I'm not sure why this is confusing? We're seeing the phenomenon everywhere in culture lately. People WANT something to be true and try to speak it into existence. They also tend to be the people LEAST qualified to speak about the thing they are referencing. It's not marketing hype, it is propaganda.
Meanwhile, the 'experts' are saying something entirely different and being told they're wrong or worse, lying.
I'm sure you've seen it before, but this propaganda, in particular, is the holy grail of 'business people'. The ones who "have a great idea, just need you to do all the work" types. This has been going on since the late 70s, early 80s.
Not necessarily confusing but very frustrating. This is probably the first time I encountered such a wide range of opinions and therefore such a wide range of uncertainty in a topic close to me.
When a bunch of people very loudly and confidently say your profession, and something you're very good at, will become irrelevant in the next few years, it makes you pay attention. And when you then can't see what they claim to be seeing, then it makes you question whether something is wrong with you or them.
Totally get that; I'm on the older side, so personally I've been down this road quite a few times. We're ALWAYS on the verge of our profession being rugged somehow. RAD tools, Outsourcing, In-sourcing, No-Code, AI/LLM... I used to be curious about why there was overwhelming pressure to eliminate "us", but gave up and just focus on doing good work.
The pressure is simple - money. Competent people are rare and we're not cheap. But it turns out, those cheaper less competent people can't replace us, no matter what tools you give them - there is fundamental complexity to the work we do which they can't handle.
However, I think this time is qualitatively different. This time the rich people who wanna get rid of us are not trying to replace us with other people. This time, they are trying to simulate _us_ using machines. To make "us" faster, cheaper and scalable.
I don't think LLMs will lead to actual AI and their benefit is debatable. But so much money is going into the research that somebody might just manage to build actual AI and then what?
Hopefully, in 10 years we'll all be laughing at how a bunch of billionaires went bankrupt by trying to convince the world that autocomplete was AI. But if not, a whole bunch of people will be competing for a much smaller pool of jobs, making us all much, much poorer, while they will capture all the value that would have normally been produced by us right into their pockets.
It's been a few years but when I was there, Apple had an almost frothingly EXTREME policy against using ANYTHING from Google, most especially Tensorflow. Things may have changed in the last few years but I would not be surprised if that were still the case.
Motion is everywhere: A GIF on Instagram, a video on YouTube, an animation on a website, or even a Netflix documentary. Yet! Moving content is super hard to create because while current software is powerful it's also intimidating for most creators to get started.
Fable (http://fable.app/) combines the power of Adobe with the accessibility of Figma and makes motion collaborative for teams–right in the browser. There's no software to install, it's made for designers, and it all runs in the cloud. In this new frontier of web-based software, we believe motion is the big missing piece.
This is the most hamfisted nonsense I've read in a while. Just say "I like to micromanage people" and be done with it. The fact that you're worried about what/how other people are using or dealing with their time says way more about you than about working environments. Some people don't do well without working in an office, other people do quite well working outside of a traditional office setting.
Unfortunately, you've got it backwards. The propaganda has exacerbated the division, almost in direct alignment with the removal of the fairness doctrine. All of the things you're describing are a consequence of growing up thinking that 'opposing views' are somehow validated and the problem is that people aren't listening.
It's true, they aren't listening to each other; But few people are saying anything worth listening to ( for example, having critical thoughts about ANY subject that isn't a regurgitation of talking points they heard/read/saw from their bubble ).
The propaganda has been successful enough that it's created a cultural viewpoint that starts with the premise that there ARE sides and that the other side won't listen so they're hopeless.
So let me get this straight. Things like Twitter flame wars and Reddit echo chambers, are the result of media companies creating divisiveness, because that generates anger and controversy and thus higher engagement. This is the ‘cultural viewpoint that there IS a side and that the other side won’t listen’ that you speak of?
