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Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#281

Post by btown »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #246
btown wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salesforce got it partially right. To be somewhat cynical, the trick is to enable no-code, but (a) make it just borderline user-hostile enough that you foster an entire marketplace of no-code consultancies to no-code for companies too busy and frustrated to no-code themselves, and (b) ensure everything is extensible with actual code. They got (a) balanced perfectly, but (b) is somewhat lacking, and it didn't have to…

Airtable?

I stan Airtable and use it daily, but without websockets or other ways to “push” changes to external systems, it’s not really suitable for (b), and from an interface perspective it’s not customizable enough (without coding a whole new UI, which runs into the above) to accommodate (a).

Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#282

Post by NateEag »

beamatronic wrote: post #33
NateEag wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not known to have a solution. It's a human coordination and cooperation problem on a global scale.

Take the people (and LAWYERs) out of the equation and software becomes much simpler.

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not.

But, yes, without users it is easier to create software.

Completely pointless, but much easier.

Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#283

Post by btown »

chubot wrote: post #276
ketzo wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give some specific examples of this problem? Frontend developer curious what kind of trends/solutions you mean.

Here's my take on it from a few months ago: ---- ... Claim: Most sites are mostly static content. For example, AirBNB or Grubhub. Those sites could be way faster than they are now if they were architected differently. Only when you check out do you need anything resembling an “app”. The browsing and searching is better done with a “document” model IMO. Ditto for YouTube... I think it used to be more a document model,…

What about when you need an editing interface with an instant preview, though? You would want to reuse the component that renders the static content. So it’s simpler, and leads to happier devs, to treat both as an app from the beginning, and if you need to (for SEO or performance), server-side-render using the same codebase.

Is this silly? Absolutely. Is it a global optimum? Possibly.

Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#284

Post by freitasm »

arexxbifs wrote: post #123
freitasm wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huawei P20 and P30 series, Mate 20 and 30 series do this. Plug a USB-C cable to an external monitor, Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and you have a desktop like experience, with apps opening in Windows like you'd expect on a desktop. This includes a taskbar, pinned apps, resizable windows and more. No extra hardware needed.

Thanks for the info, I’ve obviously not been following this close enough!

Here's a photo of my P30 connected to a BenQ 35" curved a few months back: https://cdn.geekzone.co.nz/imagessubs/3fd54a951fe50626b4d53b...

Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#285

Post by j4yav »

markbnj wrote: post #140
cs02rm0 wrote: post #12

I seem to spend far more time on the deployment of code than I ever used to, more time writing CloudFormation and ansible than the Java backend, python lambdas and static UI that it deploys. That seems nuts to me. I'm not sure how you fix it without being Amazon/Google. People moan about Terraform too before that gets mentioned.

> I seem to spend far more time on the deployment of code than I ever used to, more time writing CloudFormation and ansible than the Java backend, python lambdas and static UI that it deploys. I'd really like to understand more about what the pain points are here. In contrast to your experience I spend almost no time deploying code. We commit, tests run, we click a button and the deployment is updated in our kubernet…

As an aside, GitLab PM for CI/CD here. It would be awesome to hear about what you built and how we could have made that learning and setup process easier. Feel free to DM me on Twitter? @j4yav

Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#286

Post by dahart »

petters wrote: post #186
dahart wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My newest laptop is closer to that than any computer I’ve ever had since 1984. Mostly because of SSDs I guess, but Windows boots in a few seconds. Usually takes longer to shutdown than to boot. 10ms response is a bit on the fast side. Aside from pros doing sports or music, we (humans) don’t register most kinds responses that fast. Plus a 60hz display is 16ms anyway. These days browsers, editors, and OSes really do us…

100ms is too slow for e.g. a pen on a touch screen. The ink will lag behind the pen. But for worst case in general, not bad.

Yes absolutely! Drawing needs 60Hz or 120hz or better. I assumed perhaps incorrectly you were talking about one-time responses like apps opening and menu clicks and things like that. My statement above is not good for time-based motion, apps like games and drawing, those are better with 33ms response times or better, for sure, and 100ms is too slow.

Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#287

Post by chubot »

btown wrote: post #283
chubot wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my take on it from a few months ago: ---- ... Claim: Most sites are mostly static content. For example, AirBNB or Grubhub. Those sites could be way faster than they are now if they were architected differently. Only when you check out do you need anything resembling an “app”. The browsing and searching is better done with a “document” model IMO. Ditto for YouTube... I think it used to be more a document model,…

What about when you need an editing interface with an instant preview, though? You would want to reuse the component that renders the static content. So it’s simpler, and leads to happier devs, to treat both as an app from the beginning, and if you need to (for SEO or performance), server-side-render using the same codebase. Is this silly? Absolutely. Is it a global optimum? Possibly.

I don't really see what you're saying. That doesn't appear to apply to any of the examples I gave: AirBNB, Grubhub, Github, YouTube, etc.

Or if it does, it applies to a small part of the site. Again, the claim is: most sites are mostly static content.

Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#288

Post by amasad »

simonw wrote: post #279
amasad wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my calling. I'm the cofounder of Repl.it and I've dedicated my career to solving this problem. Simon -- since you're the cocreator of Django, you might get a kick out of this: From loading up a Django environment to adding and rendering the first view takes less than a minute: https://gifs.amasad.repl.co/django.gif Before starting this company I was a founding engineer on the React Native team where I focused…

That gif is a really excellent demo. I'd been mislead by your name - I assumed you were all about Jupyter-style REPL consoles. I didn't realise how much closer you were to Glitch. I'll take a deeper look.

We started as just an editor and a console -- I initially modeled it after the Dr Scheme REPL (now Racket) -- but our users wanted more. Kids who learned to code using our repl wanted to use it to build and publish apps so we evolved the product towards becoming more of an IDE while trying to keep the simplicity.

Check out our community as well, lots of hackers, especially young ones, sharing and collaborating on code: https://repl.it/talk

Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#289

Post by chubot »

noahtallen wrote: post #277
chubot wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my take on it from a few months ago: ---- ... Claim: Most sites are mostly static content. For example, AirBNB or Grubhub. Those sites could be way faster than they are now if they were architected differently. Only when you check out do you need anything resembling an “app”. The browsing and searching is better done with a “document” model IMO. Ditto for YouTube... I think it used to be more a document model,…

Isn’t Github following the document model? At least, that’s my impression of how the UI works (I.e. none of the consistent UI elements stick around as you navigate)

Yes Github looks pretty close to the document model. I think that's why they were able to optimize it over time.

It isn't exactly fast, but I think it's gotten faster over time.

On the other hand there are lots of blogs that won't even render without JS turned on. Those are apps, but IMO they should be static content.

Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?

#290

Post by markbnj »

j4yav wrote: post #285
markbnj wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I seem to spend far more time on the deployment of code than I ever used to, more time writing CloudFormation and ansible than the Java backend, python lambdas and static UI that it deploys. I'd really like to understand more about what the pain points are here. In contrast to your experience I spend almost no time deploying code. We commit, tests run, we click a button and the deployment is updated in our kubernet…

As an aside, GitLab PM for CI/CD here. It would be awesome to hear about what you built and how we could have made that learning and setup process easier. Feel free to DM me on Twitter? @j4yav

> As an aside, GitLab PM for CI/CD here. It would be awesome to hear about what you built and how we could have made that learning and setup process easier. Feel free to DM me on Twitter? @j4yav

Honestly most of the effort was not in the gitlab pipelines. We found those facilities easy enough to understand and implement. Most of the work went into the tooling layer between gitlab and our runtime environment. My email is in my profile if you'd like to reach out with more specific questions.

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