We have used too many levels of abstractions • Hacker News Board

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#201

Post by fatnoah » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #197

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually see this with new frontend devs. They know only full SPA frameworks, they have never seen a dump of an HTTP message, headers and verbs are abstract things to them. Hell, many of them don't know you can have fully functional websites with zero JS, including payment, video, login, etc. I started to write an HTMX tutorial ( https://www.bitecode.dev/p/a-little-taste-of-htmx-part-1 ) because I noticed a l…

> they have never seen a dump of an HTTP message, headers and verbs are abstract things to them. When I was teaching programming, I had a fun party trick whenever we got to HTTP. I'd fire up netcat (in listen mode), then connect from a web browser and "serve" a website by hand. I'd show the students the HTTP request that came in, and just manually type out a simple HTTP response and they'd see it appear live in the b…

Not quite the same, but I remember sending emails via telnet. I showed that to a younger dev who was somewhat blown away by the fact it wasn't via some REST API.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#202

Post by Viliam1234 » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

devjab wrote: post #126

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #12

I think there is one interesting angle to this problem. I am someone who grew up with the technology, as the levels of abstractions were being added. I am now benefiting from all those accumulated decades of knowledge. As the IT / development world was changing, I had enormous privilege and comfort to learn the things at the pace they were happening. Being able to assimilate changes over long decades. Be a witness to…

If you’re managers and tech leads then why aren’t you making sure the people you’re supposed to lead obtain the understanding? We work with both high and low level tools where I work, and in my experience there isn’t necessarily a lack of understanding among younger developers. The CS courses still teach you a lot of the basics, and to actually use what you call “hype” tools efficiently you typically need a rather go…

> We don’t need our software developers to know how our Cloud Networking and Virtual Networking works, we don’t need them to spin up resources and make various internal DNS and Firewall rules, we simply need them to focus on what they’re good at and then hand off the container to the operations department where people actually specialise in that knowledge.

I am afraid that many businesses prefer the vision where the software developers do the operations too, and the company can fire the operations department. Consider how much money you could save... before it all falls apart.

Short term optimization is how managers get their bonuses. The trick is to move on to the next project before the old one falls apart. Then it becomes someone else's problem.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#203

Post by cl3misch » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:55 PM UTC

Abstraction is a feature of technological progress.

Not to say that OP is incorrect. But intelligent people were opposed to abstraction already in ancient times. Socrates said about the invention of writing [1]

> For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them.

From today's perspective it seems absurd to oppose written information. The net benefit on society is clearly positive.

I am not saying that every abstraction is a net positive. But the example demonstrates that it is easy to oppose abstractions, even if they turn out to be positive in hindsight.

[1] https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3439

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#204

Post by x86cherry » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:55 PM UTC

The article raises good points, but I feel it misses the bigger picture.

Every generation has some people more interested in the depth of their field than others. So why do we see fewer of the actual experts?

Well, we don't, we just see more of the surface level developers being able to contribute real economic value to society. They were just kept out by the more demanding requirements before.

If anything, it's a good sign we've come to have this luxury problem.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#205

Post by sarchertech » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:56 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #109

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #12

I think there is one interesting angle to this problem. I am someone who grew up with the technology, as the levels of abstractions were being added. I am now benefiting from all those accumulated decades of knowledge. As the IT / development world was changing, I had enormous privilege and comfort to learn the things at the pace they were happening. Being able to assimilate changes over long decades. Be a witness to…

You can actually see this with new frontend devs. They know only full SPA frameworks, they have never seen a dump of an HTTP message, headers and verbs are abstract things to them. Hell, many of them don't know you can have fully functional websites with zero JS, including payment, video, login, etc. I started to write an HTMX tutorial ( https://www.bitecode.dev/p/a-little-taste-of-htmx-part-1 ) because I noticed a l…

I started writing a book for exactly this reason.

https://www.networksfromscratch.com/

It will take me 10 years to finish it at the pace I’m going though :)

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#206

Post by kaba0 » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:56 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #109

