| comfortably (or 3 workstations, just a little bit less
| comfortably). Needed 6 desk legs for this one, but I
| eventually replaced the middle ones with a cheap Kallax
| storage piece (from IKEA as well).
| jansan wrote:
| If you just bought a massive oak board (the were nowhere
| cheaper and better that at IKEA around 2005) with two solid
| trestles, you should easily be able to move them 13 more
| times.
| voz_ wrote:
| A rewrite is almost never the right choice.
| kevincox wrote:
| If you have well defined components it is often reasonable to
| rewrite them. Rewriting an entire project is likely a
| mistake. I think the mistake is generally the size. If you
| lock up half of the team and have them rewrite for 2 years
| then you are likely going to have time. If you slice off
| components that can be rewritten by a few team members in a
| couple of weeks you can likely get a good quality result.
| voz_ wrote:
| No lol, not on anything worth working on. Maybe on
| something small or with no real users.
| pphysch wrote:
| I much prefer a SWE culture that embraces iterative
| development, where "rewrites" and migrations are not feared
| and can be done safely and efficiently because care was taken
| during the design process to identify ontologies and system
| boundaries. Yes, the MVP takes a bit longer as a result.
|
| If you don't iterate, and you push what is essentially v0.1.0
| to production, you reinforce a culture where deleting code is
| sin and the concept of iteration ("rewriting") is foreign.
|
| http://www.laputan.org/mud/
| makapuf wrote:
| I think of it as: a whole rewrite is never the answer so
| don't start one, a gradual one always is, so plan for it.
| HPsquared wrote:
| As long as you don't remove any of the "wood screw" elements
| (edit: that is, the screws used in the cam locks), they're
| perfectly ok to disassemble. They won't go as flat as the
| original box, but you can certainly transport them in pieces
| (with care).
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Why take them apart? Just move them like regular furniture.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Depending on the piece they may not survive the structural
| stresses, especially the lower end models.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I've never had a piece of ikea equipment where that
| applies, I'm typing this on my ikea desk from 2011, next to
| a 2x2 kallax and another 2x4 kallax that have moved 5 and 3
| times respectively.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Well, kallax 2x4 is still a rather light piece of
| furniture and there's not much need to disassemble it.
| This need grows with size/weight - e.g. couches, large
| wardrobes (Pax) etc.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| OTOH, I have a 4x4 Kallax that's barely been moved
| between the rooms couple times in the last few years, and
| it's already getting wobbly enough that I'm afraid to put
| much weight on it; it's another of my IKEA furniture
| pieces that'll end up reinforced with metal angle
| brackets.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Unless you glued them when assembling, moving most IKEA
| furniture fully assembled puts a lot of stress on the
| hardware and it permanently loosens up.
| notatoad wrote:
| but protip: glue your ikea furniture when you assemble it.
| a little wood glue on the joints makes it 10x sturdier.
| cuchoi wrote:
| Sometimes they just don't fit elevators / stairs :)
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| You just don't have a big enough hammer...
| iso1631 wrote:
| You just need to pivot
| watwut wrote:
| We moved our ikea furniture and it still works.
| naet wrote:
| I have moved many times with Ikea furniture and purchased it
| used with no problems. Ikea furniture is some of the most
| disassemble and reassemble-able furniture I've seen.
| waboremo wrote:
| Would relate to this. Even with normal wear and tear,
| reassembly isn't a problem.
|
| Perhaps the difference stems from how rushed/impatient one
| was during initial assembly. I do know a couple pieces where
| that happened and it resulted in wonky furniture because this
| knob was jammed in or that bit was misaligned for months.
| Would make sense considering a lot of people feel excited
| after purchasing it that they don't take their time with
| assembly.
|
| This is mostly for the older pieces, I know a lot of them now
| you have to really mess up for it to affect future
| reassembly.
| ng12 wrote:
| Yeah, I live in New York and the professional movers have
| made an artform of quickly disassembling and reassembling
| IKEA furniture.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Taking it down and re-assembling it honestly makes it last
| longer. If you start moving a structure made of a bunch of
| non-ridged squares, you're going to widen every hole and
| loosen every screw.
