What are the computer hipsters using these days?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > What are the computer hipsters using these days?

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

typescript, weirdly enough

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 01:28

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 13:57

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

oh, also elixir

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 01:28

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

oh if you're an actual tru hipster you're doing solarpunk poo poo like uxntal

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 04:13

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Cybernetic Vermin posted:

typescript seems up there, but on the other end of the spectrum there's a lot of noise around zig.

zig!? what you say!!!

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 13:13

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

FalseNegative posted:

I'm learning Rust and love Elixir (Although more for the OTP model more than the language itself).

Also this uxntal thing rocks. I got 0 clue how to write for a stack machine. One more thing on my todo list!

I actually patreonise some guys who have made a pretty good uxn tutorial series and a book and a YouTube, I recommend you check it out

the way I was leaning it before was implementing my own VM and compiler in Swift which was really fun but I got a bunch of stuff wrong because the docs are super terse and I had to revert to the source code and asking the creator questions.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 23:54

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Poopernickel posted:

is the concept dead, or do the youngs just have a different word now?

'totally poggers'

# ¿ Jan 21, 2022 05:49

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Poopernickel posted:

from urban dictionary:

you're going to have a better time using parental educational website kids n clicks dot com

or 5 minutes on tiktok

# ¿ Jan 21, 2022 06:55

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Progressive JPEG posted:

i'm working on some typescript node stuff atm and it's just not clear why would you do this instead of just using any of the better language/environment/tooling/ecosystems that are available

like it probably makes sense for your web client or whatever where your options are all horrible but for server stuff it's just bonkers, so this is probably more of a complaint about node than typescript specifically

on the plus side the work is mainly replacing and bulk deleting the typescript so it's very satisfying

there honestly isn't a business case for writing server software in anything except javascript/typescript.

1. if you write reasonably complex things for the web you have to know javascript. even if you use a fancy dan transpilation language like elm or clojurescript or whatever you still gotta know the underlying js or you are in for a world of hurt and you can't use anyone else's poo poo

2. if you want your cool react web app to work properly for crawlers you need to do universal rendering, so the server has to do javascript anyway

3. backends are just a thin, easy layer of glue between your front end, totally managed PaaSes, auth providers and hosted serverless databases/document stores so it's insane to break out another language for that anyway. edge compute is amazing now, essentially a bit of browser that you can trust. and a lot of the time you can eliminate backend code entirely

4. why would you make it so any percentage of your team couldn't work on any part of the project, because:

5. if you can get, effectively, a mid-level full stack engineer for the price (and ubiquity) of a javascript developer you would be a raving madman not to

i hate it, really, i like being a polyglot and i keep going at work 'hey wow elixir is really cool and performant' and 'rust sure has a lot of people who are in to it hey' and they're like ahahah yeah get back to typescripting. and they're right

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 14:54

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Progressive JPEG posted:

oh okay well the project isn't a web backend so

if it doesn't have or use any kind of user interface you could make a case. most software does, though, and good luck selling that it shouldn't be the one everyone already has installed on every screen in their home/car/rocketship, has zero installation friction and no gatekeepers wanting a cut

DaTroof posted:

"but doctor," the patient sobbed, "i work for the paas provider!"

fortunately it seems like a lot of paas providers these days just do complexity arbitrage on the other harder to use paas providers

Lady Radia posted:

so do you do anything except build crud apis or

e: this sounds meaner than i meant it to im sorry

Progressive JPEG posted:

if all you're doing is maintaining a crud app that serves 5 qps then using javascript is probably a fine way to save money since that kind of thing is pretty much a solved problem in any language, so it doesn't hurt to just use what the entry-level javascript-only devs that you exclusively hire already know

but it quickly falls apart for the project when you get out of the world of trivial crud apps. suddenly your entry-level devs are faced with having to reinvent, debug, and maintain things that have already been done better in langs/runtimes/ecosystems, ultimately taking more time than just using the right tools for the job

but giving your developers the opportunity to learn the right tools and practices would mean that suddenly they aren't entry-level anymore and can move on to someplace that's less stingy, and who would want that?

