There's lack of proof to back up the 10k hours. I get that he has worked 15 years at prestigious companies but I have to take his word on it. Some aphorisms jelled with me but other's didn't, so we're again at a "he said; she said" impasse.
He’s an ubermensch to be perfectly clear - most things that work for him aren’t going to work or apply to the rest of us because we aren’t tall, white, chiseled Adonises that went to Ivies and worked at Google.
I think most people should take the advice of experts like him - people that didn’t start from the bottom - with several grains of salt.
It's still difficult to export very unique tangibles and intangibles from Silicon Valley. The intangibles: a high tolerance for risk and a high degree of insatiable curiosity unfettered by local religious and cultural customs found elsewhere. And these both fostered at the universities. Tangibles: Capital as a result of the largest growth of wealth in human history & the only port in the United States to export more items than it imports - I'm referring to the port of Oakland. The light manufacturing sector is wholly responsible for this and is always underestimated. This sector is always the first to try on Silicon Valley innovations despite such innovations being readily available on the Internet. If anything, these souls leaving are merely setting up satellite bases for Silicon Valley's continued hegemony.
Agreed. The tech industry had a very deep and localized impact in the last 30 years, but the conditions that led to the CA boom extend well beyond tech. Broadly, the ports, agriculture, weather, culture of tolerance, universities, natural spaces, etc. all contribute to the "innovation melting pot". If you are going to start a startup, CA provides much more than just VC funding.
Tangentially, lots of folks complain about high CA taxes, but these taxes largely go towards local projects and paying local salaries (unlike Federal taxes). These projects and jobs are direct stimulus to the economy and also provide a large potential customer base to startups. This is likely playing a bigger role in the startup ecosystem than most people realize.
On a more specific and personal anecdote, the green/clean energy sector is heavily based in CA because CA was an early mover in climate change energy policy and regulation. These policies started in the 70's, and the long slow growth of the industry that they enabled may be the primary reason that the US is even remotely in a position to try and tackle climate change (still a long way to go though). It takes a certain cultural and political climate to embrace these types of things, especially when the potential return on investment is on such long timescales.
Yeah, created a bot that just trades the 1D MACD on Ethereum on a point & figure chart crossing up. Ridic how profitable this is. Proof is backtest on tradingview.
It is no real secret that as a discipline, military history is sometimes held in low regard by other historians.
The crux of his argument is that military history needs to be studied so that we can have less wars. He throws shade at other historians for looking down on military history. But as a total outside to this debate, who am I to trust?
It's the red-headed stepchild of historian specialties, in significant part because popular military histories rarely even qualify as histories, except insofar as they refer to particular dates and historical figures.
> As Peter Paret summarised in 1966 (!?), "Is there another field of historical research (military history) whose practitioners are equally parochial, are as poorly informed on the work of their foreign colleagues...and show as little concern about the theoretical innovations and disputes that today are transforming the study and writing of history?"
But this is also simply a value judgment by historians. The argument that its all about 'culture', like in so many other fields is a very questionable approach. Similar arguments are often made about Political Scicne that we must study 'political culture' and that this will give us information about why things happen.
In both cases I think this is very questionable assumption being made. Individual choice in one battle or one political move can and does change things, and if you want to understanding what happens is absolutely relevant.
Also, things like doctrine that has been studied for a long time, are very related to culture so I don't even fully agree that military historians have ignored culture.
> The crux of his argument is that military history needs to be studied so that we can have less wars
Former military here, now a technologist. When they teach military history in the military (and I imagine the goal of academics like this person are similar) the goal isn't explicitly to fight less wars. That's a lofty goal, and maybe attainable, but probably far off for humanity as a whole.
This article talks about war and militaries in general but I wanted to talk about how this can benefit Americans.
The reason they teach military history is so that we learn what's worth going to war for, what's not, and what we can do differently in the future. Ignoring what popular culture entertains around military logic for a second, the military (and governments) put a lot of factors into going to war. Those deserve some honest review, what often happens is outright downplaying, dismissal, etc because as they said the sentiment is that war is ugly. No matter the side you find yourself on this is the case.
This thought can be refined that war is ugly, but someone has to do it. Critical to any military, much less society, is the concept of a warrior class. Americans by in large, at least the ones I know, have no knowledge of the qualities, creeds, or convictions of the warrior class and thusly don't respect it much beyond some stuff they see in movies or read in books.
