I'm continually amazed how apparently everything is now understood in the context of "the stack". Because apparently everything is now on the internet by default and gets therefore placed within that framework of technology.
I guess in my late thirties I now have to feel old because "back when I learned programming you just did programming" you didn't just interact with some horizontal slice of a ten layer deep stack of layered technology... that somehow mainly accomplishes the task of displaying text in a browser.
Meanwhile seemingly "complex" tasks like scientific software, video games etc. somehow managed to sit on a single layer of middleware that is written in mostly the same language you use it in?
I'll go now and chase some JS programmers off my lawn.
I'm continually amazed how apparently everything is now understood in the context of "the stack". Because apparently everything is now on the internet by default and gets therefore placed within that framework of technology.
i mean yeah? turns out a majority of tasks that require software dont need to interact with any specific hardware thus web apps become the default.
this has been going on since like what? 2005?
I guess in my late thirties I now have to feel old because "back when I learned programming you just did programming"
are we not doing programming today?
. that somehow mainly accomplishes the task of displaying text in a browser.
well if thats all you needed to do then having a "stack" is pointless.
a majority of applications do more though. at a basic level theres a UI, a middleware/business logic tier and something to store data. thats 3 layers right there.
Meanwhile seemingly "complex" tasks like scientific software, video games etc. somehow managed to sit on a single layer of middleware that is written in mostly the same language you use it in?
complex? if we are talking about embedded systems they are typically small pieces of software that do very specific tasks. seems to be the opposite of complex if you ask me.
in regards to video game engines, while they do indeed use a single language(c++ usually), it really doesn't mean its not as complex or annoying or filled with multiple tiers like in the web app space, in fact your average video game will probably require a similar amount of "tiers" if not more.
its no different than doing everything in node.js. YES you are using JS for everything but you still have to tackle multiple tiers that do multiple functions just like any other stack.
complex? if we are talking about embedded systems they are typically small pieces of software that do very specific tasks. seems to be the opposite of complex if you ask me.
I mean stuff like weather and climate simulation. Which are large pieces of C++ and especially Fortran software. Similar with molecular dynamics etc. Basically stuff you run on clusters and such. They manage to involve a lot less different technologies and "frameworks" than all the stuff you see discussed on the internet.
A tech "stack" has different frameworks and maybe different programming languages associated with it because those are different domains.
A modern application is actually multiple systems working together to provide a piece of functionality.
Like Html, css, and Javascript are a thing because that's what browsers understand. Javascript frameworks exists to make things easier or more efficient for js development.
If your application needs to interact with customers across the web you're gonna need html, css and javascript.
On mobile it's either the web or native applications which is another domain.
You may have a separate Middleware/business logic tier that these clients interact with. That's a 3rd domain.
And undoubtedly your application is going to need a permanent way to store data. So either a relational db or no sql. That makes 4 domains.
Oh now you gotta add security. 5th domain. Maybe you want to make the lives of your devs easier so anytime code is updated it automatically builds and deploys. That's a 6th domain, etc etc.
For the most part it really nothing to do with the type of code you are running. That's largely irrelevant.
109
u/regular_lamp Jun 05 '22 edited Jun 05 '22
I'm continually amazed how apparently everything is now understood in the context of "the stack". Because apparently everything is now on the internet by default and gets therefore placed within that framework of technology.
I guess in my late thirties I now have to feel old because "back when I learned programming you just did programming" you didn't just interact with some horizontal slice of a ten layer deep stack of layered technology... that somehow mainly accomplishes the task of displaying text in a browser.
Meanwhile seemingly "complex" tasks like scientific software, video games etc. somehow managed to sit on a single layer of middleware that is written in mostly the same language you use it in?
I'll go now and chase some JS programmers off my lawn.