Ask HN: What is your unpopular opinion about tech? - zkid18
======
matt_s
A lot of software engineers waste time re-writing other peoples code or
creating something new that is "better" because they didn't like someone's
code and the outputs are the same.

I'm going to pick on Javascript as an example, I'm sure there are examples in
other areas.

Dynamically loading content in web applications has been supported for almost
15 years [0]. Manipulating the DOM has existed longer than that, remember the
browser wars [1]? How many JS frameworks have been invented in that time? How
many of those caused a fundamental positive shift in the output vs. just a
slightly different way to arrange the symbols and words in a text file?

The concept for a tablet computing device happened in the 1960's at PARC [2].

Maybe reinventing the wheel every few years is holding back our ability to
make true leaps forward.

[0] XHR support in IE7 in 2006:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook)

~~~
shahbaby
I think the reason for this is that there's more to gain from inventing your
own system that gets popular than there is from contributing to an already
existing one.

------
rl3
One side effect of the traditional funding model is that it allows FAANG-scale
companies to exist in perpetual monopoly, because it gives them the luxury of
crushing, copying or acquiring any potential threats early on.

Both vision and basic research are basically neglected to the point it's
laughable. Instead, what gets funded are half-baked ideas turned into MVPs by
Ivy League CS grads with silver spoons hanging out of their mouths, whom
unironically wear company hoodies (they didn't get the memo Mike Judge was
making fun of them), and who hopped on the latest bandwagon for whatever
trend, burning millions creating an acquisition target that adds no value to
the world, at best.

Oh, and a cool 90% of the modern web development ecosystem probably shouldn't
exist and is pretty much poorly-engineered trash.

------
BoysenberryPi
I find the people in the tech space to be absolutely dreadful to be honest.
Hacker News is no exception to this. I'm probably not an exception to this.
Talking to other people in tech is just incredibly draining.

~~~
sgillen
Hmm could you be more specific?

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surround
I wish advertising didn’t exist. Not just on the internet, but everywhere else
too.

Ads encourage people to buy stuff they probably don’t need. They incentivize
clickbait and tracking. And most online advertising is probably a waste of
money anyways. [1]

How then, you might ask, will content and services be paid for?

Sponsorships are not a solution for the same reasons.

The Brave browser is not a solution. [2]

I think the solution is to pay for everything with donations and crowdfunding.
This model incentivizes doing what’s beat for the end-user. Great examples of
this include Wikipedia and the Internet Archive.

If ads were banned, many websites would die, and I would be ok with that. Only
the ones that are the best for _users_ would survive.

[1] [https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-
is-h...](https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-here-its-
called-online-advertising/)

[2] [https://rudism.com/the-brave-browser-is-
brilliant/](https://rudism.com/the-brave-browser-is-brilliant/)

~~~
s1t5
> I think the solution is to pay for everything with donations and
> crowdfunding.

Good will doesn't scale up enough to cover the entirety of the internet. And
ultimately that leads to more paywalls being put up.

------
shahbaby
A better hiring process which is still scalable is possible.

For example, some simple leetcode question that will filter out a fair number
of people. After that it should just be based on first come first serve.

Why? Becauae as you keep increasing leetcode difficulty, you're going from one
extreme (can't code fizzbuzz) to another extreme (competitive programmer or
someone who just got really lucky).

Most will agree that there's lots of luck involved in the interview process so
why not have most of this luck simply be a matter of applying on time?

By having the luck factor in leetcode, we have to keep those skills sharp for
the rest of our careers.

This is also a loss for the employer since the leetcode prep is a significant
time sink which has nothing to do with the job.

If when you applied was the factor used to break ties, recruiting cycles would
also be shorter and candidates would bring more job relevant skills.

Overall it's a win for everyone but it won't happen because the people who
could actually change this have no incentive to do so.

------
dave_sid
Young developers have it easy these days. It’s cool to be a developer and you
get to write code while wearing cool T-shirt’s. When I graduated I was
probably considered as being about as cool as an accountant in a cardigan. Old
developers should get some extra respect for doing it when it wasn’t a cool
job. Maybe a yearly bonus.

~~~
krapp
OK boomer.

~~~
dave_sid
Hahaha. I’m THAT old. But I do have respect for the boomers as it must have
been even more nerdy to be a coder in those days. Give them a pay rise.

------
decasteve
That the term ‘tech’ has become synonymous with the embrace/extend/extinguish,
business practices. Quarter of a century’s old computing/internet tools are
still called ‘technology’. The word has lost its meaning.

------
dakiol
Hiring. Companies hire, hire and hire like there's no tomorrow. There's zero
incentive in becoming a stable business without keep growing every year. No.
Instead companies want to get bigger, to hire more and to add features to a
product until it gets rotten.

"Let's grow!" is the mantra in the tech industry, which to me is parallel to
the idea " let's keep augmenting the population of this planet, there are
resources for everyone!"

------
CM30
Modern web technology is fine, including HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Having say,
the ability to track a device's gyro sensor or check power levels or do 3D
animations in a browser isn't an issue, the problem is that many developers
build every site like an 'app', even when it doesn't need to be.

A lot of people may be nostalgic for the 90s or what not, but it's a good
thing the world moved on, standards evolved and tech got better.

------
knopkop_
Some things were better before tech.

Back in the day you walked to the phone booth once a week to talk to family
members that are far away. Nowadays they can contact you 24/7.

------
krapp
The ability to run code on the web is neither an aberration nor a corruption
of its intent, but a logical evolution of integrating new media types
following from improvements in computing, browser and infrastructure
technology. Furthermore, running code on the web serves the same purpose as
the hypertext/media web of decentralizing access to information and platforms
to publish information.

------
stakkur
Children don't need to 'learn to code'.

