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Building for the 99% Developers

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Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#181

Post by oxplot »

rlt wrote: post #89
oxplot wrote: post #62

Here are my rules for picking framework/languages: - Avoid if specifically mentions big companies as users: Facebook, Twitter, Google, these have as many devs as needed to throw at the most trivial tasks, and then some. I am in a team of 3 that need to get shit done, not chase package manager and compiler throw-ups. Tell me your language is used by a one person show to serve millions of people and then I'll listen. -…

Serious "get off my lawn" vibes. These might be ok heuristics, but it's pretty limiting to not use some tech just because a big company uses it.

Yes, heuristics.

Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#182

Post by trasz »

TameAntelope wrote: post #43
LAC-Tech wrote: post #16

IME most small software companies could be run off SQLite, a $5 linux VPS, vanilla JS, and a single line deploy script. (Pieter Levels seems like the master at this) I'd never bother suggesting it though: - no one likes being told they're small when they think they're big - it's bad for devs careers (Resume-Driven Development) - as TFA points out - it's not what FAANG are doing so I'd lack legitimacy

It'd be a nightmare to support for anything more than trivially simple, though.

Quite the opposite: the simpler the stack is, the easier to debug it is; also fewer moving parts means fewer things that break.

Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#183

Post by mro_name »

juliendorra wrote: post #179
mro_name wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't believe accountants care about anything but the market leader, do you?

Microsoft wasn’t the clear market leader in the 70s and 80s. Look for example at the spreadsheet. Multiplan was loosing against Lotus 123. (123 being the VisiCalc killer itself) Microsoft first launched Multiplan as its spreadsheet software on Macintosh (1984), it was something like the 22th or 23rd port of Multiplan! Then in 1985 very first version of Excel (Macintosh only) It was an incredible step up from text-scr…

They were the market leader for PC operating systems since they entered the market with MS-Dos and managed to preserve that monopoly after the transition from TUI to GUI.

And later they expanded into applications as we know today and built monopolies for email, texts, presentations, spreadsheets and browsing the information superhighway. All prior art, indeed, near zero innovation.

The accountants love it.

Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#184

Post by ignoramous »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #108

In the 90s-00s, when I was a younger, (even) more arrogant nerd, I looked down on Microsoft and their stupid technologies: Visual Basic, Access, Word, and more. Simple, limited tools that I only saw ugly, half-broken systems built with. Until I saw a something by Steve Ballmer (I think), explaining that their strategy was to provide tools for those "99% developers". The ones who don't read HN, the ones who don't code…

Reminds me of:

> Here's my point: yes, the whole Internet runs on Unix philosophy. But businesses sure don't. The big problem comes up in my description of pipelines up above: they only parse about 99% correctly, which is fine for your idiotic comments about YouTube videos, but pretty nasty when you mangle critical business data. And when the business dudes get involved, they'd rather do anything than mangle their critical business data. You hear me? Anything!

> If it keeps the data from getting mangled, they'd happily sacrifice searchability. Or developer hours. Or the ability to use off-the-shelf software. Or millions of dollars in licensing fees (because at least they'll accurately know how many millions).

> Pay attention, because that attitude is exactly why Windows is so strong, why the vast majority of developers prefer to develop on Windows, and why the vast majority of users prefer to use Windows. It may be gross, and adding new features or libraries may be a lot like stabbing yourself repeatedly with a fork (which, tragically, is not itself included in Win32), but Windows works consistently. So does SOAP. But not Unix or microformats or REST.

> It would be awesome if someone could find a way to satisfy both camps (the Internet people and the Enterprise people) at once. Then maybe one or the other set of technologies could finally die. But I'm not counting on it. Until then, one or the other technology is effectively dead, but which one it is depends who you are.

From: Novel, yes; widespread, no (2006), https://apenwarr.ca/log/20061201

Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#185

Post by cebert »

I believe Serverless technologies are a game changer for the 99%. I work at a firm that could be considered part of the 99%. We build mission critical apps, but don’t have entire teams dedicated to building platforms or managing Kubernetes. Most of our talent is average compared to FAANG. We don’t have SREs or developer advocates, but we do have customers who rely on our software for life and death situations.

