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Things that used to be hard and are now easy

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Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#41

Post by unnouinceput »

wackget wrote: post #31

Eh... I'd argue against quite a lot of those being "easier" than doing things manually. Docker is a prime example. It's supposedly easier to spin up a docker container for a basic web server stack, but to be honest I'd rather install PHP/MySQL and an SSL certificate manually, rather than spend time finding a decent container from a trustworthy source, and then spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how and why it's be…

So once you did your own trusted setup - who is stopping you to create a docker container to your liking and use that onward?

I don't trust anything, hence all my docker containers are created personally and use them moving forward. At first it will seems like it's a never ending job to create another docker, but eventually you'll have all your needs fulfilled. Nowadays it can go a month without needing to create another one since I already did this A+B+C combination in the past.

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#42

Post by DrammBA »

unnouinceput wrote: post #36
jbarham wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Installing Windows without a Microsoft account

That's false. You can still install Windows without a Microsoft account. Granted, it's harder now to see "Use local account", but it's still there.

That's false because it's true? I don't even...

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#43

Post by samb1729 »

unnouinceput wrote: post #36
jbarham wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Installing Windows without a Microsoft account

That's false. You can still install Windows without a Microsoft account. Granted, it's harder now to see "Use local account", but it's still there.

Your comment highlights exactly how the GP fits the “things that used to be easy but are now hard list”

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#44

Post by unnouinceput »

reidjs wrote: post #7

As someone who leans frontend, I find firebase and serverless (somebody else’s server) solutions really powerful for prototyping an idea or building a proof of concept. You can get something in front of your users tomorrow. I would second guess SaaS startups that start by building the infra/data models unless they’re going for a highly technical play (aerospace, hardware, etc) or already have a ton of market knowledg…

Maybe you meant from 1 user to more than 1? I mean, unless is building dust on a shelf, anything running in a computer has at least 1 user.

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#45

Post by linux2647 »

eatonphil wrote: post #25

Personally, I disagree that parsing was hard before and made easy with PEG parsing. For decades it has been easy and common to implement parsers by hand. From what I can tell, universities and textbooks just overcomplicated the process by teaching parser generators. I have done a few studies of various open source ecosystems now and (edited: other than CPython) I haven't seen PEG parsers really used in anything but t…

CPython appears to use a PEG parser for its implementation: https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/b77158b4da449ec5b8f68...

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#46

Post by tonyedgecombe »

ignoramous wrote: post #28

> Things that used to be hard and are now easy: > Concurrency, with async/await (in several languages) The number of times I've been bitten by the very specific semantics around async/await in JavaScript makes me wonder if I've hit some kind of a ceiling in trying to grok it. Coming from the world of threads, I've found Kotlin's structured concurrency approach the best of the lot I've used so far, even if it isn't wi…

Yes, the message was you could write asynchronous code as if you were writing synchronous code but that really isn't the case. It is easier but it isn't a panacea.

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#47

Post by elygre »

Darkstryder wrote: post #39
orsenthil wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was that XKCD published ( https://xkcd.com/1425/ ) ? Yeah, I remember seeing for the first time, I don't remember my reaction then. But now when I see it, I am stumped!

September 24th, 2014. To know the date of publication of a given xkcd comic, go to https://xkcd.com/archive/ , search for the title you're after, then the date of publication is displayed in the mouse-over text.

So, five years and a pandemic. Not too shabby of a prediction, that!

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#48

Post by fay59 »

theden wrote: post #19

Would be interested in also seeing a "things that used to be easy but are now hard list". Feels like basic stuff is harder now: * Privacy online * Google search for niche or exact matches * Browsing without captchas and blockers, especially if you don't adhere to big tech's rules for the internet * Sending emails without worrying about spam filters being way too aggressive * SEO before it got hacked to hell * Barrier…

The Flash authoring tools still exist, they’ve just been renamed Animate, and they export to HTML5.

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#49

Post by eatonphil »

linux2647 wrote: post #45
eatonphil wrote: post #25

Personally, I disagree that parsing was hard before and made easy with PEG parsing. For decades it has been easy and common to implement parsers by hand. From what I can tell, universities and textbooks just overcomplicated the process by teaching parser generators. I have done a few studies of various open source ecosystems now and (edited: other than CPython) I haven't seen PEG parsers really used in anything but t…

CPython appears to use a PEG parser for its implementation: https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/b77158b4da449ec5b8f68...

That's true, but it's still quite rare to see.

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#50

Post by grishka »

adwn wrote: post #37
grishka wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cross-platform GUIs shouldn't exist. That's it. They always inevitably are worse then native ones.

You're falling for the "perfect is the enemy of good" fallacy.

I'm just not a fan of half-measures. Especially ones that stick in people's minds as an acceptable way of doing things as opposed to rapid prototyping kind of deal.
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