Mastodon Feed
Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
hi_mayank@hachyderm.io ("Mayank") wrote:
as the camera moves, the refelection on the button changes, and you can see them waving their hand.
clicking a few times on the button makes it fog up.][5] ([remote][6])
slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
Frontend 2023, basically:
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
And this should be the caution message attached to these tools; some sort of badge that says "known to perform in environments with at least N performance and infrastructure engineers per product".
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
This struck me as I was explaining to yet another team that their house keeps bursting into flames not because they're bad programmers but because their tools are the tech equivalent of kiln-dried, kerosene-soaked pine.
When someone told them "it scaled", it was in the porcine flight-school sense: any pig can get to altitude with enough force.
*MOST* of what allowed Framework X to scale was the scaled infra, not the framework!
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
It's a very delayed insight, but when someone says "oh, X scales, BigCo uses it", understand this as the person making the claim to be performing a verbal interpretive dance. It bears only an evocative connection with reality, which is that BigCo's staff teams to keep things running on the rails, and that those investments have a minimum functional size.
That is, without *at least one* fire-fighter on staff full-time, don't expect X to avoid spontaneous combustion.
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
2023 is shaping up to be a big year for Team Finding Out:
Mastodon FeedReblogged by blithe ("Blithe"):
ANC_Historian@mastodon.akhepcat.com ("David Reamer") wrote:
Mastodon Feedrmrenner ("The Old Gay Gristle Fest") wrote:
I think Pokemon Go might group South Texas in with Mexico/Latin America for the purpose of region-specific stuff. The Vivillon pattern that you can get from postcards here matches the one listed for Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas rather than the one for Texas.
According to a wiki I found, the parts of TX and Florida south of 29N are also the only places in the US where you can find a Heracross, another one that in less-detailed guides is supposed to be exclusive to South & Central America
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
What really blows mind about frontend's lost decade is that we were promised the UI equivalent of electric flying cars instead of the reliable Toyota hybrids we had gotten used to and now we're all just trying to figure out how to afford gas for the broke-ass, beat up Silverado's we `npm i`'d instead.
Mastodon FeedReblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
alex@cybervillains.com ("Alex Stamos") wrote:
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
As @samruby would say, it's all intertwingly. We need our profession to deliver for users so that our profession (which, as @remotesynth points out, is longer than the life of any tool) can remain relevant.
I'm not telling you to write raw JS and HTML, I'm not saying "no frameworks", but we must mark this stuff to market. It's long past time, and to get there we need to put outcomes for users in the frame of reference, along with developer feels.
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
We are not just embedded in our ecosystems, we all play a role in their reputation, in the esteem in which they are held. In their rise and/or fall as vocations.
If senior folks and thought leaders aren't going to take that responsibility seriously, preferably by centering users at the margins and working to deliver results for them by default, then we just need to change the guard. It's that simple.
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
And we *must* be willing to work, quietly at first and loudly later, to make these points if that's what it takes.
Not for our own good -- although it is bound up in this too -- but for the good of users.
When we zoom all the way back, we see the interdependence. When frontend fails users on a loop, frontend stops being important. It's just an inevitability.
So @remotesynth's piece ably captures how longevity depends on adaptability, but it also depends on delivering value.
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
But *why* does it hurt these teams? What about this has been a letdown? As some are quick to point out, these apps *exist*, don't they?
Well, yes, but not in a way that meets the goals of the very teams we're talking about potentially upsetting with direct language about the status quo.
And that's the thing: the business goals aren't being met. The user goals aren't being met. The developer goals aren't even being met!
Frontend needs to be able to talk about that.
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
But let's zoom back out. Discussing only how it's going for developers, how they were poorly served by "thought leaders" and folks with an agenda to pitch, is important. And the piece stems from the residual pain of that experience.
Unlike the folks selling the complexity, I'm in the trenches with the teams that are now the somewhat embarrassed owners of manure-lagoons of JS. If I saw them in these remediations, putting in an oar, I might not even have written it.
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
Perhaps it would have been helpful to add another blog-length footnote chronicling all of the receipts of the times I presented the lemon vendors with evidence of how teams -- their customers -- were being mislead and let down by their products. How that played out across most of a decade, out of view, using traces and evidence to lay out clearly why it wasn't working. And how even those that made noise about improving often did not.
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
One critical problem with "trickle-down UX" ("DX") is that it puts vaseline on our ethical lenses; by removing users from the conversation, we are left only to discuss the developer population. In any industry there will be resource and attentional distribution and equity questions. And it is right that we take some care to communicate important things well, and that we use quieter channels before going loud.
The post @remotesynth links to is, in that spirit, the *end* of a very long process.
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
Towards the end of this (important) piece, @remotesynth touches briefly on why, I think, we've remained in such a bad place in frontend for so long: a culture that puts the experience of developers ahead of users:
https://remotesynthesis.com/blog/the-price-of-developer-tools/
This is, as he notes, sensitive, so let me elaborate a bit for the avoidance of doubt.
Mastodon Feedjeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
from: Why Ketanji Brown Jackson Split With the Court’s Liberals in a 5–4 Decision - Slate
Mastodon Feedjeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
“The one indubitable conclusion so far is that Jackson is not just a liberal but a civil libertarian, and whenever the government seeks to punish a citizen, it should never take her vote for granted.” - Slate
Mastodon FeedReblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
remotesynth@mastodon.xyz ("Brian Rinaldi") wrote:
Mastodon FeedReblogged by bcantrill ("Bryan Cantrill"):
amyfou@lingo.lol ("Amy Fountain") wrote:
Mastodon Feedxor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:
Really great podcast interview with Andy Byford, a celebrity public servant with a super interesting history running transit systems. He gets into more juicy detail here than I expected! https://www.thestar.com/podcasts/the-paul-wells-show/2023/02/22/a-man-in-transit-what-moves-andy-byford.html
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
It's...pathetic? Sad? Hilarious? Enraging? Disappointing?
Is there a word for feeling all of those about someone at the same time?
Mastodon Feedslightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
It will never stop being funny to me that Google's "solution" to the reality of Android fragmentation was to remove the version metrics from this page:
https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards
...and put behind a 750MB Android Studio (+ 400MB SDK) download instead, where they know journalists won't look for it:
Mastodon FeedLoved the details in this article about Mallory Swanson #USWNT https://theathletic.com/4261930/2023/03/01/mallory-swanson-goals/
Mastodon Feedjeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
‘“We studied the roads they used, then hid and waited” to shoot in ambushes, Sergeant Knignitsky said.’
in war, if you do not learn you die.
Mastodon Feedjeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
Abrams & Leopard 2 “…tanks are expected on the battlefield in the next several months. The new Russian armor turned up earlier — and in its first wide-scale deployment was decimated.
A three-week battle on a plain near the coal-mining town of Vuhledar in southern Ukraine produced what Ukrainian officials say was the biggest tank battle of the war so far, and a stinging setback for the Russians.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/world/europe/ukraine-russia-tanks.html
Mastodon Feedjeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
“The Kremlin may leverage an amendment to Russia’s Criminal Code increasing punishments for "discrediting" the war in Ukraine to promote further self-censorship among the critical ultranationalist community, prompting pushback from Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and prominent milbloggers.”
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-1-2023
Mastodon Feedjeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
“Last night, Republican lawmakers in Georgia advanced a major piece of anti-voting legislation, which among other provisions bans drop boxes and eases voters’ ability to challenge other voters’ eligibility. The bill moved forward even though the state’s election director testified that it could violate federal law.”
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/georgia-republicans-advance-omnibus-anti-voting-bill/