| [deleted]
| mook wrote:
| IKEA furniture varies a lot in quality (especially across
| years) so talking about them as a whole is difficult. I could
| never get the Besta doors straight, but the Malms seem pretty
| sturdy. Lack things (especially the simple end table) looks
| like they wouldn't survive being assembled the first time,
| nevermind moving it...
|
| Some movers once mentioned that old IKEA stuff was in general
| great, then they were terrible, and then they were just okay.
| Since they resigned Billy about a year ago+, they're probably
| going to get cheaper again.
|
| + https://about.ikea.com/en/newsroom/2022/05/24/ikea-
| relaunche...
| MisterTea wrote:
| The particle/flake board stuff doesn't do well during
| disassembly. The threads and bore holes for the various pegs
| that hold the boards develop cracks an begin to crumble. When
| you start applying force during disassembly the weakened
| particle board gives way and the pins pull out of the flake
| board. Spent half a day repairing a nice looking flake board
| Ikea book case a friend gave me when he moved. Half of the
| pins ripped out and two shelves split during disassembly.
| Wood glue and epoxy putty to the rescue.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Everyone seems to chime in with comments confirming your
| experience, so let me add an opposite take: all IKEA
| furniture I ever dealt with were... at best, meh. Some may
| look almost durable when assembled, but they start to
| accumulate damage over months to years of regular use. Not
| careless use, but also not super-careful use as if it were a
| museum piece. Just regular use.
|
| Which is why I too claim that all IKEA furniture I dealt with
| can barely survive disassembly and reassembly - by the time I
| wanted them moved somewhere, they've accumulated too much
| structural damage.
|
| More recently - i.e. in the last 5-8 years - all the new IKEA
| furniture I dealt with felt... flimsy and _dangerous out of
| the box_. Now, a wobbly wardrobe or a bookshelf that looks
| like it 'll break apart if you push it sideways is tolerable
| in an apartment with two sober, working adults - but the
| moment a child was to enter the picture, we made sure to
| screw all IKEA furniture to the wall, and ever since, we
| don't assemble wardrobes and other "fixed" furniture
| ourselves - we pay a handyman to do it, and to reinforce them
| structurally with metal elements and glue, and then screw
| them to the walls or otherwise do whatever is necessary to
| ensure nothing will collapse or topple when mishandled by a
| small child.
|
| In short: to me, IKEA furniture looks nice until you start
| using it, and is otherwise rather fragile. But it's cheap,
| and still miles better than any other flat-pack furniture
| vendor, so like everyone else, that's what we buy.
| philjohn wrote:
| I mean, drawers and bookshelves should always be attached
| to the wall.
| Gare wrote:
| > we made sure to screw all IKEA furniture to the wall
|
| That's what the instructions tell you to do
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I'll check next time, because I've never noticed it, nor
| have I seen many people doing it.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| It is in the instructions (which typically don't have
| words, IIRC.) Brackets have been included with all
| shelves we've purchased - even ones that seem short &
| sturdy enough to use it.
|
| IKEA also sells furniture of varying qualities - for
| example, KALLAX is a well-known line of shelves that many
| vinyl enthusiasts use to store records. Records are
| extremely heavy, but these stand the test of time.
|
| Another example is in the bedroom department: MALM vs
| KULLEN. The former is much thicker and sturdier, with
| drawers that have metal hardware. Kullen on the other
| hand is thinner, flimsy, and uses plastic hardware for
| the drawers, giving them an awful tactile feel.
| Groxx wrote:
| To +1 this: it's in the instructions for every shelving
| unit you can buy, because it's a major safety issue
| regardless of construction (unless it's impractically
| deep compared to its height). It isn't the construction
| that makes them tip, it's the dimensions. If it doesn't
| warn you, it's because they assume you know the risk of
| things falling onto you, and/or they aren't willing to
| spend a tiny bit of money to warn you and provide
| anchoring locations/tools.
|
| Which absolutely do exist. But they're not any safer due
| to cutting corners on safety. IKEA deserves applause for
| the consistent warning and hardware.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > all IKEA furniture I ever dealt with were... at best, meh
|
| Also, can we get a raise of hands on the number of people
| who have vs have not been successful in disassembling and
| reassembling IKEA BILLY bookshelves? I am fully convinced
| that it is near impossible for your average person to
| disassemble and reassemble BILLY bookshelves without
| damage.
