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Enterprise AI: Clever Code Or Corporate Coup? Grim Musings On Tech’s Endgame

ኢንተርፕራይዝ AI፡ ብልህ ኮድ ወይስ የድርጅት መፈንቅለ መንግስት? በቴክ የመጨረሻ ጨዋታ ላይ Grim Musings

Inteligencia artificial empresarial: ¿un código inteligente o un golpe de Estado corporativo? Reflexiones sombrías sobre el fin del juego tecnológico

בינה מלאכותית ארגונית: קוד חכם או הפיכה ארגונית? הרהורים קשים על סוף המשחק של טק

エンタープライズ AI: 巧妙なコードか、それとも企業クーデターか? テクノロジーの終焉に関する悲観的な考察

Enterprise AI: ჭკვიანი კოდი თუ კორპორატიული გადატრიალება? Grim Musings On Tech's Endgame

Uzņēmuma AI: gudrs kods vai korporatīvs apvērsums? Grim Musings On Tech’s Endgame

Enterprise AI: Code Clever sa fanonganam-panjakana? Grim Musings On Tech's Endgame

Enterprise AI: Inteligentný kód alebo podnikový prevrat? Grim Musings On Tech’s Endgame

Ентерприсе АИ: Паметан код или корпоративни удар? Грим Размишљања о Тецх'с Ендгаме

Enterprise AI: Kanuni za Kijanja au Mapinduzi ya Biashara? Mizigo Mbaya Kwenye Mwisho wa Mchezo wa Tech

Kärhana AI: Akylly kodmy ýa-da korporatiw agdarlyşyk? Tehnologiýanyň ahyrky oýunlary

Kurumsal AI: Akıllı Kod mu Yoksa Kurumsal Darbe mi? Teknolojinin Son Oyunu Üzerine Kasvetli Düşünceler

