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The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
11–20 of 32 posts
Re: The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
#12I wish I could downvote this post. The examples are bad (react and electron were 100% user driven hits) and the author is frankly kind of toxic.
We can't downvote submissions, but if you think it's bad enough you can always flag it. Or participate in a flame war in the discussion. Both ways can reduce its position on the HN rankings.
Re: The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
#13This is wild.
And somehow at the end of this he comes to the conclusion that software engineers need a union? We're on of the highest paid, most flexible professions ever.
It seems like the thing missing here is the simple fact that engineers DO have significant bargaining power already, and have CHOSEN to use standardized solutions because they are good, well supported, and have wonderful communities of helpful people.
What happened to this guy? Seems incredibly bitter.
Re: The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
#14Feels a lot like a lengthier, polemical way of saying that frameworks become popular because they allow more people to do more stuff more easily. But this is bad because businesses benefit or something.
None of the ideas here stand up to scrutiny. For example, Angular with its more opinionated design and framework approach was a much better choice for regularizing developer effort and making devs fungible. But by all accounts it lost to React, which is frequently criticized in comparison for allowing too much individual variation in development style.
React itself has become increasingly more complex over the years as it's moved up the S curve and the design direction is driven towards more and more remote parts of the problem space. More than ever, it requires specialized knowledge to use correctly.
Svelte - of which the author is a fan - fits his thesis much more than React. Svelte is billed as simpler and easier to learn and use than React, without requiring developers to wrap their heads around concepts like hooks, reducers and suspense.
Re: The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
#15This author slams React but then doesn’t have the guts to list alternatives. Standardized frameworks makes recruitment easier – but it stops there. Once you onboard an employee and they spend considerable time integrating into the company and developing specific knowledge, they are no longer easily replaceable. If they are a key component of the team it will be painful to replace them, it will take years to hire some…
I didn't interpret the author's statement like that. Clever and ergonomic are compliments, and a tech being past its sell-by date isn't a criticism of its design, but more of a statement about needs changing over time.
Re: The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
#16It's weird how this starts out with "nobody knows" and then quickly decides that it's "labour arbitrage".
I'm in a position where at times I select a framework for a new product. I'm often picking these frameworks just as much based on the ability for everyone to effectively work with and communicate with other developers easily, as much as the framework's technical aspects.
Franky I'm more concerned with developers being able to work happily and efficiently than "labour arbitrage".
I feel like the author could write off any found efficiency as "labour arbitrage".
Re: The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
#17This is wild. And somehow at the end of this he comes to the conclusion that software engineers need a union? We're on of the highest paid, most flexible professions ever. It seems like the thing missing here is the simple fact that engineers DO have significant bargaining power already, and have CHOSEN to use standardized solutions because they are good, well supported, and have wonderful communities of helpful peop…
I don't even know what the writer thinks a union is going to do.
"No react, that's too much labour arbitrage!" ?
Re: The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
#18Wow this is about as cynical as it’s possible to be about real, tangible technological progress. I strongly disagree with the authors conclusions about the technologies and the premise. This is truly peak HN content.
I have no real opinion on MongoDB or React, but Electron is technological regress, not progress. Any software made with it is at best mediocre, and more often terrible. The author is quite right to criticize it.
Re: The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
#19Labor wage arbitrage has always been a thing.
Work from home very much encourages it long term, even if not so much short term.
Re: The labour arbitrage theory of dev tool popularity
#20Wow this is about as cynical as it’s possible to be about real, tangible technological progress. I strongly disagree with the authors conclusions about the technologies and the premise. This is truly peak HN content.
I have no real opinion on MongoDB or React, but Electron is technological regress, not progress. Any software made with it is at best mediocre, and more often terrible. The author is quite right to criticize it.
I love VS Code!