History can help shape the warrior class through the generations but also gives us good lessons on how to be healthier, more efficient, and more effective when needed. Learning from groups like the Israelis or the French Foreign Legion who maintain strong warrior cultures can teach us things about mental health, strategy, traditions, etc...
Also by teaching military history you actually form trust in the institution of the military. For instance, America's military at the time of it's forming was quite unique. You had a military force of volunteers that sprung up and after the revolution maintained some autonomy from the government but took a solemn vow of apoliticalness. This vow is still alive and well in military institutions but it can wane. Not only could it garner the trust of the public that people like the Joint Chiefs have the American people in mind but it would also remind service members why that vow is sacrosanct in a world that increasingly pressures you to be and act politically.
The last thing I'd like to mention is that provides some real pride around the military. Not nationalistic, chauvinistic pride but pride that even the people who have to do the most seemingly in-humane jobs have some humanity about them. Additionally, there's some confidence that if a powerful foreign nation did start World War III that we would be well equipped with citizens who can deal wit it. In my life I've met people who have some facade appreciation of the military or people who clearly hate the military and let those convictions infect other thoughts. Seemingly there's pretty few inbetween and I think a lot of this comes from a lack of understanding.
One of the stories I found more recently is the story of The Bonus Army (further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army#:~:text=The%20Bonus....) Patton and McArthur are widely regarded as champions for the idea that no service member should be left behind, even if they were a corpse. It's the same ideology that fuels us continuing to search for bodies to this day. These same people, of the same convictions, right before the war attacked an encampment of veterans from WWI who were seeking early cash out of their war bonds because they were already homeless and had lost everything. They drove tanks into DC with Army Infantryman to take down peaceful demonstrators of their own ilk. I don't think McArthur and Patton are bad people, on the contrary I think they're people of astounding convictions, but knowing this history lets us understand a bit about people and maybe a little about life.
> Also by teaching military history you actually form trust in the institution of the military.
An easy argument can be made that the pretty absurd deference the US population has for its military is harmful both to the military and the population.
For me we don't need claims of the use of military history, other then that it is history. If we measure by impact on history, military history is undeniably important.
> the pretty absurd deference the US population has for its military is harmful
I'm still going to have some respect for the people who rush to stand between me and the bullets aimed at me. The local Starbucks, for example, has a sign that says free coffee for military personnel. A relative who used to run a coffee shop also always offered free coffee to military people. It's a small thing, but important.
It's not about glorifying the military, but about acknowledging the risks they take on our behalf.
They don't stand between you and the bullets, they are the ones firing bullets at others. There is next to no military risk of the US being invaded, if only because you are surrounded by two oceans.
Yes, it's often the wrong kind of deference, one that puts people on a pedestal but doesn't try to get to understand what's going on well enough to discuss war and military issues in a serious way.
> An easy argument can be made that the pretty absurd deference the US population has for its military is harmful both to the military and the population.
I wouldn't call what I see in modern times deference. As I described it in my post it's more nationalistic and chauvinistic. There's a big difference.
I disagree. When hearing Americans talk or in American media its not 'raw raw nationalism' its more like 'the army is really good and you should always honer and support them even when shitty politicians give them shitty jobs'.
The amount of deference to veterans and how they are all heroes is not about nationalism or chauvinism, its about the genuine believe that everybody who served in the military has served the country. Saying anything against the military is often interpreted as a direct attack on veterans and soldiers. Giving out metal before ever sports match is not exactly normal in most of the Western world.
The people in the US have a incredible deference to military, they trust it more then almost anybody else. The military as a institution specifically, not the nation. This is true even for people who have no trust in the presidency, congress or literally any other federal institution. Consistently the military is the most trusted institution.
Even people who are not very nationalistic or chauvinistic almost universally support the military, are happy with or want to increase military spending. Decreasing military spending in US politics basically gets you labeled as a traitor and despite people voting for anti-war candidates, they don't vote for 'reduce military spending candidates'.
All this without people even having the slightest understanding of what the military does and why. This goes even for politicians, most couldn't tell you the difference between Sunni and Shia or point out Afghanistan on a map. That of course doesn't matter, all that matter is that we are supporting the bois, a couple 10s of billions for new <thingding> that help even 1 solider is worth the cost. Just never ever question why any of this is done in the first place, those boring details don't matter.
Something actual military history could help people understand, but that is besides the point.
I understand your sentiment, but your arguments are presented as facts and not as reasoned arguments. You might be right in the general sense, but the assertion that
'most couldn't tell you the difference between Sunni and Shia or point out Afghanistan on a map.' is probably not true.
