Uber and Lyft reworked the medallion system into mobile apps.
Instead of a physical medallion bolted on the car, it's a verified driver ID and rating in Uber/Lyft app.
Uber/Lyft are now collecting what the medallion owners were collecting previously from the drivers.
The apps are more convenient for riders and there are more efficiencies in the routes. But, it's still the same system. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
that not a good analogy or apt at all. The medallion system was basically a local monopoly or like a guild that only allowed themselves to say make candles in the city. It really didn't make any sense whether with uber or not why the cities should be restricting or handing out the medallions in the first place.
Sure perhaps there could have been a national taxi license like how truck drivers receive it if one is talking about safety and other regulations but per city never made any sense beyond rent-seeking by both the city and the taxi companies
I've also noticed the trend that "Full Stack" now really means back end in job descriptions.
Front End has to be explicitly called out for developers that will be responsible for developing rich UX features.
Front End is gaining more prominence, as more companies are moving to Cloud services and want to leverage Front End for custom business logic, which in a way is moving the stack to Front End. In near future, there will be a job description for Front End Full Stack engineer. I'm all about it.
But... why? Doesn’t all this seem needlessly complex? How are users better served by adding complexity to the front end?
Certainly there are complex UIs that require sophisticated front ends, but you probably aren’t building one, even though you’ve convinced yourself it’s necessary.
Agreed that it's complex, but I think the "needlessly" part is up for debate. Considering we're all here on hacker news, we're all used to and just fine with the idea that if you want fresh data, you refresh the page. I agree with you that for 99% of websites, this is just fine.
But if the requirements are for less page refreshes and high interactivity with always-fresh data, then client side rendering with a client side cache and cache management become important. Like Apollo Client, or what have you. Does it add unbelievable amounts of complexity? Definitely. Is it needless? Depends on the goal.
I would argue it's easier than manually polling for new data, managing the cache by hand and ensuring that everywhere the data is needed has been updated, and updating the DOM as a response to that new data.
So to answer your question: when done right, the user is served by having the most up to date information displayed for them at all times, with the number of network requests for said data kept to a minimum.
Is it worth it? I don't personally think so in the big picture, but in my day to day having this complexity live on the client side gives us so much more control over the UX that it's necessary to build what is expected.
Apollo client? you mean where the Meteor Dev team suddenly leaped to when it dawned upon the world that Mongo as a primary-store and a bizarre architecture that let you walk away with exactly one artifact towards your inevitable rewrite? (moustache templates!) was probably not going to take-off in a big way.
Awesome integration and polished docs etc.
Mini-mongo and pub-sub with websockets always for everyone? mmmm it ran rather slowly...
Put that at 30 degrees North North-West and integrate "what is good for a FAANG may bankrupt me and not provide foreign keys" lol..
Nothing against VC, but lets separate busy-work trends that mega-corps use in trench warfare of attrition (Google has more developers than you do.) from productivity tools.
GraphQL? I'd probably Postgrest if I were a one-human front-end/SPA shop
I mentioned it as an example of one of the more popular solutions available. Yes, it's complicated and requires a deep understanding of what it's doing - and even then it has warts that you have to work around - but we're talking about situations this complexity is necessary for the desired UX.
Whether the user actually desires this experience is another question entirely...
So, I’m going to fill you in on something. My snark level is at max this morning, so forgive me a bit if you can.
The desktop app is dead. There is only the web app. Remember all those complex desktop apps that existed? They are all web apps now, and what would have been a new desktop app will become a new web app.
The only other app game in town is mobile, and people still use web app technology to build that even.
Enjoy your UIs, because they ain’t going anywhere, ever. There is no more ‘why’ in this question.
Actually I'm thinking this is a good route, you can use a few simple standard backends (Firebase, Mongo) and all the work is just in one layer, the browser gui.
IMO, full stack is primarily "can write the business logic in both the FE and BE". Someone with CSS and design skill still needs to step in to makes things look great.
The US government investigated and sued Microsoft for anti-trust violations many year ago. The anti-trust legal issues hampered Microsoft enough, so that smaller competitors, like Apple and Google, were able to gain traction in online and mobile space.
If that didn't happen, you would most likely be a Microsoft serf speaking into a Microsoft Windows Pocket PC Phone consumer edition.
Apple and Google has much tighter control over the platforms now than Microsoft ever dreamed of in wildest monopoly fantasies.
Government can use the same anti-trust regulations to break up Apple and Google and monopoly control over mobile app stores.
It's governments duty to keep fair competition in the marketplace, so innovation and free trade can happen for benefit of consumers.
In retrospect that whole case was a wash and wasn’t a good use of the Government’s time nor an appropriate use of its powers.
