Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech” • Hacker News Board

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#21

Post by yipbub » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:19 AM UTC

In our own spheres of tech, we have a nostalgia for the childhood that we missed. A childhood where everything was still new and magical. Where fairies might plausibly be lurking around the corner. Things like realizing that phone lines were using sounds as control signals let you play in this field more easily. I imagine living in the era where they were just realizing that you could define a common interface for different instruction sets that allowed portability and I wonder how many of those ideas I would have come up with.

That's what I attribute "golden age" talk to. I guess the author's point is that there are other field of technology that are currently young. I agree, but it's not exactly the same magic: Computer Tech is uniquely accessible, and our freedom to explore and play in other fields is limited by the current economic situation.

However, even if I'd been born earlier, the golden age wouldn't have been as accessible to me geographically (I'd be in , India).

Also, my current goal is to get myself to a place where I can play in mature fields and explore younger ones.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#22

Post by tsimionescu » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:21 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #9

jbay808 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author's point is that modern toolchains make spinning up a basic web app more like following a recipe, and as such is free of many (novel) technical challenges. As technology goes, it's still complex, but so is building a microwave oven and yet we don't call GE's white goods department a tech company. It's a challenge that's already been tackled and is well understood. If your web app is doing something…

There is a great spanish saying (I got this from historical fiction) "let no new thing arise" Vonnegut wrote a course for eng. lit creative writing on the 7 canonical plotlines of all stories. ever. I thought "goodness whats the point in writing now" but it hasn't stopped people making good entertaining fiction All code is variations over abstraction, synthesis, loops, decision forks, recursion (tail or not) and all…

That's not really true. Unless you're specifically following a recipe, chances are most of what you're doing has never been done before, at least in some aspects of it.

But I do think it's a bad way of evaluating this. Personally, I would say that a more important distinction between tech and "tech" is the degree to which the technology makes or breaks the business.

For example, for Uber, the tech is an enabler, but the business is made or broken by the cabs, the vetting, the pricing, the number of cabs they can hire, the salaries and benefits they can avoid etc. Sure, the tech has to work, but there is no reason that Uber would be falling behind if their tech went into maintenance mode today - even if their competitors kept investing in new tech. So, Uber is a "tech" company in my book (even though they have spent inordinate amounts of money on the tech before).

On the other hand, a company like Cisco must make ever better routers or Arista or F5 or whoever will quickly steal their lunch. So Cisco is a tech company, at least on the NEM side.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#23

Post by waheoo » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

> But people don't talk about ancient inventions as "technology", outside of a historical context. When we call something technology, we generally mean something invented recently

This is rediculous, the whole articles schtick is based on an inline redefining of the word its about.

Well I guess the sky isn't blue anymore because the word blue doesn't mean blue anymore, it means red.

I dunno about you all, but when I talk about technology, I am referring to the accepted definition meaning. Not "recent tech", although a lot of contexts this can be assumed.

But nobody out there is assuming you mean recent tech when you're talking about ancient Egyptian technology.

Words mean things, so does context, stop trying to redefine the meaning of words all the time, it's tiring, and we usually have a word for what you want to convey already.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#24

Post by AlchemistCamp » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:27 AM UTC

waheoo wrote: post #23

> But people don't talk about ancient inventions as "technology", outside of a historical context. When we call something technology, we generally mean something invented recently This is rediculous, the whole articles schtick is based on an inline redefining of the word its about. Well I guess the sky isn't blue anymore because the word blue doesn't mean blue anymore, it means red. I dunno about you all, but when I…

Do you refer to cars, microwaves, refrigerators or light bulbs as "tech"?

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#25

Post by adrianN » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:27 AM UTC

In this thread: heated discussions that boil down to different definitions of the word "tech".

Since "tech" is mostly a marketing term, this seems fairly pointless. For suitable definitions, a real-estate company is hot "tech". For other reasonable definitions anything that is is mass production is not "tech".

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#26

Post by tsimionescu » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:30 AM UTC

bfuclusion wrote: post #12

From it's own definitions this article is patently false. Quote: "applying scientific knowledge for practical purposes" You're doing that when you try to reduce time to display from 1 second to 1000ms, when trying to chose algorithms that better match your users real usage of the site, to just plain moving a button a few pixels so people see it better. It doesn't have to be the new shiny to make an actual impact.

The article explicitly gives that definition to show that everything is tech by the dictionary - from fire and pottery to vertical-landing rockets and quantum computers. It then points out that the common-use definition of tech has more to do with the (fuzzy) novelty of the scientific discovery than with the existence of it.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#27

Post by AlchemistCamp » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:32 AM UTC

waheoo wrote: post #20

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're doing something that's been widespread for 15 years, you'll likely have so much competition that it will be about marketing, not technology.

You're confusing innovation and technology. And the gatekeeping is really unbecoming.

Gatekeeping? Literally, the entire thrust is encouraging someone just getting started.

Large companies gatekeep the markets that boomed in the 2000s, but there's still a lot of open space and there will be more waves to catch.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#28

Post by lmm » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:34 AM UTC

konart wrote: post #15

So unless you are building a strong AI or a full-dive VR set you are not building `tech`?

If you're building a website for a non-tech business (e.g. an online store) then that's pretty much a commodified industry at this point, no more "tech" than e.g. building a building or a bridge. Not saying that there isn't important, valuable work, and even certain kinds of innovation involved, but it's a different kind of thing from work that's inherently about applying genuinely novel scientific advances.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#29

Post by AlchemistCamp » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:40 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #25

In this thread: heated discussions that boil down to different definitions of the word "tech". Since "tech" is mostly a marketing term, this seems fairly pointless. For suitable definitions, a real-estate company is hot "tech". For other reasonable definitions anything that is is mass production is not "tech".

My intents were:

1) Share something I found profoundly encouraging for newcomers trying to make a dent with their technical skills

2) Explore how conflating two different (but overlapping) things we use the same word for makes it easy to mistakenly feel like it's "too late" to make a dent with technical skills.

Given just how many people got upset after interpreting it along entirely different lines, this piece is clearly going to take some more revision.

Re: Web apps aren't tech. They're “tech”

#30

Post by donmb » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 6:42 AM UTC

Ok we got it. Websites/Online-Stores and custom coded backends are not "tech" according to the article (much as CDs/Videos are not tech). But still the ways of building these things change every day. UX/UI patterns change. Frontend Frameworks change. Its all about the tech in "tech" in my opinion. The web and how we perceive content in 10 years will be much different than it is today and its our job to make this happen.