This is a long running debate inside and outside America, and while your opinion is useful, presenting it as fact is not.
Are you talking about politicians or normal people? Avg people have no idea what Sunni and Shia mean. And we have many examples of high level politicians and bureaucrats who don't know what it means.
And that is before getting into any even remotely complex questions about Iraq and the Middle East.
> The people in the US have a incredible deference to military, they trust it more then almost anybody else.
This is probably situational. I moved from the South to the West Coast and I've observed the behavior you described as well as people who exhibit a total breakdown of rationale as soon as they hear the word military. I'd say both perspectives are worthless.
> Decreasing military spending in US politics basically gets you labeled as a traitor and despite people voting for anti-war candidates, they don't vote for 'reduce military spending candidates'.
and
> Saying anything against the military is often interpreted as a direct attack on veterans and soldiers. Giving out metal before ever sports match is not exactly normal in most of the Western world.
Not quite. I served from 2009-2013 which means I got to witness "The Tea Party" and it's affect on the military by cutting DOD funding. [1] These efforts garnered some good support of Democrats as well, it was an unholy alliance of sorts. [2] Did they cut a couple planes, tanks, trucks, and programs? Maybe, but they also closed the Single Marine Program and our commissary on base. I was going to the range less and sitting in the field more. You likely didn't hear about this stuff in the news because the nature of a base is a bubble. I think taking a good honest looks at spending and decision making are worthwhile endeavors that should be reviewed constantly but the outcomes cannot be like when I served and all too often they are.
Spending decisions also play personally into the lives of troops, so I think it affects how they view someone who wants to take that money away. If you go down to Camp Lejeune to some random barracks room and ask to see their gear you might find some units with new gear but for the most part it's heavily worn, heavily used, heavily abused equipment that we try to replace before deployment. My plate carrier had some nasty fraying on my deployment that made it difficult to attach MOLLE gear but others have had to deal with. [4]
Even policy decisions play important factors in how veterans end up viewing people, motives, and parties. The notable rules of engagement change during Obama's presidency remains in a lot of peoples minds and was sparsely covered by news outlets who preferred putting lists of the dead on TV [3].
I think Republicans often are in a position where they're trying to do something beneficial for military members or veterans but it's often for show. If you want a good example of what "for show" looks like with veterans then simply examine how Veteran's Choice has evolved over the times. The problem was clear and yet it took us three different presidents to get it where it needed to be. What's too much is when they begin to use us as a political pawn and create some adoration culture out of it. I was personally shocked when I saw a veteran returning home used in a speech more than once and I think this sends a really terrible message to the American people. We can't descend into the 70's when liberals thought it okay to spit on military members but we can't be walking around thinking they're gods either. The latter I don't think is really happening outside of small circles but it's good to watch out for.
Democrats often don't realize their policy and fiscal positions with the military have impacts on troops which are seen and remembered when those troops are veterans. Having some empathy and understanding for these scenarios could totally be aided by teaching military history but I also think it necessitates some change in the anti-war constituent rhetoric. Learning to talk about and criticizing a war without insulting the people who fought in it or had their lives changed by it is a tricky business, but it's one you subscribe to when you get into the business of critiquing war. This rhetoric probably deserves it's own thread but it's one that I think can't be had online.
All the same, as a veteran and someone who falls on both sides of this debate, I understand your frustration.
I have a hard time understanding what these statements are talking about.
> to fight less wars. That's a lofty goal, and maybe attainable, but probably far off for humanity as a whole.
It's not only lofty and "maybe" attainable, it's already happened, beginning decades ago. You're living in the most peaceful time in human history. There are almost no international wars (maybe Armenia and Azerbaijan count?). The great powers fight no wars with each other. War is almost unimaginable across vast geographic areas: Europe, especially sans Russia. North America, South America - the entire Americas. South and Southeast Asia, with the possible (and significant) exception of India and Pakistan. East Asia except North Korea. Etc.
It's not an accident or luck; it was a program of the early 20th century to make war illegal, and that came to fruition after WWII when the victors (who were not daydreamers - they knew more about war than we can ever imagine or want to know) formed the UN and the roots of the EU explicitly to prevent future wars.
It's like saying that extending human average human lifespan past 50 years is "a lofty goal, and maybe attainable, but probably far off for humanity as a whole."
> Critical to any military, much less society, is the concept of a warrior class.
