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0 points72deluxe12y ago0 comments

I was only thinking this yesterday. It is very very true. All of it is client-server, just with different transport protocols. In the end, it is just interfaces to databases basically!

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gaius12y ago· 2 in thread

Yep, there are "forms" (interfaces for entering data) and "reports" (interfaces for extracting data) and that's really it as far as 99% of apps go. Even massively complicated things like Amazon are really just a form for you to say what you want, and a report they run in the warehouse to tell them what to pack. There's nothing to it that would be unfamiliar to a programmer from the '70s.

72deluxeOP12y ago

Even better, Amazon don't need to get a physical report but use hand-held devices.

So, clearly the plan is: 1. Write a good database (as Oracle say "the database is the application") 2. Put a dummy interface on it (RESTful HTTP anyone?) 3. Write a native client for each platform (or maybe a web based one if you want endless testing and pain) 4. Profit? (Or perhaps running costs... and no profit)

Weirdly, they recycle this concept again and again as something ground-breaking and wonderfully new but this is 99% of apps, as you say.

cgh12y ago

Feels like you've taken the red pill, right? It's the major reason I find web development, particularly front-end stuff, so dull and the hyperbole so grating. I heard and saw all the same stuff from VB developers in 1996.

As you implied, the nitty-gritty is in the db for most applications. And I've come to accept that much of the most interesting and innovative stuff happens in game programming.

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