Apple and Google were legitimately more competitive in digital music and web search/web advertising respectively without government intervention. They would also both go on to wreck Microsoft’s WinCE business under all of its various names and guises on both the high end and the low end. SanDisk and Yahoo were their biggest competitors in music and web services during this time. Microsoft’s attempts to purchase Yahoo were rebuffed by Yahoo management’s overvaluation of themselves.
Your premise for this alternate history is flawed.
I stand by my statement: this isn’t the government’s problem, any government’s problem, and especially not any American government’s problem.
Apple was failing as computer company. Apple only survived because Microsoft threw them a lifeline, licensing Office suite in Macs and investing in Apple. Microsoft wanted to show anti-trust regulators that there was software competition in PC market. If there was no anti-trust suit against Microsoft, Apple would have likely went bankrupt.
Microsoft was on the way to owning Desktop and web space, by tightly integrating IE into Windows. Left on own, Microsoft would have routed all default browser traffic to Microsoft search engine on MSN. Google would have remained some student research prototype into an algorithm about backlinks.
Microsoft invested in Apple in 1997. The DOJ filed suit in 1998.
It was a tactic to deflect a DOJ suit, unsuccessfully, but again, this was likely not an appropriate use of the government’s authority. For the sake of argument, even if it were, that does not mean it would be today. Present circumstances are not a mirror of the past. If you want to make a good case for government intervention in the market, your best argument is not that the United States once sued Microsoft and now it is Apple’s turn.
Mind the DOJ has sued Apple (and publishers) once using antitrust law relating to the iBooks Store. The result further cemented Amazon’s market dominance in ebooks and increased ebook prices.
The argument is the same as before. Apple and Google are using monopoly control of mobile app stores to stifle competition. Existing anti-trust rules are enough to sue and get ruling to break up Apple and Google control of app stores.
More innovation and competition are good things. When mobile app stores are freed, new baby Apple and baby Google type companies can be free to build new services and features.
> More innovation and competition are good things.
I agree. That’s why this isn’t the government’s problem. Rather than trying to wrench away someone else’s golden goose, find your own.
I would be pleased if Apple just opened up side-loading, but not so pleased if that came about from the business end of a gun wielded by a tyrannical and envious mob or a career climbing prosecutor claiming to wield such a gun for their sake.
And then Microsoft had to stop forcing OEMs to bundle crapware. And, no surprise, crapware from OEMs is still a thing. Bundling a browser into my OS is the least of my worries.
Nuclear is the cheapest, cleanest, safest form of electricity generation.
Do some research into who pushed FUD propaganda about Nuclear industry, (Big oil) and who paid off the shrill environmental FUD lobby, (Bug oil).
Nuclear power is used safely in aircraft carriers and submarines for decades. It's time to build more nuclear power and build the cleaner, safer, cheaper electrical energy future.
There are other hobbies that may be more interesting and fun.
I've never considered computers to be fun. As you mentioned, they are tools to solve some problems. Some are interesting and challenging, most are tedious and grinding.
Computers and software engineering is a craft, way to make money.
This is the right move. All FAANG companies will have to fall in line quick.
All the nonsense about location based COL salary adjustments are based on pure HR fantasy.
High performance engineers are valuable and rare.
All this talk about more talent being available remote to companies and companies can demand salaries lower miss out on the other aspect.
More companies are now available to high performance engineers. High performers can now negotiate higher salary with multiple companies for remote positions.
It will be upward feedback loop, pushing higher salary offers for higher performers.
It will be both. The higher performers will have higher employer pool availability driving demand up, the entry-level performers will have higher competition barriers to entry from peers.
My guess is MS had plans for web dominance. Use Windows to push IE and VBScript and become gatekeeper to the web. Tightly couple Windows and web and have Windows become the web platform.
Until, US anti-trust investigation and law suit against MS. Which hampered MS enough to open the web business to smaller competitors, like Google, Apple, etc.
The fact that Apple now completely owns iOS and is gatekeeper to mobile app store is ironic. And, Google owns online ad services and is gatekeeper to online ad space is also ironic.
to all the material discovered during US v. Microsoft, we know MS's plan was exactly what you said, after killing Netscape to avoid it becoming the new cross-OS runtime for apps.
Good point about MS leaving the Web fallow, which missed big opportunities Google and Apple (iPhone original app model was Web-only; native came almost a year later for games and for want of WebAssembly :-/).
The opening of the talent pool flows both ways. The company options are also more open to high performance engineers.
High performers are not limited by geography anymore. Many more companies are open to remote option.
This means increased competition for high performers and increase in salary.
All high performing tech engineer should interview with multiple companies and negotiate for increase in salary from all of them.
Forget this silly notion of location based COL salary adjustments. That's industry propaganda to suppress salary levels.