There is no "warrior class" in the West or in the democratic world. For most of American and democratic history, wars were fought using draftees and citizen soldiers, like the Minutemen - everyone, not a class. The current American and most wealthy country militaries are filled with volunteers, people from all walks of life - not a class, unless we redefine the meaning of "class" as 'any group of people in the same job'. They are not trained over generations; in fact, many in the U.S. military are immigrants and the children of immigrants.
A 'warrior class' doesn't have a place in U.S. society, which is explicitly anti-class. That doesn't mean there is perfect social mobility, but generally we expect and encourage individuals to follow their own paths - not many reading this follow the family profession (especially in IT!) - and to succeed or fail by their effort and merit. If Mary's mother was a farmer, we aren't shocked if Mary becomes a programmer or doctor or artist. Obviously, we have much work to do to achieve those ideals, but the ideal is certainly not a caste system.
There is certainly less war now than before, but from the standpoint of "should a society be prepared for thinking about use of force", the reduction is basically immaterial, ESPECIALLY for America. America weighs the question of "what force should be used, where, when and for what purpose" constantly.
America also has a "warrior class" in a few different ways of looking at it.
B) While the body of America military is nominally grafted from the same stock of the rest of the populace (see above for distortion), a significant portion the leadership of the military is absolutely a distinct beast. While yes, they are nominally just another citizen, they have part of a distinct culture (how could you not if you spent 10+ years in service of an institution) with a distinct way of seeing the world.
In both senses, it is worthwhile to consider that something "like a warrior class" exists, and that we should take its presence, its way of thinking and acting, and its implications seriously.
> America weighs the question of "what force should be used, where, when and for what purpose" constantly.
Yes, but I think every country makes those decisions and uses its military from time to time, at least every major country (kudos to Costa Rica for eliminating its military!) including all the NATO countries. The U.S. is a different case; it has been the guarantor of the post-WWII order and so uses its military more than some others (that doesn't justify the actions).
> 30% of recruits have parents who served, 70% have a relative who served
I'm surprised those numbers aren't higher for the population as a whole. For one thing, people were being drafted as recently as the 1970s. I'd expect that almost everyone has a relative who was in the military. I don't come from a military-oriented family in any sense, and I have at least three living ex-military relatives and of course many deceased ones.
But of course there is some continuity from generation to generation. That applies to any profession, locale, etc. People aren't surprised that the engineer's child becomes an artist, but the child is more likely to become an engineer than most people. Does that mean there is an 'engineer class'?
> a significant portion the leadership of the military is absolutely a distinct beast. While yes, they are nominally just another citizen, they have part of a distinct culture (how could you not if you spent 10+ years in service of an institution) with a distinct way of seeing the world.
The GP was talking about a sort of caste (my word), trained and treated distinctly from generation to generation. Every profession, community, ethnicity, etc etc. creates a distinct way of seeing the world. Look at people in SV! Y Combinator does the same. Other parts of government do the same. There's nothing special about the military in that regard.
>> Critical to any military, much less society, is the concept of a warrior class
> The GP was talking about a sort of caste, ... treated distinctly from generation to generation
If it's true that the kodah meant that, then it is patently hilariously absurd. There are many militaries, and many societies, that haven't worked that way, and some of them have been successful. You mention the modern "west" (though I don't know why, because it's just as true in the USSR or in China or in etc etc), but this isn't even the best example. Many societies required all citizens to be equally warriors, such as most first nations societies, or for example the Mongols. So clearly, if kodah meant what you claim they meant, they would be really really really wrong, like ludicrously wrong.
As such (and this is my point), it's probably better to assume that the kodah didn't mean that. It's probably better to steelman, rather than strawman.
I just said the West because I was thinking quickly and didn't know clearly about other countries. It was conceivable, even if unlikely, that officers in China or Russia (USSR? :) ) or someplace else are mostly hereditary, and I saw no need to raise that issue.
> So clearly, if kodah meant what you claim they meant, they would be really really really wrong, like ludicrously wrong. / As such (and this is my point), it's probably better to assume that the kodah didn't mean that. It's probably better to steelman, rather than strawman.
Always important to remember. And I should have phrased it that way. Thanks.
It's not only lofty and "maybe" attainable, it's already happened, beginning decades ago.
That is a very rose-colored glasses viewpoint. WW2 ended only 80 years ago, which is a minuscule amount of time in the grand scheme of things.
And since that time we haven't had a global conflict, but add up all the proxy wars, civil wars, "low intensity conflicts" and we're still looking at millions of dead.
