Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

questinglog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 47 posts

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#11

Post by ggm »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #4
duxup wrote: post #3

I read that. I still don't know what the title / that line is supposed to mean.

Much of what we call "tech" is 10 to 20 old technology. We still call an interactive website tech, but in reality, they're no more cutting edge now than CDs were in 2010. The fact that it's not new technology is part of why there's so much competition and so much of the market is controlled by established players. It used to be possible to reach a massive audience with a trivial iPhone app 10 years ago or with a plai…

Mike Lesk on UUCP: "i occupied a vacuum. UUCP was hard to replace because they had to push me aside"

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#12

Post by bfuclusion »

From it's own definitions this article is patently false. Quote: "applying scientific knowledge for practical purposes" You're doing that when you try to reduce time to display from 1 second to 1000ms, when trying to chose algorithms that better match your users real usage of the site, to just plain moving a button a few pixels so people see it better. It doesn't have to be the new shiny to make an actual impact.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#13

Post by aashiq »

bfuclusion wrote: post #12

From it's own definitions this article is patently false. Quote: "applying scientific knowledge for practical purposes" You're doing that when you try to reduce time to display from 1 second to 1000ms, when trying to chose algorithms that better match your users real usage of the site, to just plain moving a button a few pixels so people see it better. It doesn't have to be the new shiny to make an actual impact.

I 100% agree with you, and to dismiss web apps in this way is to devalue making thinking easier for people. However, I'm also amused by the Freudian slip of 1 second to 1000 ms, which would of course be "tech" instead of tech.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#14

Post by AlchemistCamp »

ggm wrote: post #7
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your claim is that anything turing-complete should forever be called "tech" and that any disagreement is arrogance? That's a difficult position to engage with constructively.

At some future date, assuming the GPT-3 adherents are right, nobody will "write code" because we will describe systems design goals to an intermediary which then writes the code. Where is the tech then? I do think there is tech and non-tech. But it gets very like pornography and the Meese commission: I know it when I see it. What I find hard, is how many people writing for the REPL or compiled languages, dismiss what…

Ah this explains the disconnect. I see the "Web 2.0" era as closer to the frontier than Quake 3 (as cutting-edge as it was in its day). In the era of Flickr, a young group of devs with no resources would have had a tough go at it in 3D gaming and would have been better off making Flash games.

I can't say much about if and when we're worse at everything than AI, but we're not there yet. At least for now, there are still new opportunities just as open to aspiring techies now as web apps were 15 years ago or PC games were 30 years ago.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#17

Post by TAForObvReasons »

aashiq wrote: post #13
bfuclusion wrote: post #12

From it's own definitions this article is patently false. Quote: "applying scientific knowledge for practical purposes" You're doing that when you try to reduce time to display from 1 second to 1000ms, when trying to chose algorithms that better match your users real usage of the site, to just plain moving a button a few pixels so people see it better. It doesn't have to be the new shiny to make an actual impact.

I 100% agree with you, and to dismiss web apps in this way is to devalue making thinking easier for people. However, I'm also amused by the Freudian slip of 1 second to 1000 ms, which would of course be "tech" instead of tech.

WeWork is a "tech" company in the sense that the actual business is a thin tech veneer around an established business model (like Regus Group). A huge number of SaaS services are effectively a thin design layer around a database, a technology that has been established decades ago. I think that's the real thrust of the post.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#18

Post by AlchemistCamp »

konart wrote: post #15

So unless you are building a strong AI or a full-dive VR set you are not building `tech`?

If you're doing something that's been widespread for 15 years, you'll likely have so much competition that it will be about marketing, not technology.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#19

Post by nwienert »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #18
konart wrote: post #15

So unless you are building a strong AI or a full-dive VR set you are not building `tech`?

If you're doing something that's been widespread for 15 years, you'll likely have so much competition that it will be about marketing, not technology.

You’re missing a wide chasm of design and data between tech and marketing.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#20

Post by waheoo »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #18
konart wrote: post #15

So unless you are building a strong AI or a full-dive VR set you are not building `tech`?

If you're doing something that's been widespread for 15 years, you'll likely have so much competition that it will be about marketing, not technology.

You're confusing innovation and technology.

And the gatekeeping is really unbecoming.

Post reply on HN