|
| I have a number of shelves possibly still sitting in
| storage at the university I studied at years ago, of all
| places. For two reasons. One, that I could not find anyone
| to help me get back in the room where they are stored after
| I left said university. Two, because I was so sceptical of
| ever being able to disassemble those bookshelves that I
| thought it better to leave them there until I could find a
| way to transport them without having to disassemble them
| again.
|
| It's been years. I wonder if the shelves are still down
| there in the dank basement of the chemistry building of the
| University of Oslo alongside other PING student union
| things.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I'm definitely keeping my hands down. IKEA BILLY are the
| ones we've inherited from the previous owners when moving
| in to the current apartment, and we had a handyman
| reinforce each one in the entire row with angle braces,
| and then screw them together so they don't flex
| independently, and then screw them to the wall - and only
| at that point we felt comfortable enough to start putting
| books into them.
|
| We've also inherited a few spare elements for BILLYs, I
| think some doors and shelves, never unpacked. I believe
| the previous owner gave up at the idea of attaching them
| to the assembled bookshelves, and never bothered to
| return them to the store.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| BILLY is the shelf where you stop the back panel with
| nails or rivets, right ?
|
| It's absolutely not made to be disasembled. You'd need to
| go with the HEMNES line to have something a bit more
| solid and well thought out.
|
| People put all IKEA stuff in the same basket, but they
| have different designers who can have pretty different
| philosophies on how the furnitures are structured. Some
| are really clever, others really cheap and dumb. Their
| EXPEDIT / KALLAX line is another line that is extremely
| good regarding flexibility and modularity. We actually
| use two as bookshelves.
| adrian_b wrote:
| I suppose that how durable IKEA furniture is depends a lot
| on what you choose.
|
| For instance I have bought some IKEA metallic tables and
| these do not contain anything that is fragile or that may
| be damaged without a huge effort to do that.
|
| After some 5 years there is no visible difference from the
| day when I have assembled them and I do not expect any to
| appear soon. They look like they will easily outlive me.
|
| If I had bought some flimsy tables made of some wood
| substitute or dubious plastic, then yes, I would have
| expected them to not age well.
| jansan wrote:
| IKEA has different levels of "robustness" in their products.
| The Broder and Varde product lines (both no longer offered)
| are almost industrial strength and you can be sure that they
| will survive many relocations, while others, especially
| cabinest with flimsy backs that are tacked with nails may not
| survive moving even once.
| imp0cat wrote:
| YMMV, but I have succesfully moved such a wardrobe
| (disassembled, obviously - I pulled all the nails out and
| removed the "flimsy" back, then removed and packed the rest
| of the frame). It survived just fine.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| What's the secret to pull those tiny nails?
| post-it wrote:
| Use a hammer (or shoe) to gently hit the backplate from
| the inside, as close to each nail as you can.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Oh, that's right. I remember doing that, a couple of
| years ago. But looking at my Pax with ~40 nails, it looks
| like a decent amount of work.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| My oldest Ikea piece is a 4x2 EXPEDIT shelf which has been
| moved three times now. Twice across town in a car
| (disassembled and reassembled), once across states (still
| assembled on a truck). It's doing fine.
|
| My nightstand only went through the truck move though, and it
| has chunks missing on the bottom corners. The moving company
| warned us that it was common and they would refuse to move it
| unless we we willing to forgo any damage claims on those
| pieces.
|
| I think it has a lot to do with the design of each individual
| product, it's hard to generalize about how durable they are.
| The bottom corners of HAUGA are a weak material and not well
| supported, if it gets hit there or maybe even catches on the
| floor while sliding sideways it's going to crunch.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >The moving company warned us that it was common and they
| would refuse to move it unless we we willing to forgo any
| damage claims on those pieces.
|
| I mean, talking about having you over a barrel. They know
| precisely that you will not stop, and find another mover.
| All they need to do is stretch wrap the bejeebus out of the
| bottom to protect those exposed pressed wood chips, but
| they don't want to have to do that, so they have you give
| them a waiver and move on to not caring
| robbintt wrote:
| You could also put it in the trunk of your car or take it
| on the train.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Honestly I'd rather have the damaged furniture than waste
| that much plastic trying to protect it. If it really
| bothered me I could patch it up with scrap wood and white
| paint that I already have sitting around.