If you take a LONG view ( more than the last 15 years ) you would see that prior to the fairness doctrine being removed, we generally weren't 'entertained' by media. That removal, rise of cable news and radio "shows" and the one issue wedge strategy of the Neo-con/Conservative movements created a socialization atmosphere for the last 30 years which advocates for a growing anger towards "mainstream" media. This first obvious signs of this were the obstructionists of the mid-90s, with Newt Gingrich leading the charge... This gave rise to the Tea Party, where obstructionism and venomous anger becomes the party line, not just an also ran belief. Simultaneous, the liberals are getting soundly beaten by not only a more directed and better orchestrated ground game but by tactics that aren't 'fair' by conventional standards. These events give rise to the seeds of 'falternative facts propaganda', which reframes everything as a personal attack and creates the 'drain the swamp narratives'. However, there's still a communication gap as traditional print media won't engage, and radio programming is notoriously hard to propagate. In comes the mainstream internet, starts connecting like minded folks from disparate areas who start grouping together. Twitter, Facebook, et. al start gaining in popularity, basing their entire business model on fueling the divisiveness playbook ( outrage engagement ), originated WAY WAY back when the fairness doctrine was eliminated. Media companies were also starting to getting in on the action, first by way of 'conservative' talking heads using shock-jock techniques pandering to their audience, creating a feedback loop. Liberals, after a few years of this, start seeing that they're 'losing' the culture war and fight back, emulating the tactics of their perceived opposition. Sprinkle some foreign involvement to amplify, season liberally with money and boom: 2019.
Anyway, I could go on, but I think you're not actually interested in any of this, but instead are trying to Trojan horse some nonsensical ideas about causation under the guise of intellectual exchange ( see: "China gets a bad wrap" as an example ).
The fairness doctrine was part of a propaganda apparatus that greatly narrowed the Overton Window of acceptable discourse. Once people who remembered before the New Deal died people forgot this and it was dismantled, returning the US to normal politics where often the opposing sides genuinely hate each other, see Burr and Hamilton’s duel, the caning of Charles Sumner or the thousands of acts of domestic terrorism, including murder and bombing the US dealt with in the 1960’s.
No, this is just a fancy tautological development argument. This is how we got into the Java trap (yes, it's a trap) to begin with. Everyone knows Java, you can hire Java devs easily, etc. etc. There's really no reason for this other than: "We don't want to let people grow beyond the cogs we hired them to be". That may or may not be "good" but at least call it what it is: Broken internal human factors processes, instead of couching it in pseudo-technical tomfoolery.
There is literally NO reason (other than time, mentoring and desire) that the jr. Java developers couldn't pick up Elixir in a short amount of time and be fully productive.
>There is literally NO reason (other than time, mentoring and desire) that the jr. Java developers couldn't pick up Elixir in a short amount of time and be fully productive.
Put in another way. If your devs can't learn a new language that's not super foreign in 3-4 weeks to a decently productive level, you didn't hire good devs in the first place. I'm sure they would create a similar dumpster fire in Java.
True. But it's a big paradigm shift from OOP to FP with pattern matching and adopting the "let it crash" approach. But switching from Java to Elixir is a proven 1000% increase in developer happiness :)
I've generally had the opinion of a let it all burn first approach... in web ui, first thing I do is mount an error handler for the window and unhandled promises that effectively clears body and set's its' innerHTML to <h1>Unexpected Error</h1>. Similar elsewhere forcing the process to exit.
If you're expecting a certain error condition, handle it, otherwise blow up the world, because you can no longer trust it.
> There is literally NO reason (other than time, mentoring and desire) that the jr. Java developers couldn't pick up Elixir in a short amount of time and be fully productive.
I've had the same problem trying to convey that we don't need someone who is proficient in C# AND JavaScript, and we should be concentrating on the skill that's harder to find good people with experience in, or just polyglots. I'd rather see someone good in 2+ languages that aren't what we're using than one who is bad in those we are.
> All of the following is process, business and design failures
none of this is really about tech, its about process.
Your point:
> We don't want to let people grow beyond the cogs we hired them to be
No, The business wants the product to be built as quickly and cheaply as possibly. That is literally what you are paid for. When you hire a cleaner, you don't want them to spend all their time mixing their own blend of cleaning spray, because they read on a blog that its 15% more efficient. You want them to clean.
The very reason that this team were allowed to repeatedly make stupid decisions was because it was dressed up as personal growth. "I'm going to let my team do what whatever they like in what ever tools they like so long as they don't leave, and they hit these moveable targets. Those targets affect my bonus, so lets not make them too hard." Cue a mountain of tech debt, neatly partitioned by age and fashion.
What is so shameful about using the tech you have to finish the task at hand, reusing stuff where you can, so you can spend time on other things? To reference the grain silo analogy again if they all used the same connectors, material, it'd be build by now and could work on designing a better one.
this point:
> There is literally NO reason (other than time, mentoring and desire) that the jr. Java developers couldn't pick up Elixir in a short amount of time and be fully productive.