Photo Credit, recovered from stomach illness. In original publication of this interview, “ ,” this photo was rejected in favor of . In the spirit of additional context when republishing, we added the original image above, about two dozen contextual links, and embedded a fun video at the end. David Smooke David Smooke Founder & CEO at HackerNoon — Digital Publishing Evolution, AI Impact, Content Management Innovation, Community Growth, Future Visions a kinder, more professional headshot from AI Time Journal: 1. David, can you share the origin story of HackerNoon and what motivated you to create a platform focused on technology storytelling? Flor Laorga Hey, ! Thanks for having me. I’m . I started and run We publish technology stories and build publishing software. Before HackerNoon, I was managing 400+ contributing writers on the , which is now a tech unicorn. Back then, it was cumbersome to manage the writer accounts, content, and editorial review process through existing systems. Building for the contributing writers opened doors. When I started this company, I built many sites, most failed, and HackerNoon found the right mix of community, customers, and - just a cool place to spend time on the internet. Millions visit us every month for free to read our 100k+ stories across . By offering editing and distribution, many technology practitioners, writers, and companies find value in . AI Time Journal David Smooke HackerNoon. blog for SmartRecruiters thousands of tech topics publishing their stories with us 2. With HackerNoon’s commitment to keeping its library free of paywalls and popups, how do you navigate the challenge of generating revenue while maintaining an open-access philosophy? It’s a battle! Historically, we’ve 2x-ed revenue most years of the company’s existence, and our yearly revenue is in the low millions. Media is a brutal industry, and tech’s an up-and-down world where layoffs and profits seem to coincide with each gen ai launch or full moon. Our top source of revenue right now is . Companies like Brave, NVIDIA and AWS buy monthly ads on all stories within a category, like or . Our second and third sources of revenue are and . Business blogging is about getting more readers for blog posts owned by technology companies like , , , and . We leverage our publishing system and owned media channels to improve and further distribute their content. Quality technology blog posts require a lot of effort from talented people. The labor that goes into each post on a tech company’s main blog is worth thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars - companies work with HackerNoon to get those technology blog posts more readers. In terms of writing contests, companies award the authors of the best stores on a tag ( ), pay HackerNoon to run the contest, and ultimately, more technology content enters our library to serve the readers. The intention is to create discussion about a niche technology topic. ad placements by content relevancy programming data science business blogging writing contests MinIO Ockam Blockchain Oracle Summit BrightData like how Aptible awarded $18k to best #DevOps stories 3. As AI continues to evolve, how do you see it transforming the landscape of digital publishing, especially in terms of content creation and distribution? AI’s a massive wrench into productivity and authenticity. Every current job relying on a keyboard or a phone has/will have an AI assistant, and an AI will be on deck with you in whatever UX replaces the keyboard or the phone next. On the positive side, small capable teams can have greater extensions of themselves and their work. AI and AI agents can move portions of projects forward. For example, we introduced , and had to assign every story in our 100k+ library to one category. 100k human decisions would have taken a while, but a chatgpt spreadsheet plugin was able to assign each story a technology category very easily. On the negative side, there is spamflation everywhere. Why must the builders of our generation rush to make AI tools to spam instead of AI tools to assist? In 2022, one contributing writer, , made the case that . There is just so, so much content being generated by AI. It’s human-like, but it’s not human. Which brings me to authenticity. Who authored the content will become more important in the future as it indicates trust in a uniquely human way. technology categories Jeremy Hillpot 99.99% of all content would be AI-created by 2025 4. In your experience, what are the most effective strategies for managing and growing a small team of editors, developers, and startup individuals to produce high-quality technology content? We’re still small enough that everyone’s an individual contributor first, even the C-suite and board, which are both just me and . When you’re under 20 people, everyone has to carry their own weight. When it comes to managing a small remote team, reducing meetings is a good start. Editorial, sales, and product, each only have one internal meeting a week. This provides time to do the actual work and makes the meetings we do have will carry more importance. We do highly encourage one-off, project-focused, short meetings. Weekly product meetings are the longest and loaded with demos, recaps, and debates. But it connects the group, and designers have a full view into what developers are doing and vice versa. Staff happiness and sense of purpose, or lack thereof, will show in the little actions with our community. I work to create a company where a small team of elite contributors can thrive. Linh Dao Smooke 5. Could you discuss the development process of HackerNoon’s content management system and what makes it uniquely suited for technology professionals? At , we’ve built a lot of systems to create, edit, and distribute content at scale. Technologists spend a lot of their day on the keyboard (like I am now) and understand that documenting their journey and professional expertise will lead to more long-term success. Our CMS helps you create content with help from , , and . The CMS also integrates with our email and social media distribution engines, and for good measure. We live between social media where anyone can post and traditional media where staff content production drives content creation and consumption. There is a vibrant community of millions of technologists on HackerNoon. Plus, our CMS is built to seamlessly port content around the web. For example, with the HackerNoon CMS, we’ll be launching AI-specific publications in 2024, such as , , and more. HackerNoon templates AI a human editorial review backups up all content on the blockchain FewShot.Tech TextModels.Tech 6. How has HackerNoon leveraged AI to enhance its platform? and what lessons have you learned about AI's role in spam creation and prevention? HackerNoon uses AI and machine learning to improve grammar, , , and . Maybe Clippy was ahead of its time? Writers have and will continue to have smart AI assistants. AI can not and should not replace the writer, but it