I see a lot of untapped potential in using a domain-specific language to drive a framework, instead of using the general-purpose language that doesn’t know anything about what the framework has to offer. In general we’re too eager to throw boilerplate at problems, and too reluctant about tools that require learning something extra.
Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
41–50 of 100 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
#42HTML, and retained-mode GUIs and DOMs generally, is all you need. Anything more complex is over-engineering. JavaScript was, broadly speaking, a mistake. 90% of what we need computers to do is do some I/O and put text, colored rectangles, and JPEGs/WEBMs on a screen, and that shouldn't be that complicated.
A lot of good things about way we wrote websites and native applications back in the early 2000's were babies that got thrown out with the bathwater. That's why we can't seem to do what we could do back then anymore--at least not without requiring 4x as many people, 3x as much time, and 20x more computing power.
(Maybe more than a few people on HN will agree with this, now that I think of it...)
Re: Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
#43The actual forms of computing devices have gotten worse and more boring over time. Everything is just a flat slab these days. There seems to be little interest in experimenting with the sculptural design of phones or laptops. A few decades ago, this wasn’t the case.
This is especially relevant with touch screens, which I wish weren’t so omnipresent. I really don’t want to use a touch screen in a car, for example…
Re: Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
#44Clouds are a scam and are designed for: - fools who can't do simple math or read fine print ("have no idea how much 20 $2 per hour instances pumping data at 10 mbit/second add up in a month, and OMG that data is not free when i already pay for the instance?!". And besides they give me a whopping $100,000 credit - that will last eternity!") - corporate tricksters ("if we don't invest into our hardware and buy AWS inst…
Doubt anyone would disagree on that, except those who are very new to the industry. Just like banks, insurances companies and sorts are pure scam, but that's totally different topic.
Don't have much experience with insurance companies - i only use them for mandatory things like health insurance and corporate liability insurance and car insurance - all of which come so cheap here in Europe frankly idgaf if they are indeed scams - plus, my insurer paid a nice amount to the other side when i got into a drunk car accident 13 years ago and i never had a problem with them.
As for banks, what's the problem about them? They get to be a little bit of pain because of KYC, but otherwise, what's wrong about them?
Re: Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
#45So many.
"AI" is the dotcom bubble (notice how every big company HAS to get in on it, no matter how ridiculous their application is?)... Further, it will simply allow those who apply their power unto others to do so in an even more egregious or deeply-reaching way.
Advertising should be illegal.
Proprietary software is basically always a trap (if it's not harmful or coercive at first, it eventually will be, well after you're locked in).
The web has been ruined by turning it into an operating system (also see "advertising should be illegal"). 99% of the time I just want very lightly-styled text, and some images. I don't need (or want) animated, drop-shadowed buttons.
Graphical OS user experience was basically "solved" 30 years ago and there hasn't been much of anything novel since -- in fact, in terms of usability, most newer OSes are far worse to use than, say, Macintosh System 7 (assuming you like a GUI for your OS). The always-online forced updates of modern OSes exacerbates their crappiness -- constant change and thus cognitive load, disrespectfully changing how things work despite how much effort you spent to familiarize yourself with them.
Re: Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
#46HTML, and retained-mode GUIs and DOMs generally, is all you need. Anything more complex is over-engineering. JavaScript was, broadly speaking, a mistake. 90% of what we need computers to do is do some I/O and put text, colored rectangles, and JPEGs/WEBMs on a screen, and that shouldn't be that complicated. A lot of good things about way we wrote websites and native applications back in the early 2000's were babies th…
Oh heck yeah! Fist bump from me, I wrote something fairly similar, haha :)
Re: Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
#47Smartphones are the worst invention of mankind.
Re: Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
#48I have two, at least. 1. Personal names are not generic strings, any more than Dates are numbers or Money is a floating point value. Name, as in a person's given and family name, or whatever, should be a type in every standard library, with behaviors appropriate for the semantics of a Name, language, and country. Yes there are lots of conflicting international differences. We've managed to handle languages and calend…
1. Structure of a name depends on that person, not the country or state or ethnicity. Whatever standards you make, it won't fit.
Re: Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
#49something being powered by "AI" is actually not that strong of a selling point to most normal people. I've seen several ads that say "try , now powered with AI". To me, most people don't want to use something just because it's powered by AI. It's almost like bragging about automated phone systems: "Call our customer service, now powered by automated machines!".
... and listen to the recording "your call is important to us" for 30+ minutes before being connected to some harried, underpaid call-center worker in a low-wage country.
Re: Ask HN: What's a strong tech opinion you have that few agree with you on?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this really an unpopular opinion? I would think most developers would rather develop a solution themselves than rely on a third party library or solution. The problem is speed and cost will never be in favor of a homegrown solution.
In some smaller startups I've been in, they seem allergic to building anything they can just buy and call via an api despite the problems that might cause - it's another level of tech debt imo.
Big non tech companies too. Building means maintenance and potentially specialised skillsets