Yes if they are given the correct time and support. When you have to learn, elixir, scala and nodejs all whilst still supporting production legacy as well, its not a nice environment.
Dumping your legacy on bunch of juniors because you were making services to furnish your CV is unforgivable.
I disagree with this. This viewpoint is the side-effect of Apple's lifestyle brand marketing. Apple releases a machine you can't afford and they're "pissing on you"? No, they're diversifying their product towards the high-end market they want to re/capture. If your favorite car company releases a nice premium product are they also "pissing on you"?
Steve's 2x2 matrix with portable vs desktop on one axis, and consumer vs pro(sumer) on the other axis, was announced and filled around 1998.
It was populated initially with:
iBook, iMac;
PowerBook, Power Mac.
Later:
MacBook (Air), iMac;
MacBook Pro, Mac Pro.
The "pro" version had always been accessible to consumers. It was a bit more expensive, but if you wanted more power and expandability than the consumer model you could get the low-end "pro" model easily. And, yeah, the "real" professionals could spec it out and get a high-end pro machine.
Now, this latest Mac Pro is a machine that's out of range of your average prosumer and even pro, even in the lowest configuration. That's what upsets people.
> This viewpoint is the side-effect of Apple's lifestyle brand marketing.
No, the anger is born from an expectation (namely, that prosumers can get the low-end pro model) that well predates the whole life-style brand marketing (iPod 2001, iPhone 2007).
No, the anger is born from an expectation (namely, that prosumers can get the low-end pro model) that well predates the whole life-style brand marketing (iPod 2001, iPhone 2007).
I believe this is also incorrect. Apple has consistently had a lifestyle brand marketing tactic when Jobs was at the helm. The clone years were a different animal, for sure, but pre and post Apple was most definitely marketed as a lifestyle brand and "experience". The difference is that it worked better the second time, with the addition of the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Steve's 2x2 matrix was obviated almost immediately upon his passing. The product teams at Apple may from time to time use it as a reference to bolster a point in their favor but those days have long since vanished. People are 'angry' because they want a desktop PC like experience within the Apple eco-system and they don't have anywhere to turn. Personally, I think it is unjustified, as there are more than enough product spans to fill that gap BEFORE the introduction of the Mac Pro. All of this silly 'anger' to me is just another iteration of people being upset at Apple because they didn't fulfill their personal 'peeve'. Honestly, if you don't like the stuff or it's not what you want, then use something else. If you CAN'T then I submit that you're a victim of the aforementioned lifestyle marketing.
I believe that selling a branded product that targets audience X, then in a refresh raising your pricing so much that a large subset of X can no longer afford the product is pissing on their target audience, yes.
If Apple wanted to sell a more expensive SKU to that wealthier subset of X, then it should have been a new brand instead of using the Mac Pro's brand.
I don't own any apple desktops, so there's no personal animosity on my part.
The Mac Pro brand was basically dead for years. Your complaint would be reasonable if they made such a large change between generations for a product on a yearly cadence, but this is more like when a car company brings back a model they discontinued 15 years ago.
Don't car manufactures use different brand names for luxury and mainstream to indicate who the product is for? Customers would be confused if Toyota took a new mid-range Lexus, kept the pricing, but branded it as a Toyota Avalon (the highest end Toyota sedan model in US).
> Customers would be confused if Toyota took a new mid-range Lexus, kept the pricing, but branded it as a Toyota Avalon (the highest end Toyota sedan model in US).
I'm confused. I can't tell what point you're trying to make here. The Lexus ES and Toyota Avalon already are basically the same car, modulo some styling changes and about a 10% difference in base price. This clearly isn't causing Toyota much trouble, because they've been doing this for a long time.
> If your favorite car company releases a nice premium product are they also "pissing on you"?
If Toyota re-releases the Corolla as a 60K car, then yes.
Apple is not "diversifying" their product. They are straight pushing it upmarket leaving current Mac Pro customers, the ones paying until today $3000 for a trash can Apple swore was the future, out in the cold.
Who believes what Apple says? Most things Apple says are completely bullshit.