i think that people's use of the word 'trivial' is an awesome shibboleth for determining if someone is a mid or senior engineer and something i look for when i interview applicants. mid levels will use 'trivial' dismissively. but trivial means obvious when it's wrong, cheap to debug and comprehensible by non-technicals. so a senior understands that when something is trivial it is a gift from the solution designer and will use it reverently. and a good solution designer understands that their job is to minimise complexity from the top down, to run to ground requirements that prevent software from being trivial.

we finished a project last year that does $20-200 million a day of business at national scale, that turned a BU trying to make a profit to a BU trying to be a billion dollar company. there aren't many people who would describe that as trivial. but it was a full on JAMstack app on Next.js.

the amount of things that javascript doesn't have a best in class library for is almost nothing and rapidly shrinking. because it has the most engineers. because it has the most companies. because it has the most engineers to recruit and libraries to use. it's not even the cheapest at this point, it's just being able to recruit full stop.

as i said, i wish this wasn't the case, but as someone whose job includes making a business case internally and to clients, it is very difficult. you can't really put 'fuzzy happy feelings and a few cents of computer savings' against 'being able to hire both now and in 25 years' and 'having all the work already done for you for free six times'. the clients' job is to increase profits and reduce risk, right?

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 00:35

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Lady Radia posted:

you sound like that one spotify dude who constantly talked about how nodejs was the most productive way to program, just not in any measurable way.

hey thanks i really appreciate that or i'll get you gadget, whatever makes you happier

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 01:39

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZqVUjziexk

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 01:41

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Lady Radia posted:

oh lol i get it now

i hear part of what you're saying re: recruitment, but tbqh most of the problem i think with getting 'top talent' isn't the numbers, but more around actually paying the people who know poo poo well enough they accept. even when we were looking just for swift devs we'd have bites, they just avoided accepting (rightly so or whatevs). i dont think, imo, typescript avoids that as a full stack thing.

but i understand there's lots and that matters. the good news is i dont deal with clients i work in house. gently caress yea

yeah for recruiting it's actually better to do something a bit weird and cool like elixir because you only get people who really know their poo poo and you can probably pay them much less

but in terms of a strategic direction, numbers matter a lot to decision makers and it's genuinely concerning how few viable alternatives there are.

.net is a non-starter everywhere that's been burned by microsoft before (p much everyone), and the numbers aren't there. and microsoft, creators of typescript, is making and more and more poo poo in react native for windows, like office and the new control panel in win11, so it's clear to decision makers that MS is doing to .net what they did to all their other poo poo
java is in the headlines every other week for hilariously terrible security fuckups and everyone has been burned by a lovely java app
rails is a pretty decent choice but getting a little stagnant
php is hilariously expensive because no-one wants to program it
cool languages they haven't heard of is completely off the table

and anything that isn't javascript while you're making a web app (or native app capable when you're making a native app) means you have to have two codebases and two teams, which means that you have to deal with communication overhead, conflicting interests and politics between those two teams, which is by far the biggest risk point in any project technical or otherwise.

i think wasm is going to change the landscape significantly, blowing it wide open for the first company to open source their good complex canvas-drawn ui framework, but until then not-node is a very very hard sell. even deno, aka, strictly better node, is a hard sell.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 02:04

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Lady Radia posted:

why do you believe you need two separate front end and backend teams?

why do decision makers believe you need two separate teams if you use two separate languages, you mean? because i certainly don't.

they believe it because of risk/scaling and politics.

it's more risky to need a thing that does two things than a thing that does one. it's harder to find a thing that does two things if you want a lot of things done. a thing that does two things is probably not as good at doing each of the things as a thing that does one thing.

and if there are two types of things, that's a power vacuum some up-and-comer can carve out from their kingdom, then hold the project hostage with

both of these are sensible concerns and reasonable arguments. of course they are respectively wrong and irrelevant � the best team is about 2-4 highly skilled engineers, which is our general pattern. but they can't do what we do otherwise they wouldn't need us. they want to manage, that's why they manage, and they want to manage a lot because then they get a lot of money and importance.

