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> They do not need to know, exactly, how X is built, why it was built that way, or how to write an alternative X from scratch. This speaks to me so strongly. I

> They do not need to know, exactly, how X is built, why it was built that way, or how to write an alternative X from scratch. This speaks to me so strongly. I’ve been doing web development since the mid 90s. I see so many newer developers who just know the latest frameworks (e.g., React), but don’t really understand what came before and why things are done the way they are. I’m flabbergasted at some of the things they do because they don’t really understand what is going on under the hood. They don’t understand when a library/framework/feature is the appropriate tool, and when it is not. I would like to see every tutorial, documentation, etc. explain WHY it is done in this way, WHAT are other/older ways to accomplish the same task and why the new abstraction might fix some issues, WHEN this thing is the appropriate solution and when it might not. Most seem to concentrate on the HOW to use it.

dijit 7y ago
There are people who thought C was a “high level language” and thus, inefficient. We are always abstracting away until we can deliver value. Sometimes we consume so much resources from our abstractions that in order for the value to not be entirely consumed by it, we optimise. But the abstraction trend continues. This doesn’t just apply to software design or digital service infrastructure; it also applies to our entire society. From farming to accounting.
taneq 7y ago
Unless they're goat farming and milling ores with a stone mortar and pestle, everyone exists somewhere in the middle of the overall tech stack. There are more-fundamental things below their range of expertise that they'll have fuzzy theoretical knowledge of, if any. There are more-abstract things above their range of expertise that they probably think are frippy wastes of time. And then there's "real engineering" in the middle. The longer humanity exists, the taller the tech stack gets and the further we get, on average, from goats and ochre.
armandhammer 7y ago
I've run into this recently when trying to launch a new site after being away from web design for nearly 15 years (i.e. since smartphones). The tools, expectations, and target devices are so different now. After looking at the Source of most sites these days, I'm honestly surprised that anything works at all. What can seem to be a simple site on the surface might contain dozens if not hundreds of pages of attached code. Gone are the days where sites used just a few pages of HTML+CSS to display everything. It's rare to find a site designed in the past 3 years and to view the source and think "someone definitely hand coded this" and even more unlikely to find a site that loads less than 1MB of resources these days -- even an old school site like Slashdot is >5MB now. That's insane.

dijit 7y ago

There are people who thought C was a “high level language” and thus, inefficient. We are always abstracting away until we can deliver value. Sometimes we consume so much resources from our abstractions that in order for the value to not be entirely consumed by it, we optimise. But the abstraction trend continues. This doesn’t just apply to software design or digital service infrastructure; it also applies to our entire society. From farming to accounting.

taneq 7y ago

Unless they're goat farming and milling ores with a stone mortar and pestle, everyone exists somewhere in the middle of the overall tech stack. There are more-fundamental things below their range of expertise that they'll have fuzzy theoretical knowledge of, if any. There are more-abstract things above their range of expertise that they probably think are frippy wastes of time. And then there's "real engineering" in the middle. The longer humanity exists, the taller the tech stack gets and the further we get, on average, from goats and ochre.

armandhammer 7y ago

I've run into this recently when trying to launch a new site after being away from web design for nearly 15 years (i.e. since smartphones). The tools, expectations, and target devices are so different now. After looking at the Source of most sites these days, I'm honestly surprised that anything works at all. What can seem to be a simple site on the surface might contain dozens if not hundreds of pages of attached code. Gone are the days where sites used just a few pages of HTML+CSS to display everything. It's rare to find a site designed in the past 3 years and to view the source and think "someone definitely hand coded this" and even more unlikely to find a site that loads less than 1MB of resources these days -- even an old school site like Slashdot is >5MB now. That's insane.