From the Mac Pro trash can product page(norwegian): "Enough performance to realize all your biggest ideas"
"You will never want more speed"
And let's not forget why Apple is sticking to 3.5" screens. It is the perfect size, and that's why Apple won't make phones bigger. It's definetly not because Apple is lagging behind. Oh, wait...
Never belive Apple's marketing. It's misleading and often false.
I'm not saying you should believe Apple. What I'm saying is that it is completely fair to criticize them based on what they say and do.
Apple promised a Mac Pro replacement for pro customers but delivered a new Mac Pro only for the high end of those customers. That is why they are being criticized.
The old Mac Pro wasn't exactly pro, no matter how much Apple says it is.
The new Mac Pro is an actual pro product, at least the higher specced ones. So they did make a replacement.
Is Apple terrible at naming? Yes. Do they throw Pro into the product name for no reason? Yes. Is it better this way? Who knows. They still have the MacBook "pro".
On the one hand, this cat knows how to screw up marketing hardware/software ( Be, Inc! ). On the other hand, he's literally talking nonsense about a compute platform that is targeted at studios.
Can we get some vfx or game studio heads in here commenting? From what I've experienced in my career is many studios are run at a very low margin. Doubling the price of the Mac Pro would most likely have an effect.
There is no software that is macOS-only used by VFX artists, and except for a few 2D tools (cough Photoshop cough), everything runs on Linux. (Typically Red Hat/CentOS with nVidia cards.)
The farm basically always just runs Linux. Many studios run Linux on the desktop, sometimes Windows, and sometimes macOS.
I thought that had more to do with the “seasonality” of a business closer to movies than enterprise software, i.e. once a project is over, everyone is fired.
The angst usually centers around management being paid enough to hold on to the laid off people so they can develop their skills and work on 20% type projects. As things are, they leave the industry after a few rounds of it.
It's shortsighted. They let many of the people responsible for that wealth float off to more stable industries so a few people can get rich far beyond their contribution.
Upvoted you to help with the downvotes you got for asking a question.
I had this opinion too, before visiting the bay area for an interview in 2011. I was stunned at how every single person (or so it seemed) had a mac out on the caltrain. And to answer your question, two out of the three companies I've worked at have been almost all macs (some devs like linux/windows laptops).
Not sure where you're getting this idea, but maybe your view is being shaped based on what industry you're in?
Everywhere I've worked in the SF Bay Area and the valley (tech companies) are 100% Apple shops for at minimum their tech employees. Many of them are all Apple for sales / sales eng as well as execs (airs, usually).
Some of the big ones are all-laptops (MBPs for tech, Airs or standard macbooks for other functions) with desks that have 1-3 4k monitors plugged in when working at the desk. Other companies had a ton of trash cans deployed at desks in addition to the MBPs.
I have less work experience on the east coast, but in major east coast city offices I've seen similar.
Less common is an understatement. In Europe, where software development has always been a cost centre and margins are always thin, Macs have been downright rare until the late 2000s. They were “the computer for people who don’t want to know about computers”, with a very small and dedicated niche of developers that never intersected with the enterprise world.
haven't seen an engineering shop in a while that didn't offer macbooks to engineers. At least 8 years. Internally at Google for instance almost everyone is on a macbook.
I understand that your experience is yours but I also believe that you might be going about it the wrong way.
First, you don't REALLY need to know anything but Meta-X and Control-XS, Control-XF, Control-XC to get going. Those aren't really that hard to remember or make muscle memory for, IMO. It IS hard to have to go back a bit to re-integrate how to do things in a new way if you're already happy with your existing workflow, so if there's no value for you, then... don't use it. Use whatever works for you.
I would like to add control-g to the list. It is frustrating for new emacs users that it can be easy to get stuck. Control-g is the general "quit" which will get you back to editing text from most annoying situations.
ESC ESC ESC (translated from <escape> <escape> <escape>) runs the command
keyboard-escape-quit (found in global-map), which is an interactive compiled
Lisp function in ‘simple.el’.
There are lots of cheaper options than WeWork in Denver: Serendipity Labs, Thrive, Modworks, Shift... just to name a few. They generally average about 200/mo for co-working spaces, which is about half of what WeWork is currently charging.
Meanwhile, the 'experts' are saying something entirely different and being told they're wrong or worse, lying.
I'm sure you've seen it before, but this propaganda, in particular, is the holy grail of 'business people'. The ones who "have a great idea, just need you to do all the work" types. This has been going on since the late 70s, early 80s.