In the keynote titled FIXME by DHH, he mentions more memory and SDD among other technology improvements as keeping Basecamp from having to shard as they thought they would, but I am curious as to how they arrived at not having to? That is, I wish this point of new technologies solving a problem was elaborated on. I can only speculate as to how at this point and am not satisfied with my own ruminations..
RE the question of summarizing the talk:<p>I'd add, DHH speaks greatly at a philosophical level to a revolution that he envisions has to take place if we are to beat conquistadors(those who by any means necessary seek their bottom-line alone) and the general miasma of change that is our day as Developers and (increasingly complex)baselines that cause barriers to/of entry because now we need to understand the new XYZ-technology of the month... Underlying this, I think he challenges what it means to have a prestigious company on your resume in light of the effective outcome of a coding academy. He mentions Taleb and Software iatrogenics at a point to discuss how Software specializations creates distance(again found at these very large prestigious institutions) from the product and in so doing creates a vacuum of lack of responsibility and ownership, which creates opportunity for the end-product to be abused. This is some deep stuff that likely will require a second go around.. I build products from the ground up, a true full-stack Engineer for nearly a decade and I live in this tension of comfort in specialization(which tempting but the road I have never traveled, mostly innately) vs. the pursuit of volatility and measured effective utility abstraction.. You can even hire me at this very moment and "arm this rebel", lest I surrender to those dogmatic Conquistadors.. but DHH is having a hiring-freeze at the moment because their product is too good? (I just started to read, may not be accurate, will edit if not)