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Interesting. I'm familiar with the meta as it relates to gaming (I follow SC2 pretty closely, though I basically never play anymore). I am curious to explore wh

Interesting. I'm familiar with the meta as it relates to gaming (I follow SC2 pretty closely, though I basically never play anymore). I am curious to explore what the meta is as it relates to building web apps, or building software systems. I guess in web apps, the meta has evolved away from stateful and towards stateless applications, rigid to ephemeral infrastructure, and away from big kitchen sink frameworks towards smaller tools built for specific purposes (here I'm thinking like netlify, react-cli / vue-cli, serverless and aws lambda compatible frameworks and languages). In database land, I think there's a bit of reversal towards a happy medium between Relational and No SQL with the whole NewSQL trend (though I think most people just end up using whatever they're comfortable with). I think the concept of 'covered ground' is especially fascinating when it comes to thinking about the meta of building web apps. Do you really appreciate the trade offs between MySQL and MongoDB, if you haven't ran into the scaling issues between the two? I don't think "running a bad migration" is covering enough ground to appreciate the differences. Is struggling to wrangle a bug in an Angular 1 directive enough 'covered ground' to understand the meta in building frontend applications? And I wonder if the meta is moving towards low code and no code frameworks. Dark Lang looks pretty cool, though I've never really used it. Retool proved really valuable for internal dashboards for managing customer support at my last company. You could explore the meta at a more fine grained level than just 'web apps', or zoom out to software in general and try to understand the meta (just like you could analyze why certain units in SC2 are just broken, or understand why the economies of the different races mean different opportunities for timing attacks for each race)

xixixao 7y ago
The meta in software engineering in general is people. Once you have sufficient technical expertise, you realize that the largest gains come from working efficiently with others.
- digibo 7y ago
  I wouldn't say that working efficiently with people directly counts as "meta". Productive cooperation with others sounds like a straightforward skill to improve, with no new rules being introduced. Maybe new company/team organizational approaches or methodologies (Waterfall, Kanban, etc.) can count as playing the meta and give you an edge over the competition.
- meristem 7y ago
  I'd say 'effectively' over 'efficiently'
streb-lo 7y ago
You're using 'meta' as a synonym for popular. Metagame is the 'game outside the game' ie in rock paper scissors the game is trivial the metagame involves guessing what the opponent will pick. Meta-software-engineering would be things outside of your software stack that affect the overall process. People, sleep patterns, office layouts, commute time, corporate culture etc.
- floatrock 7y ago
  There's the classic "startup engineer" metagame: hop from startup to startup to build up an options portfolio. Stay until the 1-year cliff, exercise whatever options you get, and move on to the next one so you've hedged your bet over as many promising companies as possible.
  - streb-lo 7y ago
    Yes that's a good one.
  - darkwizard42 7y ago
    Yes, excellent analogy!
- mangoman 7y ago
  I think you're correct about the meta of software engineering. People, Remote Work, Culture hacks are metagaming attributes of building a company or startup. I was thinking more specifically about building web apps (or software systems). I think there's something there as well
edw 7y ago
The process of building things is embedded in various contexts. As is the process of being paid to build things. And those contexts are themselves embedded in other contexts. There are first-, second-, third-, nth-order "smart" moves in a given situation given the specific contexts in play. In terms of creating web apps or other software, there are organizational, hiring, funding, exit, marketing, and many other meta-games going on — and they're all in constant flux.

xixixao 7y ago

The meta in software engineering in general is people. Once you have sufficient technical expertise, you realize that the largest gains come from working efficiently with others.

digibo 7y ago
I wouldn't say that working efficiently with people directly counts as "meta". Productive cooperation with others sounds like a straightforward skill to improve, with no new rules being introduced. Maybe new company/team organizational approaches or methodologies (Waterfall, Kanban, etc.) can count as playing the meta and give you an edge over the competition.
meristem 7y ago
I'd say 'effectively' over 'efficiently'

streb-lo 7y ago

You're using 'meta' as a synonym for popular. Metagame is the 'game outside the game' ie in rock paper scissors the game is trivial the metagame involves guessing what the opponent will pick. Meta-software-engineering would be things outside of your software stack that affect the overall process. People, sleep patterns, office layouts, commute time, corporate culture etc.

floatrock 7y ago
There's the classic "startup engineer" metagame: hop from startup to startup to build up an options portfolio. Stay until the 1-year cliff, exercise whatever options you get, and move on to the next one so you've hedged your bet over as many promising companies as possible.
- streb-lo 7y ago
  Yes that's a good one.
- darkwizard42 7y ago
  Yes, excellent analogy!
mangoman 7y ago
I think you're correct about the meta of software engineering. People, Remote Work, Culture hacks are metagaming attributes of building a company or startup. I was thinking more specifically about building web apps (or software systems). I think there's something there as well

edw 7y ago

The process of building things is embedded in various contexts. As is the process of being paid to build things. And those contexts are themselves embedded in other contexts. There are first-, second-, third-, nth-order "smart" moves in a given situation given the specific contexts in play. In terms of creating web apps or other software, there are organizational, hiring, funding, exit, marketing, and many other meta-games going on — and they're all in constant flux.