| Groxx wrote:
| People do sell things when moving - there are options
| between "pay us to move it on our terms" and "you don't
| have any other choices". Sell on one side and replace on
| the other is entirely reasonable for risky-to-move items.
| dheera wrote:
| An unfortunate reality for the environment is that IKEA
| furniture often costs less to trash it and buy new than to hire
| people to move it.
|
| It would be interesting if we could create a world economy in
| which moving something always costed less than manufacturing
| another instance of it.
| fragmede wrote:
| Moving furniture is probably a difficult one to charge for,
| but a disposal fee might incentivize moving or selling
| second-hand/reuse. If it's gonna cost me PS30 to move a Billy
| and PS50 to dispose of it, I'm going to move it instead.
|
| But mass manufacturing and the industrial revolution really
| and our current economic reality has warped things. It's
| easier for raw materials to be mined from the ground,
| processed in a factory, molded into a form, packaged, shipped
| across the ocean, put into a store, purchased by a vendor,
| and then resold to end consumer as part of a to-go meal in
| the form of a plastic fork, and then discarded by the
| consumer (me), than it is for me to bring a fork to the cafe
| and wash it and bring it home when I'm done.
| dheera wrote:
| IKEA furniture is so cheap that we'd have to actually
| charge more to dispose of it than its new price, for that
| to work. I'm not opposed to that in principle.
|
| The real problem is, the people most likely to dispose of
| IKEA furniture are young millenial apartment dwellers who
| move every 2-4 years. Apartment buildings don't usually
| have a way to measure each resident's trash, so they
| usually just split the entire building's trash bill evenly
| among all the residents (the lease contracts actually
| specify that it will be done this way). In that scenario,
| if there are 100 people in the building, everyone including
| you just pays an incremental PS0.50 instead of PS50 for
| your trashed furniture. The result is lots of people
| trashing furniture.
|
| The people living in houses don't move often, don't change
| furniture often, and usually tend to invest in higher
| quality furniture than IKEA.
| atoav wrote:
| I moved a ikea shelve through 3 flats and two nations.
| Ultimately I gifted it away because the new space wouldn't fit
| it and my requirements had changed, but I know people who are
| in the 5th flat.
|
| As long as you are treating the stuff right it should survive a
| few assembly-disassembly-cycles. Key is of couese to sort the
| screws, mark the parts with tape, etc.
| belval wrote:
| Anecdotally I have had trouble reconciling this seemingly
| prevalent "you can't disassemble Ikea furniture" with my own
| experience. It's not made for it sure but bookshelves, bed
| frames and tables can all be reassembled reasonably well.
| Anything smaller you can just put in the truck when moving.
| josephcsible wrote:
| For bookshelves in particular (and wardrobes which have it
| too), I've found that trying to remove the nailed-in
| particleboard from the back usually goes really poorly. For
| furniture that doesn't have that, I agree with you.
| ce4 wrote:
| The trick is to use screws from the start and throw away
| the nails. Also make notes on the back, to mark what part
| goes where and in what direction.
|
| And lastly, have a 90deg gage to make sure all corners
| have right angles. This is very crucial. Sometimes floors
| are uneven and trick you into assembling the furniture
| askewed
| hef19898 wrote:
| Again one of those impossible to kill memes, along with bad
| mounting instructions (they are on par with Lego, and way
| better than a lot of industry ones). Usually tells you more
| about the person making that point than about the point
| they try to make.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Well, to me, the furniture quality is meh, and they're
| quite fragile, but instructions are indeed good enough -
| and miles better than competition.
|
| One thing I specifically appreciate about IKEA
| instructions is the attention to detail in the drawings.
| With almost every IKEA purchase, at some point I hit a
| moment where some elements can be mated in several
| orientations, and there isn't an obvious way to tell
| which is the correct one. Sometimes it's apparent if you
| look couple steps ahead, but I found that you can
| _always_ find a clue somewhere in the drawing of the
| unclear step. It 's usually something like one of the
| elements having asymmetrically sized or arranged holes,
| which translates to a difference of 0.25mm to 1mm between
| some dots on the paper drawing. It's tiny, but _it 's
| always there_, corresponding precisely to the piece I
| have in front of me.