I'd argue that the reason why we haven't seen a major global conflict is just the immediate post-WW2 global order (2 major superpowers with nuclear weapons) which drove it to multiple smaller conflict. Depending on how the world order changes (i.e. China) there is nothing to say we won't see another major global conflict.
And yes, organizations like the UN are great ways to address conflict before they become major wars, but I'd argue the effect has been incredibly small. The UN existed at the same time as the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, the Rwandan genocide, both Gulf Wars and it was basically "the UN issued a strongly worded statement" and the wars happened anyways.
No, it's factual. I didn't say there were no wars; I said there were fewer than at any time in human history.
If our standard is perfection, then every human endeavor has failed and we should return paleolithic life. People still die of illness, so we could argue that modern healthcare has failed; don't bother using it. Regarding the UN, in politics there is no certain proof ever of cause and effect, so arguably we should eliminate all political institutions.
The lack of war is the fact. The parent's theory of why or how and its predictions have no basis that I see.
Isn't it also sophomoric to not drink because of some superstition originated by a guy 1400 years ago that a being in the sky will burn you for all eternity because of it?
Philosopher kings are mentioned in Republic, which didn't necessarily represent Socrates' views.
Generally I think he believed that someone with the relevant skills should run things as opposed to anybody and everybody (as in a true democracy) in the same way you wouldn't just want anybody attending to your healthcare, but a physician.
Great suggestion, and it also does fill in the chronological gaps in anyone's history of philosophy education. All those years ignored by uni aren't with this podcast. The companion books are excellent, too. Currently reading the one on Islamic medieval philosophy, which got us the word for algorithm.
How did this end up on the front page? Hacker News has always struck me as anti-philosophical and anti-literature.
This was one of the book that I read on my own after reading Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind."
My reading of the book was tinged with melancholy, for if virtue is a skill necessary for happiness, and if only a few can master a skill, then only a few can be happy.
I was 17 at the time and thought, "What an awful world that would give happiness to so few!"
Men from first world countries like to philosophize about ancient Greeks and stoics. That is because some of this philosophy helps them deal with their white-collar jobs and helps establish some meaning in their lives, that's my guess.
You may technically be coding in one language, but JS written for Node looks radically different from JS written to run in the browser. In my experience, there’s rarely more than some small chunks of code that you touch that will run in both environments.
If you get some better tooling for multi-language development, it will usually pay off a lot faster than choosing Node for your backend will.
JS in Node and JS in browser is not that different. It's the same language, using the same JavaScript engine (v8 for chrome). The difference is in the APIs provided by Node vs Browser, which is pretty minor. Many popular JS libraries will run in Node just as well as Browser. That being said, JS is a pretty shit language and I don't know why anyone would want to use it for backend work.
My experience is different. I write a decent amount of JS code each year and try to catch up with current best practices where I can, but every year it’s been a bit of a pain to write any code that’s shared between browser and client. Various ES features will have different levels of support in different layers, and this is especially tough once you take into account the various transpilers or polyfills, and the big sticking points for me over the past two years have been ES imports and async (shockingly, with backend support lagging).
These days my main strategy is to have three TypeScript projects—frontend, backend, and common. I then whitelist imports in the common libraries.
> It's the same language, using the same JavaScript engine (v8 for chrome).
I find it completely unacceptable to assume that V8 is running in the browser. In general, I do all of my JS development work in Firefox or Safari, and this saves me a bunch of time checking portability later.
> Various ES features will have different levels of support in different layers, and this is especially tough once you take into account the various transpilers or polyfills, and the big sticking points for me over the past two years have been ES imports and async
New features will have varying support between implementations in any language. You have to take these differences into account even if you're writing frontend-only code.
> I find it completely unacceptable to assume that V8 is running in the browser. In general, I do all of my JS development work in Firefox or Safari, and this saves me a bunch of time checking portability later.
The point is it can be the same javascript engine for frontend and backend. The difference between Node JS and Firefox JS is the same as between Chrome JS and Firefox JS.
> New features will have varying support between implementations in any language. You have to take these differences into account even if you're writing frontend-only code.
For frontend, you use transpilers or polyfills to smooth over the differences between browsers. You then package these up, with rollup or webpack or whatever, and deliver to the client.
My experience is that once you add backend to your list of supported targets, you have to get quite a bit of new tooling in place. Backend code is generally not packaged before running, imports are done at runtime rather than build time, etc. There’s a whole pipeline between your source code and the JavaScript engine, and that pipeline has a different shape for backend and frontend, and typically uses completely different libraries to make it work.
