Live data from Hacker News

Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

questinglog.com

41–47 of 47 posts

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

#41
post #7

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…

>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.

Well, the fundamental problem with this is that you just made the programmer even more powerful. A single programmer is now as productive as a thousand programmers. You still want to have a programmer because you want someone who understands what the system is actually doing right now and keeps it running. You also need someone who understands the limitations of the software generator. You can't just say "please create software that solves the halting problem". You also need someone who understands how to optimize software. You can easily ask for something that is possible but it could cost you millions of AWS credits.

There will always be someone who has intimate knowledge of the tool he is using and can charge appropriately for it. The more powerful the tool the more attractive the employee. Compare an engineer drafting on paper vs one doing it in CAD.

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

#42
post #25

In this thread: heated discussions that boil down to different definitions of the word "tech". Since "tech" is mostly a marketing term, this seems fairly pointless. For suitable definitions, a real-estate company is hot "tech". For other reasonable definitions anything that is is mass production is not "tech".

Yeah, this discussion is merely about the word, not about it's meaning.

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

#43
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…

I'd say most of what we consider a webapp has been "perfected" around 10 years ago. There have been some major usability upgrades such as flexbox but again this is only a productivity booster. It was possible to do everything without flexbox and the price you had to pay was only the cost of your sanity. Now that youtube has changed its algorithm I keep seeing videos from 2013 and in terms of quality they might as well be made in 2020. 1080p has become a well established standard and Youtube no longer skimps heavily on compression. The biggest reason why videos look "old" today is that people just compress videos heavily.

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

#44
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you refer to cars, microwaves, refrigerators or light bulbs as "tech"?

yes.

They're undoubtedly technologies, but I don't think that in practice people would call those industries part of "tech".

The whole "tech" label needs to die as it's overstayed its welcome and now just funnels engineers towards narrower and narrower segments of the economy where the benefits are less and less clear.

If you estimate the "tech-iness" of a domain by the depth of the tech tree or the "height" of the leaves people are working on, most "tech" work these days is working on CRUD apps based on a 20-ish (?) year old paradigm. It's hardly cutting edge, and probably isn't the most deserving of the label.

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

#45
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes.

They're undoubtedly technologies, but I don't think that in practice people would call those industries part of "tech". The whole "tech" label needs to die as it's overstayed its welcome and now just funnels engineers towards narrower and narrower segments of the economy where the benefits are less and less clear. If you estimate the "tech-iness" of a domain by the depth of the tech tree or the "height" of the leaves…

Homeware companies refer to their technology divisions all the time.

What you're calling "tech" the rest of the world calls "I.T."

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

#46
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes.

They're undoubtedly technologies, but I don't think that in practice people would call those industries part of "tech". The whole "tech" label needs to die as it's overstayed its welcome and now just funnels engineers towards narrower and narrower segments of the economy where the benefits are less and less clear. If you estimate the "tech-iness" of a domain by the depth of the tech tree or the "height" of the leaves…

"tech" is short for technology.[1] So yes, any technology is tech. Of course you might want to define tech differently in which case it might be helpful if you're explicit in what you understand "tech" to be.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tech

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

#47
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're undoubtedly technologies, but I don't think that in practice people would call those industries part of "tech". The whole "tech" label needs to die as it's overstayed its welcome and now just funnels engineers towards narrower and narrower segments of the economy where the benefits are less and less clear. If you estimate the "tech-iness" of a domain by the depth of the tech tree or the "height" of the leaves…

Homeware companies refer to their technology divisions all the time. What you're calling "tech" the rest of the world calls "I.T."

I wouldn't mind that re-labeling.
Post reply on HN