|
| Of course, this could've been done better in many ways,
| but at least they care about precision of their drawings.
| Of companies in this space I had experience with, no one
| else does.
| mejutoco wrote:
| IMO Lego are the gold standard of instructions. From what
| a remember, IKEA also does labeled bags with a small
| subset of pieces.
|
| While I think IKEA instructions are clear enough, they
| feel frustrating at times, while Lego feels very
| satisfying. Maybe it is the full color of the Lego
| instructions, or that the consequences of a mistake are
| easier to undo? Or the lego units make it easier to count
| the distances. Or maybe my love of Lego is stronger than
| the often chore of assembling furniture, in a pavlovian
| way? :)
| gxs wrote:
| Anyone who's ever finished putting together a piece of
| IKEA furniture only to realize they missed a few parts
| knows you can take it apart and put it back together
| perfectly fine.
| Swizec wrote:
| > along with bad mounting instructions (they are on par
| with Lego, and way better than a lot of industry ones
|
| After reading Visual Thinking, I think this is a
| different brains problem. Some people just aren't able to
| object visualize and need written step by step
| instructions.
|
| We tested this with my girlfriend using a LEGO set. In
| the time I blazed through 5 bags of Lego, she barely
| managed to get 1 assembled. Because she just struggles
| with visual instruction and manipulating objects in her
| mind.
|
| The opposite happens with sequential written
| instructions. I struggle to follow simple recipes without
| pictures and have to re-read the same step multiple times
| to get what they're saying, whereas she can blaze through
| no problem and doesn't understand why I'm struggling.
| watwut wrote:
| IKEA instructions are the best instructions there exist,
| imo. You can consistently follow the steps. We had much
| worst experience with instructions feom other shops.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I think a big reason for this reputation is that IKEA is
| one of the few furniture brands big enough to have a wider-
| than-normal range of product tiers. Most brands have only
| one or two that are typically close together, while IKEA
| has at least three covering a much broader range of
| manufacturing methods and materials.
|
| And while you can get lucky with products in the lowest
| tier (I have some 15-year-old seating that fits this mold),
| often you do need to step up to at least the mid-tier to
| get something that will make it unscathed through moves.
| hartator wrote:
| > If you have a hammer and screwdriver, you can build Ikea
| furniture.
|
| I never had to use a hammer with Ikea furniture.
| ml_giant wrote:
| Sometimes you may need one when putting in those wooden rod
| things? Not sure what they are called.
|
| I typically just use the butt end of the screwdriver when I
| have to put them in
|
| Edit: didn't see the other reply mentioning the same thing :(
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > those wooden rod things
|
| Dowels.
| ml_giant wrote:
| I like my name for them better!
| baby wrote:
| You haven't assembled enough ikea furniture then
| acwan93 wrote:
| You need one when building a Hemnes or Billy. The back of the
| nightstand/bookcase is a sheet that you slide in and hammer in
| with nails.
| samwillis wrote:
| Wardrobes, many cupboards, chests of drawers, their kitchen
| cabinets, the infamous "Billy Bookcase" all have a back panel
| that is pined in place and need a hammer.
|
| Sometimes the little wooden dowels that hold many sides in
| place need a small tap from a hammer to get them home.
| wccrawford wrote:
| It's rare, but it _is_ sometimes needed. The 2 things I 'm
| thinking of are some of the mounts for the screw-in adjustable
| feet, and the tiny nails on the back of cabinets and closets
| that hold the back on.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Other than the backs of wardrobes and bookshelves that are
| attached by nails, IIRC you can occasionally find elements that
| need to be hit with a hammer to ensure full, tight fit - in
| those cases you want a rubber-tipped hammer though.
| adql wrote:
| There is some irony in talking about simple components and ease
| of assembly with standard tools then mentioning JS and it's utter
| abomination of an ecosystem where you need a bunch of tools to
| put together the simplest of sites (if you insist doing it in
| modern JS way)
|
| JS IKEA would ship you 6 trucks of dependencies before you could
| hang a shelf
| porsager wrote:
| Just because you're not able to separate the good from the bad,
| doesn't mean it's all bad in JS land.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| It's a nicer way of saying efficiency. Which can be good or bad,
| depending on your perspective.