should and can assist the writer and editor throughout the publishing process. We are documenting our approach to editorial at . With the rise of LLMs, we’ve seen an influx of AI story spam submissions. Other blogging platforms are hosting so much of these types of machine generated stories right now. We are actively taking steps to not become a wasteland of AI’s musings. Because every story is reviewed before publication (with about half being rejected), I think our average story quality is higher than other blogging platforms. Every story submission automatically enters into plagiarism and AI writing detection. We highlight what sections are likely, possibly, and unlikely to be written by AI. It’s all about confidence levels. Ultimately, human editors make the final call in interpreting the machines’ reports. translate stories generate featured images suggest possible headlines EditingProtocol.com 7. Given your expertise in product management and editing, how do you balance innovation with user experience when introducing new features or updates to your platform? The core has to work for any new feature to matter. Our core is the blog post. We work to publish better blog posts and build for what comes before and what comes after the blog post. New functionalities cannot come at the expense of a delightful reading experience and a smooth publishing experience. It’s got to load quickly and the relevant ads have to surface at the right place for customers. There’s always more projects that could be done to improve the core. We also have been using more API driven journalism in order to gain more traffic. What I mean by that is aggregating relevant data and business information so that we can build pages that cover , , and . By connecting stories around the web to relevant companies, technologies and currencies, we can make HackerNoon a stronger destination for technology education and discovery. In terms of what to build next, we’ve built a simple product management system within Notion, where we detail product cards, weighing which user it would benefit, the expected input/output of the project, and then generally contributors choose their own projects. tech companies technologies currencies 8. As a leader, how do you foster a culture of creativity and innovation within your team, and what practices have you found most effective in motivating and inspiring your staff? The simplest way is to lead by example. I’m contributing to projects more than managing projects. The people who make this business happen are good people. If I want people to blog with HackerNoon, I need to blog with HackerNoon. almost 300 technology stories and this year, my goal is a post a week. Our staff is remote and around the world, we have people in Munich, Goa, Florida, Hanoi, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Michigan, Lahore, Lagos, and of course where I live in Colorado. It’s a lot of different cultures. And a lot of different ideas. Everyone on the team started by applying via our , so one thing that unites us is reading and using HackerNoon before joining HackerNoon. Everyone also has stock in the company, that helps with buy-in and enthusiasm. We agree on metrics we want to move, but we might not agree on how to get there. It generally works best when contributors choose their own paths. I’ve published careers page 9. With your insights into the future of work and career advice, what guidance would you offer to professionals aiming to break into the rapidly changing tech industry? Make things! Apps, models, prototypes, blueprints, communities, whatever - just start making. Your first technology thing probably won’t be your best or your future, but if you make more things in tech they become less like just technology things and more like just essential everyday things.  In terms of breaking in, it’s a tough market in technology/media right now with mass layoffs & unpredictable demands. Having your own functioning project, app, site, academic paper, or even just a blog can set you apart from other candidates. I recommend looking to apply at companies that make technologies or products that you use and respect. Write short and simple cold emails that explain why you’d like to work together.  Take a step back and look at our daily lives - and what you think our daily lives might be in ten years - technology isn’t going anywhere. It’s becoming more ingrained. Closer to our eyes. I’d also add that getting into tech doesn’t necessarily mean staying in tech forever, but better understanding technology will help however your career grows. 10. How do you envision the role of digital publishers like HackerNoon in shaping public discourse and understanding of complex topics like cryptocurrency, AI, and blockchain technology? We normalize it. I learned about Bitcoin from a HackerNoon story submission. . The technology’s finally caught up; let’s talk about it. I learn a lot by reading what contributors think could be next. As many people on HackerNoon are publishing about what they’re building, we usually learn about newer technologies before they reach more mainstream learning destinations. is a great blogging example for how the people making the next internet are documenting and teaching others along the way. That author, , kept writing that . Meanwhile, we kept integrating our tech stack with more Web3 technologies. Fun Easter egg, you can read . Publishing platforms are still learning how to detail where and how and when AI contributed. We add an “ on all stories where AI assisted the writer. At Meta, I see they’re implementing a , I’ll be monitoring how that goes. Publishers should provide transparency to the reader when it comes to AI content creation. Hopefully, the internet can reach reasonable standards for accrediting AI. Milton Friedman’s been talking about the need for ecash since 1999 Learn Blockchain by Building One Daniel van Flymen blog post into a book the entire HackerNoon library via blockchain signatures here AI Assisted” emoji credibility indicator watermark checking and display system for all AI generated images 11. Finally, can you share a personal story or moment from your journey with HackerNoon that has been particularly meaningful or impactful to you? Well, it’s been a long road! Hard to pick just one. Recently, meeting Pham Minh Chinh, the Prime Minister of Vietnam, stands out. He invited . Was cool to see up close how a head of state walks, talks and listens to pitches about how the country could become a bigger player in the technology industry. Another one that comes to mind is when we launched with our own CMS, it was janky, it was pixelated, and it mostly worked but didn’t work in all the right spots. It was ours and it was beautiful. HackerNoon! I’ll leave with you this : Linh to be a technology consultant as the country forms its semiconductor strategy HackerNoon.com previously unpublished video of the moment we went live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdoh8z0NXzU&embedable=true

