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You Can't Buy Integration

martinfowler.com

111–120 of 143 posts

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#111
post #15

Really great read. Long but worth it. This is a good critique of low-code/no-code in general. The root problem I see of "Unfortunately, when we frame the problem space that way, we have allowed our tools to think for us." is that in reality there are just not enough qualified software engineers out there.

I’ve hear the way to succeed with SAP is to reorganize your business to match either the default world view or some other cookie cutter variant. Essentially using it no code style. Otherwise you’re exerting yourself doing “normal” things. That’s not sustainable.

One of my biggest customers was bought by their competitor after a big SAP implementation. The consensus amongst management was that the project weakened them so much they became vulnerable to takeover.

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does make you wonder what is going to get missed though, doesn't it? Each generation gets to work on a level of abstraction higher than the one before it. I think about that often when I think about all the things I don't understand about hardware and EE.

I did computer engineering in school 20 years ago, and have always enjoyed understanding technology. So I know what is happening from the gate in the cpu all the way up to the pixel in the monitor. The downside is that I'm spread pretty thin. I can't pass leetcode exams in the 30 minutes of allotted time, ops people can't understand why I don't use containers, and my knowledge is probably useless in making a modern C…

I think there are quite a few people like us - I have a different background from you, but I do feel like I'm spread a bit thin and haven't really specialized in anything. The good news for us is that I think it's not the end of the world - it's still possible to deep dive into something and specialize in it, so long as you can find the time :)

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Java is particularly unforgiving for code where ones thoughts are unclear. Why is Java bad that way? Overly complex classes? In my experience, C++ is particularly awful, since careless programming can lead to memory corruption, use-after-free, and nonlocal malfunctions and crashes.

At this point the issues with Java are cultural, but they used to be evolutions of constraints of the rigid "everything must be a class" model. If nothing in the architecture can just be a free-floating procedure, not even a pure function, the system architecture will evolve around this

Converse is also true - if everything in the architecture can be a free-floating procedure, the system architecture will evolve around this.

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#114
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which providers? My experience is that my first cgi-bin script were about a order of magnitude easier to deploy that anything other then say a traditional php/mysql script. and i had the flexibility to use basically any programming language back then too. I did not have to learn git, figure out how the cloud router used worked, i just had to place a file in a directory. For crontab it was the same dump the script to…

Since you gave a cgi-bin script as example, assuming you have an Azure Cloud account, you can easily do it via , provided it is written in JavaScript, PowerShell, TypeScript, or C# Script. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/funct... Here is video tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A7vp3zAB9U Or in the context of low code tools, Azure Logic Apps https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-a…

And this is the equivalent for cgi-bin "vi ~/public_html/cgi-bin/hello.sh"

And the code itself did not contain 10 lines of vendor specific scaffolding to run either but were straigt onto the business logic.

Where is the platform where i can take an completely standardized scriptfile use my preffered ftp/scp client and upload it into an runtime configured to run inside of the corporate firewall?

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#115
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you are that good, then why are you wasting your time with front ends? Go into databases. You're apparently already starting to age out of the young and dumb and works overtime flotsam.

I work at pretty much all levels of the pie, but my passion is with what the user interacts with, which is why I tend to gravitate towards the front-end. Being "good" has nothing to do with being a back-end programmer, imho. One could even argue that the front-end of today is far more complex than most back-ends!

I’m a mostly backend dev (I dabble in Vue), but it’s seemed to me for some time that browsers are effectively operating systems. The level of complexity of the JS/HTML/CSS troika is staggering, and the number of APIs in a browser pretty much gives you access to abstractions of the whole machine. It’s nuts!

So I have complete respect for professional front end devs. They are every bit as smart as any other developer I’ve ever met.

And then with all that they make it look good too. Something I’m apparently genetically incapable of!

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#116

I agree with most the tradeoffs that were brought up with "low code" integrations tools, but I feel like none of the tradeoffs of using a general purpose program language were discussed. My viewpoint is that most organizations reach for these solutions because they provide highly available runtimes that people can quickly access. If I am at an organization and not directly on a software development team and want to d…

> none of the tradeoffs of using a general purpose program language were discussed.