> The point is it can be the same javascript engine for frontend and backend. The difference between Node JS and Firefox JS is the same as between Chrome JS and Firefox JS.
I don’t know what kind of point that is, because it doesn’t matter to me that sometimes the frontend and backend will happen to run on the same engine. I haven’t figured out a way to leverage that fact to give me any additional productivity.
For the projects I’ve worked on, it can end up taking me quite a bit of time figuring out how to make one piece of code work in both frontend and backend, even though I can trivially make it work in either environment as I please.
Maybe other people have already solved this, but I recently went through and made a bunch of PRs to fix a common issue I saw in other people’s codebases and it was super rare to see any code shared between frontend and backend.
> For frontend, you use transpilers or polyfills to smooth over the differences between browsers. You then package these up, with rollup or webpack or whatever, and deliver to the client.
You still have to identify which polyfills you need, add them in, test them, etc. Polyfills are also quite buggy especially for new features from my experience. Also, the fact that you're typically running your build, packaging, linting, testing etc. on Node for your frontend code, says a lot.
> My experience is that once you add backend to your list of supported targets, you have to get quite a bit of new tooling in place.
When is that really even a consideration though? When do you actually need to deploy your frontend app to Node? If you have common model code, or say, input validation/sanitation, business logic, etc - that can easily be identical for both browser and Node.
> Backend code is generally not packaged before running, imports are done at runtime rather than build time, etc.
That really depends on your setup. You can do imports at runtime or build time for both Node and browser. If you're transpiling the setup is pretty much identical.
> I don’t know what kind of point that is, because it doesn’t matter to me that sometimes the frontend and backend will happen to run on the same engine.
How do you run your unit tests, your static code analysis, your packaging and traspiling? Do you run it in the browser or in Node? There is no fundamental difference between JS of the same version in Node vs Browser. Any browser specific or Node specific libraries/features you use are generally not part of any stable JS spec.
> it was super rare to see any code shared between frontend and backend.
Well I'm assuming these are different applications, so that's expected. I don't know why you wouldn't share your model definitions and/or validation/sanitation code though. People do this even for backends/frontends written in different languages.
Depends. It sure is nice to write helper functions that I can import on the serverside js and in the client side. Also if you use next or nuxt or something like that you get universal rendering, which is nice. Totally depends on your use case.
You just have to keep an eye on your client bundle size if these shares functions ref something like underscore, moment or something like that where you’re pulling in the entire thing for one function. I’m aware you can just pick pieces with {} and import, but not everyone is aware and often require the entire thing.
The purpose of next (and perhaps nuxt, I've never used it) is more in the direction of a front-backend. The API-implementing level is usually very different than the one consuming it, even when the consumer is on the server-side. If this wasn't the case, IMHO, projects like Meteor would be immensely more popular.
So coding in one language is a BIT of a red herring.
It only works if the paradigms your app uses are the same in the front and back. And I have nott seen a project where the KIND of problems that need solving (in the front vs back) were close enough for the same language to be a benefit.
I mean at the end of the day, I can build a house with JUST a screwdriver, but man, I'd rather use the right tool fot the specific job.
My company uses Node with Typescript on the front and backend; we’ve strongly typed our APIs and thanks to the excellent io-ts library we’ve also automated the marshaling and unmarshaling data as it crosses the network boundary so that we can continue to use the strongly typed data, and also are constrained by the types to only call our APIs in valid ways.
Some subset of that can be achieved with stuff like GraphQL or Swagger and what not though I haven’t given it a serious try since we’ve never run into hiccups yet with this system, reliant on a very simple library.
We also use the same package manager (NPM) on both ends and can therefore invoke scripts all over our codebase with the same syntax; and although react code and node code is quite different in structure, they all have the same idioms and async syntax and stuff, so the amount of retraining necessary to convert someone from backend to full stack isn’t very large due to the same environment, and keeping code style consistent across the project is also easy.
So I feel like there’s definitely stuff to profit off of with sharing a single language.
Reminds me of yesterday's hn frontpager, the paper about a "programble programming language". they were talking about how domain specific languages within a single language become super distinct and ungrokable to people who are otherwise fluent in the parent language. Think like, an angular dev reading nest.js node backend stuff. With javascript this is sorta everywhere. JS DSLs arent like explicitly uninterpretable to otherwise-experienced JS devs but there is a context shift cost for sure.
Ive not worked with c# much, but is that not as much of a problem with it? Like, is there more of a standardized way of doing things? Python is kinda like that i guess.