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #12

I think there is one interesting angle to this problem. I am someone who grew up with the technology, as the levels of abstractions were being added. I am now benefiting from all those accumulated decades of knowledge. As the IT / development world was changing, I had enormous privilege and comfort to learn the things at the pace they were happening. Being able to assimilate changes over long decades. Be a witness to…

You can actually see this with new frontend devs. They know only full SPA frameworks, they have never seen a dump of an HTTP message, headers and verbs are abstract things to them. Hell, many of them don't know you can have fully functional websites with zero JS, including payment, video, login, etc. I started to write an HTMX tutorial ( https://www.bitecode.dev/p/a-little-taste-of-htmx-part-1 ) because I noticed a l…

With all due respect, this is some elitist nonsense.

Sure, a frontend dev who strictly works on that won’t know much about, say, the OS layer. But they don’t have to, it’s not part of their job in any way.

There is no shortage of young people that work on areas that makes them require deep knowledge of many different layers of the stack, it is simply not necessary for every IT-related job. But one can absolutely pick it up if they want to.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#207

Post by pcthrowaway » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:57 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #166

steeleduncan wrote: post #151

There was a point in the history of aviation where anyone who could fly a plane was also capable of constructing and designing one. I wonder if there were similar concerns at that time about a future where someone could be in a cockpit of a plane without truly understanding how the machine works from first principles? Today that type of concern would seem absurd, and we've gotten used to the idea that flying a plane…

It would be concerning if pilots, aircraft maintenance technicians and aeronautical engineers shared titles and job descriptions so similar that it was hard to tell them apart.

Heck, the titles in software are so broad you may as well have the pilot, the tech, and the aerospace engineer all sharing the same title along with the flight attendant.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#208

Post by sandworm101 » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:57 PM UTC

>> Some students today apparently don't even know what files and folders are?

This isnt just coders. I work with people every day who do not understand directory structures. I blame "cloud" apps like o365. They dont understand that the human can dictate where a file is saved and stored. They just expect that the machine will save it somewhere according to the type of file, or that all files for a project will be in one big space defined by the UI interface for that project. But then i ask for them to send me a copy of a file for whatever reason. All they can do is attempt to send the file to me from withing the UI, only to another user within whatever app they are logged in to. They dont know how to move discreet files between discs or directories on thier own, or even that such things are possible.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#209

Post by maxrecursion » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:57 PM UTC

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #12

I think there is one interesting angle to this problem. I am someone who grew up with the technology, as the levels of abstractions were being added. I am now benefiting from all those accumulated decades of knowledge. As the IT / development world was changing, I had enormous privilege and comfort to learn the things at the pace they were happening. Being able to assimilate changes over long decades. Be a witness to…

"But there will be a point in time when we will go on retirement and there will be only precious few people who had perseverance to really understand all those things by diving into obscure, historical manuals."

I just hope when that time comes I'm well compensated for studying erudite texts on low level computer science while chilling on my phone instead of browsing social media or playing games. But honestly, I enjoy reading and learning about ABIs, C programming, network protocols, etc... more than mindless scrolling anyway.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#210

Post by blacktonystark » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:58 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #108

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #12

I think there is one interesting angle to this problem. I am someone who grew up with the technology, as the levels of abstractions were being added. I am now benefiting from all those accumulated decades of knowledge. As the IT / development world was changing, I had enormous privilege and comfort to learn the things at the pace they were happening. Being able to assimilate changes over long decades. Be a witness to…

>We, people who really understand the technology that the world runs on, are a slowly dying breed. And web development has the worst tech abstraction of all. There used to be a time where any Software Engineers ( i think the term wasn't even invented then ) or simply programmers would know at least a thing or two about Hardware. We now have so much abstractions we have people working in tech who have zero knowledge o…

To be fair, its hard for anyone to know anything about hardware these days unless its a company with a large on-prem footprint and it doesn't make financial or regulatory sense to put in the cloud or co-locate, which is a vanishingly small number. Hell I haven't been in a physical datacenter in 5 years and that's where I started my career many moons ago.