~~~
dave_sid
Spot on! You don’t see the accounting industry spewing out tedious campaigns
encourage kinds to indulge in the fun of spreadsheets. Does my head in. Leave
the kids alone nerds!

------
alexmingoia
\- FAANG are all great companies, that make great products, and most of their
users and customers love them. They shouldn’t be regulated, or broken up.

\- Online advertising is a great business model, and targeted advertising
doesn’t harm anyone.

\- Technology doesn’t threaten privacy, it enables it.

~~~
nunez
Agreed. Breaking up FAANG just because "FAANG bad" would be a terrible move.
BUs within FAANGs operate like multiple companies already; having them be
their own distinct business entities would just result in them creating
umbrella companies.

Also, making MULTIPLE products that EVERYONE uses is really, really hard.
These companies manage to do that and have enough budget to experiment.

Also Also, getting a software engineering job in a FAANG is still, 20 years
later, a solid path to prosperity, which is rare

~~~
yeswecatan
To be fair Facebook bought many of their successful products.

------
scott31
Functional programming is overrated

~~~
quickthrower2
It is BUT it’s still useful. Chisels are overtated

~~~
decasteve
Chisels are underrated! A well sharpened and honed chisel is a beautiful thing
to behold.

------
nunez
Most hot tech is just company-sponsored resume-driven development

JavaScript moving server-side is a massive regression in software engineering

Chrome is the new Internet Explorer. That is not a good thing.

~~~
l33tbro
Chrome is far worse than IE. Today it's more akin to an Apple product than a
Microsoft one.

------
blandflakes
Protobuf is not really a great specification for contracts when used outside
of gRPC.

Containers are another "worse is better" situation and it's shocking that
docker has won so hard given its relatively flawed implementation on OSX.

Rust is overused.

Go is too low-level for its ultimate sweet spot as a language for building
command line tools and services.

There is no really great build tool for JVM languages, yet I still find their
build ecosystems far more robust than those of JS or Python.

~~~
non-entity
I really want to like Rust, but the parts of the community are just so
offputting.

~~~
blandflakes
I wonder if that was the unpopular opinion that triggered the downvotes? Odd,
in a thread soliciting them :)

------
kgraves
Every VC funded tech startup is built to embark on the 'incredible journey' of
the pursuit amassing troves of data in the name of surveillance capitalism; a
long line of fake trojan horses proposed to customers like drugs, with the
goal of bidding and courting for a 10x acquisition to the big tech companies,
so that they can continue their rampant spying on their customers.

These startups have the same goals as cancer, growth at all costs.

------
giantg2
There's too much emphasis on technology and technology products. Most tech
today is just a rehash of an older product or hardware producing money for the
corporate overlords while providing little additional value to the end user.
Tech will not save us, if anything it will only speed up our demise by
creating the illusion that it will solve all our problems.

------
mortivore
Tech salaries would be higher if unions were prevalent.

Vue is going to beat out React and Angular.

Anti-patterns are just patterns that some people don't like.

------
dave_sid
You don’t need to replace your Jenkins/CI CD tools every week just because an
new tool has been invented.

Actually... you don’t need to replace your tool X every week just because a
new tool Y has been invented that does the same thing but has a much less
support.

~~~
yoda_yoda
shiny object syndrome

~~~
dave_sid
Magpie Driven Development

------
dakiol
We should stop taking FAANG-like companies as examples of everything:

\- they do not represent the majority of tech companies

\- the majority of devs out there do not work for them/won't work for them

\- their techniques/processes/rules do not apply to the majority of tech
companies

------
moksly
PHP is great.

~~~
k0t0n0
For building web applications. For anything else it sucks big time.

------
aaron695
Augmented Reality having any use has no basis in logic or reason and is a
prime example of the mass delusions that exist within the tech industry.

~~~
burntoutfire
AR will make tons of sense when/if someone managed to develop the glasses for
it. Before that, it's mostly a stupid gimmick.

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frou_dh
TUIs (distinct from CLIs) are mostly godawful and fetishising programs that
run inside Terminal Emulators is a phase people grow out of.

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SirensOfTitan
On here: cloud managed kubernetes is a completely reasonable way for small
teams to deploy their applications.

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thirtythree
Angular is better than React

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k0t0n0
Every system should record all events.

Ex user crested add an event, updated add an event.

------
k0t0n0
\- both static and dynamic languages sucks, there should be a hybrid.

------
trumbitta2
Array methods in JavaScript should all always return a new array.