Serverless technologies help us build scalable, highly-available, and performant cloud applications that run by default in multiple availability zones and multi-region with minimal additional effort. We leverage GitHub Actions to drive our CI/CD process and automated testing. Instead of focusing on managing servers and cloud infrastructure, us simple 99% developers, those who get passed up by FAANG and Leetcode grinder interviews, can build solid applications that provide value to our customers and generate nice profit margins. The 99% can deliver apps that can perform similar to the 1% with far less complexity.

Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#186

Post by urthor »

ignoramous wrote: post #184
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #108

In the 90s-00s, when I was a younger, (even) more arrogant nerd, I looked down on Microsoft and their stupid technologies: Visual Basic, Access, Word, and more. Simple, limited tools that I only saw ugly, half-broken systems built with. Until I saw a something by Steve Ballmer (I think), explaining that their strategy was to provide tools for those "99% developers". The ones who don't read HN, the ones who don't code…

Reminds me of: > Here's my point: yes, the whole Internet runs on Unix philosophy. But businesses sure don't. The big problem comes up in my description of pipelines up above: they only parse about 99% correctly, which is fine for your idiotic comments about YouTube videos, but pretty nasty when you mangle critical business data. And when the business dudes get involved, they'd rather do anything than mangle their cr…

...we fixed this, right? Good ole fellas at Red Hat yeah? And by kicking and screaming until corporate sent us some Macbooks.

...right?

Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#187

Post by zozbot234 »

cebert wrote: post #185

I believe Serverless technologies are a game changer for the 99%. I work at a firm that could be considered part of the 99%. We build mission critical apps, but don’t have entire teams dedicated to building platforms or managing Kubernetes. Most of our talent is average compared to FAANG. We don’t have SREs or developer advocates, but we do have customers who rely on our software for life and death situations. Server…

CGI was the first Serverless technology. Then PHP did it even better.

Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#188

Post by pokepim »

cebert wrote: post #185

I believe Serverless technologies are a game changer for the 99%. I work at a firm that could be considered part of the 99%. We build mission critical apps, but don’t have entire teams dedicated to building platforms or managing Kubernetes. Most of our talent is average compared to FAANG. We don’t have SREs or developer advocates, but we do have customers who rely on our software for life and death situations. Server…

100% agree. Even tough i work at F500 company our team acts like a startup. With server less we don’t need to hire expensive devops and shell out millions for expensive k8s clusters. I am pretty sure it’s the future for most of us.

Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#189

Post by urthor »

Jensson wrote: post #139
jl6 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% programmers need to pick up stuff, carry stuff, and throw stuff. 1% programmers are like circus jugglers - the same basic thing, but taken to a breathtaking extreme. They are skilful and impressive, but the scenarios where you need them are rare.

Those scenarios are rare if you have gotten used to what 99% can and can't do and therefore just dismiss many solutions without thinking since you know the 99% can't do those thing. Of course your competitors will do the same, you can't scale up an organization of top 1% professionals, so you don't really need them to compete in the market but you do really need them to solve a lot of problems. Just that today those…

As one of the 99%.

What are some of these problems exactly, that me and my extremely large toolkit of cool things I can curl from Github can't solve?

Because I'm not a genius.

But I'm real good at stapling together some useful crap.

Re: Building for the 99% Developers

#190

Post by emrahsamdan »

zozbot234 wrote: post #187
cebert wrote: post #185

I believe Serverless technologies are a game changer for the 99%. I work at a firm that could be considered part of the 99%. We build mission critical apps, but don’t have entire teams dedicated to building platforms or managing Kubernetes. Most of our talent is average compared to FAANG. We don’t have SREs or developer advocates, but we do have customers who rely on our software for life and death situations. Server…

CGI was the first Serverless technology. Then PHP did it even better.

Serverless as a term mixed up with FaaS. In 2022, Serverless is more general as it can be defined anything that autoscales to infinity and scales to zero when not used and pay per use. Amazon DynamoDB is also serverless in that sense for example.
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