All Programming is Web Programming • Hacker News Board

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#31

Post by dasil003 » Fri, Nov 11, 2011, 10:59 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #21

billpatrianakos wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Comes off as biased fanboy-ism. It's easy to knock web programming because of how low the barrier to entry is and how any idiot who knows msqli_connect and a few simple HTML tags usually starts calling themselves a programmer. But really it takes just as much knowledge and expertise to be a "web guy". Just understanding how the client browser interacts with the server, the server to each of its components (th…

> I don't like how the argument devolves into "this stuff I do is complicated so I'm smarter and your stuff is simple so you're dumb". This itself is a microcosm of the attitude that is espoused by a certain insecure subset of techies where someone who doesn't understand computers is an idiot. To me this is a clear indicator of someone whose self-esteem is tied up in identifying as an intelligent person, but who in r…

Nice driveby downvote. How about a little argument?

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#32

Post by eulerfx » Fri, Nov 11, 2011, 11:02 PM UTC

There is truth to the original argument by Michael Braude if viewed from the intended perspective. The problem is that the intended perspective is very narrow and is in fact outlined in its entirety in the statement itself. (The web guys he is referring to are not all web guys, just the ones who don't understand his tenacious albeit very basic list of programming techniques, and more importantly the ones who copy and paste all their code from MSDN tutorials). You add a little bit of resentment and pride into the mix and this is what you get.

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#33

Post by nathanb » Fri, Nov 11, 2011, 11:21 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #21

billpatrianakos wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Comes off as biased fanboy-ism. It's easy to knock web programming because of how low the barrier to entry is and how any idiot who knows msqli_connect and a few simple HTML tags usually starts calling themselves a programmer. But really it takes just as much knowledge and expertise to be a "web guy". Just understanding how the client browser interacts with the server, the server to each of its components (th…

> I don't like how the argument devolves into "this stuff I do is complicated so I'm smarter and your stuff is simple so you're dumb". This itself is a microcosm of the attitude that is espoused by a certain insecure subset of techies where someone who doesn't understand computers is an idiot. To me this is a clear indicator of someone whose self-esteem is tied up in identifying as an intelligent person, but who in r…

I think you're attributing to insecurity something which could be equally attributed to the sort of hubris which engineers are infamous for. To me, my problem domain is rich and varied, but your problem domain is mostly trivial. I understand HTML, stylesheets, server-side scripting, and client-side scripting at an intellectual level. Ergo, all problems in the web programming arena must be easily comprehended.

To a web programmer, however, the web development field is full of interesting, challenging, or frustrating issues such as incomplete or inconsistent standards implementation between browsers, supporting legacy browsers, applying solid visual design principles while also applying solid software engineering principles, dealing with a single-threaded execution environment for fundamentally parallel operations, falling back gracefully to older technologies when newer ones aren't installed on the client side...and so on.

So the systems programmer who looks at web programming and says "pft, trivial. A solved problem" is not necessarily exposing his own insecurity, merely the blinders that he is wearing to the depth and breadth of problems which do not interest him.

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#34

Post by dasil003 » Fri, Nov 11, 2011, 11:38 PM UTC

nathanb wrote: post #33

dasil003 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't like how the argument devolves into "this stuff I do is complicated so I'm smarter and your stuff is simple so you're dumb". This itself is a microcosm of the attitude that is espoused by a certain insecure subset of techies where someone who doesn't understand computers is an idiot. To me this is a clear indicator of someone whose self-esteem is tied up in identifying as an intelligent person, but who in r…

I think you're attributing to insecurity something which could be equally attributed to the sort of hubris which engineers are infamous for. To me, my problem domain is rich and varied, but your problem domain is mostly trivial. I understand HTML, stylesheets, server-side scripting, and client-side scripting at an intellectual level. Ergo, all problems in the web programming arena must be easily comprehended. To a we…

Sure, there are many potential reasons. Hubris could also be rooted in insecurity for that matter. My point has very little to do with the underlying reasons though.

The point is all programming has big challenges, and the list you cite for web programming doesn't really do it justice. Web programming encompasses all the toughest issues of network and scalable computing, a set of theoretically difficult problems as deep as anything in systems programming.

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#35

Post by nikcub » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 2:23 AM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #24

As I sit here, waiting for a few thousand CPUs on the astronomy department's cluster to free up so I can run my code, I say "hah!"

poor analysis like this makes the mistake of observing ones own environment and then extrapolating it to the whole world.

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#36

Post by mturmon » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 6:14 AM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #35

hugh3 wrote: post #24

As I sit here, waiting for a few thousand CPUs on the astronomy department's cluster to free up so I can run my code, I say "hah!"

poor analysis like this makes the mistake of observing ones own environment and then extrapolating it to the whole world.

It would be wiser to say this about the OP, which looks around nearby and proclaims "All programming is web programming".

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#37

Post by nikcub » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 6:30 AM UTC

mturmon wrote: post #36

nikcub wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

poor analysis like this makes the mistake of observing ones own environment and then extrapolating it to the whole world.

It would be wiser to say this about the OP, which looks around nearby and proclaims "All programming is web programming".

I was referring to the OP :)

I realize now that my comment may not have come across properly since I replied to a nice rebuttal to OP

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#38

Post by adrusi » Tue, Nov 15, 2011, 12:36 AM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #29

adrusi wrote: post #23

The author fails to realize that not all programming is either web programming or desktop software programming. This is just a subset of programming: software development. It's reasonable to assume that all software development will one day be web programming since a web app is much more accessible than its desktop equivalent. (I personally hope that this is not the case, because with web apps customers pay a regular…

Are they more expensive? What is the cost in time of supporting a desktop app? What is the cost of losing all your data because you failed to put in place a backup solution? What is the cost of having inaccessible data because it's silo'd on a desktop somewhere? People don't pay for the server resources, they pay for the value added by packaging a piece of software together with hardware and providing support service…

What I was saying is that the reason the payments are monthly for web services is because they are exactly that services, in addition to products. I, as a student on a low budget, feel more secure buying a desktop app at a one-time cost and being personally responsible for my data there than paying a regular fee forever and knowing that if I stop paying my data could be gone. That's mostly my irrational fear of commitment to just about anything though. But more rationally, the server could go down at any time (EC2 outage possibly) and I could be stuck without my data when I need it. If I know that I'm going to need my data that I have locally, I can store it on my phone and take it with me if taking my computer with me isn't feasible.

And so maybe web apps make you pay more for more. What if I'm perfectly fine with what I used to have and don't want more. I'm paying more for the same if I never plan on using the service anywhere but on machines that I can easily keep synched myself.

Re: All Programming is Web Programming

#39

Post by __Joker » Mon, Nov 21, 2011, 7:34 PM UTC

mcknz wrote: post #6

How about adding [2009] to the title? If I see a popular blog on HN I assume it's at least the current year. I probably wouldn't click through to an old Atwood post.

Never made this comment, but it would be great to add this to posting guidelines about posting old stuff. Sigh, I feel old.