A lot of software engineers waste time re-writing other peoples code or creating something new that is "better" because they didn't like someone's code and the outputs are the same.<p>I'm going to pick on Javascript as an example, I'm sure there are examples in other areas.<p>Dynamically loading content in web applications has been supported for almost 15 years [0]. Manipulating the DOM has existed longer than that, remember the browser wars [1]? How many JS frameworks have been invented in that time? How many of those caused a fundamental positive shift in the output vs. just a slightly different way to arrange the symbols and words in a text file?<p>The concept for a tablet computing device happened in the 1960's at PARC [2].<p>Maybe reinventing the wheel every few years is holding back our ability to make true leaps forward.<p>[0] XHR support in IE7 in 2006: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest</a><p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook</a>
One side effect of the traditional funding model is that it allows FAANG-scale companies to exist in perpetual monopoly, because it gives them the luxury of crushing, copying or acquiring any potential threats early on.<p>Both vision and basic research are basically neglected to the point it's laughable. Instead, what gets funded are half-baked ideas turned into MVPs by Ivy League CS grads with silver spoons hanging out of their mouths, whom unironically wear company hoodies (they didn't get the memo Mike Judge was making fun of them), and who hopped on the latest bandwagon for whatever trend, burning millions creating an acquisition target that adds no value to the world, at best.<p>Oh, and a cool 90% of the modern web development ecosystem probably shouldn't exist and is pretty much poorly-engineered trash.
I find the people in the tech space to be absolutely dreadful to be honest. Hacker News is no exception to this. I'm probably not an exception to this. Talking to other people in tech is just incredibly draining.
I wish advertising didn’t exist. Not just on the internet, but everywhere else too.<p>Ads encourage people to buy stuff they probably don’t need. They incentivize clickbait and tracking. And most online advertising is probably a waste of money anyways. [1]<p>How then, you might ask, will content and services be paid for?<p>Sponsorships are not a solution for the same reasons.<p>The Brave browser is not a solution. [2]<p>I think the solution is to pay for everything with donations and crowdfunding. This model incentivizes doing what’s beat for the end-user. Great examples of this include Wikipedia and the Internet Archive.<p>If ads were banned, many websites would die, and I would be ok with that. Only the ones that are the best for <i>users</i> would survive.<p>[1] <a href="https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-here-its-called-online-advertising/" rel="nofollow">https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-h...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://rudism.com/the-brave-browser-is-brilliant/" rel="nofollow">https://rudism.com/the-brave-browser-is-brilliant/</a>
A better hiring process which is still scalable is possible.<p>For example, some simple leetcode question that will filter out a fair number of people. After that it should just be based on first come first serve.<p>Why?
Becauae as you keep increasing leetcode difficulty, you're going from one extreme (can't code fizzbuzz) to another extreme (competitive programmer or someone who just got really lucky).<p>Most will agree that there's lots of luck involved in the interview process so why not have most of this luck simply be a matter of applying on time?<p>By having the luck factor in leetcode, we have to keep those skills sharp for the rest of our careers.<p>This is also a loss for the employer since the leetcode prep is a significant time sink which has nothing to do with the job.<p>If when you applied was the factor used to break ties, recruiting cycles would also be shorter and candidates would bring more job relevant skills.<p>Overall it's a win for everyone but it won't happen because the people who could actually change this have no incentive to do so.
Young developers have it easy these days. It’s cool to be a developer and you get to write code while wearing cool T-shirt’s. When I graduated I was probably considered as being about as cool as an accountant in a cardigan. Old developers should get some extra respect for doing it when it wasn’t a cool job. Maybe a yearly bonus.
That the term ‘tech’ has become synonymous with the embrace/extend/extinguish, business practices. Quarter of a century’s old computing/internet tools are still called ‘technology’. The word has lost its meaning.
Hiring. Companies hire, hire and hire like there's no tomorrow. There's zero incentive in becoming a stable business without keep growing every year. No. Instead companies want to get bigger, to hire more and to add features to a product until it gets rotten.<p>"Let's grow!" is the mantra in the tech industry, which to me is parallel to the idea " let's keep augmenting the population of this planet, there are resources for everyone!"
Modern web technology is fine, including HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Having say, the ability to track a device's gyro sensor or check power levels or do 3D animations in a browser isn't an issue, the problem is that many developers build every site like an 'app', even when it doesn't need to be.<p>A lot of people may be nostalgic for the 90s or what not, but it's a good thing the world moved on, standards evolved and tech got better.
Some things were better before tech.<p>Back in the day you walked to the phone booth once a week to talk to family members that are far away. Nowadays they can contact you 24/7.
The ability to run code on the web is neither an aberration nor a corruption of its intent, but a logical evolution of integrating new media types following from improvements in computing, browser and infrastructure technology. Furthermore, running code on the web serves the same purpose as the hypertext/media web of decentralizing access to information and platforms to publish information.
- FAANG are all great companies, that make great products, and most of their users and customers love them. They shouldn’t be regulated, or broken up.<p>- Online advertising is a great business model, and targeted advertising doesn’t harm anyone.<p>- Technology doesn’t threaten privacy, it enables it.
Most hot tech is just company-sponsored resume-driven development<p>JavaScript moving server-side is a massive regression in software engineering<p>Chrome is the new Internet Explorer. That is not a good thing.
Protobuf is not really a great specification for contracts when used outside of gRPC.<p>Containers are another "worse is better" situation and it's shocking that docker has won so hard given its relatively flawed implementation on OSX.<p>Rust is overused.<p>Go is too low-level for its ultimate sweet spot as a language for building command line tools and services.<p>There is no really great build tool for JVM languages, yet I still find their build ecosystems far more robust than those of JS or Python.
Every VC funded tech startup is built to embark on the 'incredible journey' of the pursuit amassing troves of data in the name of surveillance capitalism; a long line of fake trojan horses proposed to customers like drugs, with the goal of bidding and courting for a 10x acquisition to the big tech companies, so that they can continue their rampant spying on their customers.<p>These startups have the same goals as cancer, growth at all costs.
There's too much emphasis on technology and technology products. Most tech today is just a rehash of an older product or hardware producing money for the corporate overlords while providing little additional value to the end user. Tech will not save us, if anything it will only speed up our demise by creating the illusion that it will solve all our problems.
Tech salaries would be higher if unions were prevalent.<p>Vue is going to beat out React and Angular.<p>Anti-patterns are just patterns that some people don't like.
You don’t need to replace your Jenkins/CI CD tools every week just because an new tool has been invented.<p>Actually... you don’t need to replace your tool X every week just because a new tool Y has been invented that does the same thing but has a much less support.
We should stop taking FAANG-like companies as examples of everything:<p>- they do not represent the majority of tech companies<p>- the majority of devs out there do not work for them/won't work for them<p>- their techniques/processes/rules do not apply to the majority of tech companies