and the only reason why we are able to do what we do, fielding a number of highly skilled engineers for a variety of clients and projects, is we specialise on typescript which is what is available in terms of talent and what clients demand.

combine that with the fact that in typescript land you have multiple entire technologies that eliminate needing any kind of backend code entirely and it's a fait accompli

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 02:37

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

also Conway's Law, which is legit

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 02:40

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Lady Radia posted:

it really sounds like your problem here is being put in situations where you're told to accept typescript, vs. actually being one of the decision makers supporting it

actually i'm put in situations where i have to sell typescript. which is, unhappily, the right choice for the clients.

one of my problems is that that makes for a very homogenous day. one of my problems is that a homogenous industry is really bad for a lot of reasons. one of my problems is i am doing commercial software at all rather than sitting on a beach making weird unplayable games. i have a lot of problems. typescript is, as it goes, not the biggest, and i suggest anyone who is uncomfortable with it to get used to it or wait 3 years for the next thing to come and demolish it.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 03:03

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Lady Radia posted:

believing typescript is going away in 3 years feels antithetical to your core point doesnt it?

not being argumentative but like, one of your pieces here was that it had teeth

my core point is 'there is no better business case than typescript for project owners'
that won't always be true but the fact it looks always true is a reason the business case is as good as it is. they'll be a new thing in 3 and that new thing will be dominant in 5ish but they will be in another job by then because they made the right decision with typescript.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 03:20

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

rotor posted:

the recruiting argument makes sense out at the tail end where, for instance, hiring a team of perl programmers is like actually really hard.

but js vs java vs python vs whatever? its a nonissue.

in the business case it matters a lot. big number going up is a massive difference on paper to slightly less big number plateauing or going down. i can crush someone's dreams into pieces with slightly less big number going down on a google slide

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 03:28

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Achmed Jones posted:

i mean you're saying that it's easy to snowjob people into going with typescript. that isn't a compelling argument

an argument for what? what is it that you think i am arguing? i am saying it is bad how difficult it is to form a business case to use anything other than typescript.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 03:43

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

DaTroof posted:

hahahahahahaha

i actually like typescript, and that statement is hilarious to me

me too and me too

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 03:45

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

DaTroof posted:

how so the latter? are you saying you can't find jobs that aren't full-stack js/ts? because i guarantee that's a personal problem and not an industry-wide fact

finding a job? what

i'm saying it's really really funny that it's really hard to make a business case for using something other than typescript to project owners

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 03:49

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

rotor posted:

the only time this is true is when the project owners are really invested in using typescript to begin with

oh yeah i basically only see greenfield or major digital transformation projects with project owners who have to use external studios. if there's a scrap of existing code that takes priority over pretty much every argument anyone can make

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 03:57

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

rotor posted:

hes saying he can convince people that typescript is more economical by putting a number on a slide and showing it to them

more than this ��we have to win work, right, with competing proposals. typescript has a ton of factors � all those loving words i wrote � that you can just use to tear any other non-typescript proposal apart, it's like a nuke. you can only fight it with other teams doing it faster or better.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 04:00

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

rotor posted:

i feel pretty confident i could do the same thing with any other modern language given the same audience but sure ok

finally, awesome. please give me one that would convince my boss. i feel like i've tried everything.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 04:10

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

Achmed Jones posted:

you're saying that typescript is actually the best choice. that's distinct from what you've actually shown, which is that it's easy to snow people into thinking it is. a group of propositions that constitute evidence or a logical and/or probabilistic basis for another proposition is oftentimes called an argument.

looks like you've only read about a third of the things i wrote if you're there. i sympathise

# ¿ Apr 26, 2022 04:13

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 13:57

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

alexandriao, i'd be concerned about 100r participating in a community that used to have garbage people on there but i'm posting on somethingawful dot com so

besides, 100r are solarpunk vegan weebs who spend their time doing cute drawings and aesthetically reinventing obscure wheels without any practical or commercial purpose while being outspoken against fascism in all forms floating around in a boat on the ocean, so if they are fascists then we gotta do everything possible to get more fascists to be like them

# ¿ May 9, 2022 08:02

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