|
| Regarding the principles mentioned here, containers are the best
| overall method of delivering them. Containers package
| dependencies, the container definitely is the product, and they
| are composeable and disposable. Of course they do this by
| leveraging operating system primitives, so you don't have to use
| containers, but containers solve all these problems in one
| standard rather than having to use many other solutions.
| samus wrote:
| Isn't this actually a reformulation of the principles of Unix
| philosophy?
|
| "Packaging is the product": classic Unix utilities are
| lightweight, nimble programs
|
| "Pre-packaged dependencies": most Unix utilities have one common
| data format: lines of text. Tools like `jq` expand on that
|
| "Company & disposable": programs can be charged together by be
| using the Unix shell
| amemisoglu wrote:
| From "quality" perspective, don't imitiate Ikea :)
| Zigurd wrote:
| Compared to what? I'm not going to Roche Bobois for a whole
| house full of furniture. Ikea is vastly better than the typical
| big discount furniture store.
| avgDev wrote:
| This is silly.
|
| I love Ikea stuff.
|
| I bought an Ikea kitchen, nobody else will give you a 15 year
| warranty. I have read stories of kitchens being completely
| replaced because Ikea no longer made a certain design.
|
| If the cheaper furniture lasts me 10 years, I will most likely
| be ready to replace it anyway, as my taste changes.
|
| I guess if you are going for a certain historic style and plan
| on keeping it that way forever then obviously solid wood is a
| superior choice.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > This is silly
|
| It is on point, in my experience. We've bought various pieces
| of IKEA furniture over the last 15 years, and the stuff
| they're building in the last couple years is _atrocious_. And
| it 's not even that cheap. I'm done buying their furniture, I
| can get cheap crap from China with similar tolerances for
| less money.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Agreed. Their stuff used to be alright -- cheap materials, but
| good precision. You don't buy it to last decades, and that's
| okay because it's inexpensive. But lately it's really gone to
| hell. Same cheap materials, but the precision of manufacturing
| is gone. We've been disappointed in the stuff we've purchased
| in the last year or so, and we've been happy IKEA customers for
| 15 years. Not any more.
| blowski wrote:
| Why not? The quality is good enough that millions of people
| around the world are using it in their house right now,
| profitably for Ikea. I'd say that's a very good definition of
| quality to imitated.
| kevincox wrote:
| Exactly. I wouldn't dance on most of it but it serves its
| purpose quite adequately. I find that IKEA has consistently
| good quality. Very little of there stuff is great quality,
| but almost nothing is of a low quality. It is all adequate at
| a very reasonable price.
|
| I agree that if you are expecting top quality you will be
| disappointed. But for the price it is hard to find much of
| better quality. Especially not so consistently.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _I wouldn 't dance on most of it_
|
| Which reminds me - and it's not IKEA-specific: I wonder how
| many people got severely injured or lost their lives due to
| a desk or wardrobe collapsing under them when they stood on
| it, unaware that these days, desks and other waist-level
| flat furniture often aren't designed to hold the weight of
| an adult human? When I grew up, standing on furniture was a
| normal thing - these days, I'm very careful about even
| leaning on it.
| alex3305 wrote:
| I get where you are coming from, but why not? What IKEA
| produces for the price is seriously impressive. Also why would
| you need particle board or MDF when filling furniture with
| cardboard is way cheaper and mostly fits the bill.
|
| However, I think that we as software developers are more like
| hand crafted furniture makers. And that there is WYSIWYG (like
| Squarespace) for the masses. And IMHO there is nothing wrong
| with that.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| I would argue the LACK table is the textbook definition of a
| good MVP. Minimal, light, affordable, functional. Granted, I
| remember when it was $7.99, but the point stands.
| alex3305 wrote:
| And you can make a LackRack from it [1].
|
| 1. https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Tbf there's two different levels of IKEA. There's the flimsy,
| throwaway stuff (good for what it is) and then there's a higher
| quality level. The higher quality items come at a price that is
| commensurate with their quality level but definitely jarring
| compared to the pricing of other IKEA items.
| _dain_ wrote:
| Is there a list of which items are in which tiers?
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