Maxim Menshikov
Static analysis reseacher and startup founder
Changing landscape Thoughts
Imagine, you wake up in 2008, make coffee, spin up your Windows laptop and start developing. Back in 2008, the best you could have was Visual Studio. No other comparable environments.
In 2024, there are tens of IDEs, text editors that work better than IDEs, all of them use Language Server Protocols, there are many static analyzers, testing tools, whatever.
Did the development process become better? If you never coded before, it feels like yes. Endless choices of libraries, ways to show off your skills, Docker containers, Kubernetes deployments. You can literally start coding with AI (badly but still).
The truth is that the process didn’t become any better. These features harm you in many ways. Two important aspects below.
You no longer own what you develop.
Many parts of your app stay in the cloud. Most parts are developed by someone else. To use all of that, you have to pay someone directly or indirectly.
Cut off Docker, your app is dead.
Cut off AWS, how does your cloud service work?
If I were to destroy the entire world’s IT, I would hit connectivity to any of these services. This is so fragile.
You no longer get hands-on experience.
I like containers as daily life simplifier. I simplify setups a lot with them. However, do you fully understand what happens inside the container?
Do you understand the underlying technology behind Docker, like Linux itself, security hardeners (seccomp, apparmor, whatever), OverlayFS, uid maps, etc. I doubt so. Moreover, package installation becomes a mystery: you just take the easiest image with a simple setup, and you never care what happens inside.
This sparkles the whole generation of fast enablers. Cool for the economy of IT fast food, terrible for proper high-tech industry where you have to actually innovate.
No conclusion
The progress is unstoppable. However, we must have some ways to stop intellectual property and actual knowledge from spreading across different parties.