Yep. And particularly the fundamental issue of so-called "general purpose" programming languages:

  They are *not*, in fact, general purpose.
What we call general purpose languages are, in fact, DSLs for the domain of algorithms. See ALGOL, the ALGOrithmic Language. But we think they are general purpose, because that's what we use, lacking other options. And this mistaken categorisation leads us to the incorrect conclusion that things that aren't handled well by these "GPLs" must therefore be handled by DSLs. Or Domain Specific Tooling.

Which in turn leads to the problems described in the article, because it's all far too domain specific.

The answer, IMHO, is to make languages that actually are general purpose and not just algorithm-DSLs. That can handle integration without being integration-DSLs.

My stab at this is http://objective.st/

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, none of them could tell me how React actually works, beyond throwing jargon vomit. They couldn't write a web application without React. The recruiter, which we had to go through, basically had no empathy and saw me as a failed resume. I felt pretty helpless, even though I've said many times to both parties that I wasn't a "React developer". But they don't make money by knowing "how React works". They mak…

I don't think React hooks will be outdated in 1-2 years. Between Svelte and Vue I don't see a path for a formidable challenger. You get the complete ecosystem around it. There's tools like Stencil, and I like those tools, but giving people whole-cloth access to make anything, with no 'base' design system, tends to lead to the creation of inaccessible UIs. And it's quite simple to introduce a11y issues. The front end…

I agree. I think the next big shift will be a fairly big one, not an incremental step. Personally, my money is on Phoenix LiveView - the syntax and concepts aren't super familiar, but the benefits of no longer having to build a lot of your logic multiple times and the ease of scaling this platform are extremely attractive.

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#118
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did computer engineering in school 20 years ago, and have always enjoyed understanding technology. So I know what is happening from the gate in the cpu all the way up to the pixel in the monitor. The downside is that I'm spread pretty thin. I can't pass leetcode exams in the 30 minutes of allotted time, ops people can't understand why I don't use containers, and my knowledge is probably useless in making a modern C…

I think there are quite a few people like us - I have a different background from you, but I do feel like I'm spread a bit thin and haven't really specialized in anything. The good news for us is that I think it's not the end of the world - it's still possible to deep dive into something and specialize in it, so long as you can find the time :)

As another generalist that enjoys occasional (very) deep dives but never gets tied down to one platform/tool/skill/problem set - being a good jack of all trades is it's own special skill, and it is quite rare. Small and medium sized teams really need this sort of person as the mythical "10x" engineer, and in many cases this is a great stepping stone to technical/team leadership, PM roles, and entrepreneurship.

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#119
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true prima facie, as a snapshot of "caring". But prolonged exposition and mutual relationships (even ones kickstarted by selfish, careless objectives such as "Pay me!" or "Go to war for me!") necessarily lead to intertwining of identities. And once you consider something (or someone) a part / extension of yourself, caring follows. In other words, given enough time and substantial interaction, the lines betwee…

Very good points, I agree with the gist of your post, I just want to say, that, still you're not really buying it, but building it, through repeated interactions.

Yes, but you can buy repeated interactions. What's the actual difference then?

IMO it's down to arguing semantics about how "tight" is the causal chain between the cause and effect.

Do you perceive the cause (repeat buying) and its inevitable effect (caring) as sufficiently distinct in time and space? Then I guess you didn't buy the caring, you "built it through repeated interactions".

I personally see that boundary as mostly linguistic, and tend to not draw the distinction.

Re: You Can't Buy Integration

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did computer engineering in school 20 years ago, and have always enjoyed understanding technology. So I know what is happening from the gate in the cpu all the way up to the pixel in the monitor. The downside is that I'm spread pretty thin. I can't pass leetcode exams in the 30 minutes of allotted time, ops people can't understand why I don't use containers, and my knowledge is probably useless in making a modern C…

At some point, you may have to look beyond traditional employment situations to best make use of your technical knowledge and experience. However, it might mean moving to consulting and possibly 'selling' yourself on a more regular/periodic basis. I have soldered chips to boards .... close to 40 years ago, and plugged enough cards/cables together to last a lifetime. (I really don't like hardware stuff!). I've done ba…

I found that I make the most money investing, mainly via Tesla over the past 8 years. I only have about 1% of the engineering skills and work ethic of Elon, but that has been enough to understand what he is doing and ignore all the people on CNBC with MBAs who don't understand engineering.
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