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This is a really good idea! Along those lines: maybe we could use a middleware pattern for APIs, frameworks, etc where the interface/package would be built as

This is a really good idea! Along those lines: maybe we could use a middleware pattern for APIs, frameworks, etc where the interface/package would be built as a layer above two or more services. That way the developer could switch between them at any time, or even failover automatically. So for example, rather than going onto GitHub to download an SDK for something like Mailgun, you'd download a middleware framework built on Mailgun and Sendgrid. This pattern could be used to identify vulnerabilities in software at the conceptual level, by helping developers to avoid marrying their code to individual providers like AWS. Some mission critical software could even be certified as using all adversarial interoperability frameworks. It could even help third party services pull themselves up by their bootstraps, if they get added to one of these middlewares. An instant user base without having to rely on marketing or word of mouth. And could be used to identify monopolies when there's no middleware for a service.

3pt14159 5y ago
I was advocating for this for years but gave up when I talked to someone at Pager Duty that was just straight out against it. For almost irrational reasons. I kept trying to make the case that for a company like their that literally can't be taken offline without risking huge chunks of the internet why wouldn't they want to run their whole business on an abstracted away platform to, say, switch to Windows if linux had a 0day, etc. > Too many moving pieces. Too much work. It still boggles my mind that this is the way we do things. "Patch fast!" Ok cool. That's going to keep working out forever.
barnabee 5y ago
I totally agree. I would love to have applications that are more tools than products and weave together these APIs and middlewares, both in querying and visualising, combining, enriching, analysing, filtering etc. data and also taking the output and actioning it. With the amount of data and services that are now available online we should have superhuman capabilities but the productisation of the internet has left us stuck in company run silos fighting “user journeys”, undocumented APIs and EULAs.

3pt14159 5y ago

I was advocating for this for years but gave up when I talked to someone at Pager Duty that was just straight out against it. For almost irrational reasons. I kept trying to make the case that for a company like their that literally can't be taken offline without risking huge chunks of the internet why wouldn't they want to run their whole business on an abstracted away platform to, say, switch to Windows if linux had a 0day, etc. > Too many moving pieces. Too much work. It still boggles my mind that this is the way we do things. "Patch fast!" Ok cool. That's going to keep working out forever.

barnabee 5y ago

I totally agree. I would love to have applications that are more tools than products and weave together these APIs and middlewares, both in querying and visualising, combining, enriching, analysing, filtering etc. data and also taking the output and actioning it. With the amount of data and services that are now available online we should have superhuman capabilities but the productisation of the internet has left us stuck in company run silos fighting “user journeys”, undocumented APIs and EULAs.