“We are actively taking steps to not become a wasteland of AI’s musings” says HackerNoon Founder/CEO

হ্যাকারনুন প্রতিষ্ঠাতা/সিইও বলেছেন, "আমরা সক্রিয়ভাবে পদক্ষেপ নিচ্ছি যাতে AI এর মিউজিং এর বর্জ্যভূমিতে পরিণত না হয়"

„Wir unternehmen aktiv Schritte, um nicht zu einem Ödland der KI-Gedanken zu werden“, sagt HackerNoon-Gründer/CEO

"Estamos tomando medidas activamente para no convertirnos en un páramo de las reflexiones de la IA", dice el fundador y director ejecutivo de HackerNoon

"Nous prenons activement des mesures pour ne pas devenir un désert de réflexions sur l'IA", déclare le fondateur et PDG de HackerNoon.

हैकरनून के संस्थापक/सीईओ कहते हैं, "हम एआई के विचारों की बंजर भूमि न बनने के लिए सक्रिय रूप से कदम उठा रहे हैं।"

「私たちは、AI の思索の荒野にならないよう、積極的に対策を講じています」と HackerNoon 創設者兼 CEO は語る

해커눈 창업자/CEO “AI 사색의 황무지가 되지 않기 위해 적극 나서고 있다”

“Estamos tomando medidas ativamente para não nos tornarmos um terreno baldio de reflexões de IA”, diz o fundador/CEO da HackerNoon

«Мы активно предпринимаем шаги, чтобы не стать пустошью размышлений ИИ», — говорит основатель/генеральный директор HackerNoon.

HackerNoon Kurucusu/CEO'su şöyle diyor: "Yapay zekanın düşüncelerinden oluşan bir çorak araziye dönüşmemek için aktif olarak adımlar atıyoruz"

Người sáng lập/CEO của HackerNoon cho biết: “Chúng tôi đang tích cực thực hiện các bước để không trở thành vùng đất hoang của những suy ngẫm về AI”.

HackerNoon 创始人/首席执行官表示：“我们正在积极采取措施，以免成为人工智能思考的荒原”

MUTINY IN THE ARK

If automation replaces 70 percent of all possible human jobs, what do you think people will spend their time doing? Assuming the best-case scenario where automation is used to remedy social divides: Some of us will get depressed because of their endless habit-turned-desire to sloth away and consume things. I don’t think we’re acting our true nature if we don’t create, we silence ourselves, shutting down entire parts of our identities. We make a habit of not becoming who we truly want to be. Some will find peace in creating with nature. I hope I get to be part of this bunch. We need more of nature’s hospitality, tranquility. We also need more of nature’s unpredictability and more reminding that our entire species is dependent on its mercy. Others will find peace creating online. I hope I continue to be part of this bunch, too. The Internet has given us an exciting playground, not only with its vast abilities to entertain, but also because there’s massive potential to transform it to the better. Assuming worse scenarios where automation is used to deepen existing inequalities: A lot of us will lose sources of regular income. Along with it, we’ll lose the chance to become independent individuals and to build families. Few others will get richer, venturing further away from the realities and constraints of our shared, green-blue home, continuing their exploitation with even larger bites. I hope and pray this is not the case. In such a case, what do you think the governance structure will look like? It won’t look like the ones today. I’m insanely excited about what will happen once massive crowds start to demand more transparency and better chances for everyone. Perhaps some pessimistic friends won’t agree, but I don’t fathom a place for favoritism in governance in the future. Not only in a version where automation reigns with all its blaze and glory. We can’t afford incompetence anymore if we want to continue inhabiting the earth. We need righteous, responsible and widely respectful decision-making with all the limited resources we have left. I imagine small-scale systems where individuals voice their opinion in respectful and to-the-point ways, through tools that go beyond the lack of depth of mere voting. These systems will replace the consumerism-promoting, no-use walled gardens on our devices, re-defining what social media means. A lot of decisions will be made on much smaller scales. Larger units of governance will be there for conflict resolution, shared resources management and to facilitate decision-making with multiple stakeholders. On that level, we won’t fear of agreements made behind closed doors, because all decision-making will be transparent, documented up until the smallest factors that led to fully developed arguments pro and contra. Journalism will be very different, too. It will be untied from its current ways of profit-making, protected so that its noble, independent and investigative character doesn’t fade. In short, I think we’ll see much more grassroots, and much less giant bodies of organization. Do you think it’s possible for technological advancement to outsmart human greed? Why? Yes. Despite all that we have to endure mainly due to , I remain optimistic about technology’s further development plane. In fact, I remain optimistic although I know that we’ll be faced with powerful global-scale crises. Technology will help us overcome most of it. big tech Sooner or later, all will be aware of the various alarms the earth is ringing. , whereas some will lose their home. Some luckier ones will lose their seasonal luxury habits https://twitter.com/CevikusHB/status/1426147862308589572?embedable=true In the end, all will be confronted with the fact that somewhere along the way that led up to this forest-burning, snow-melting chaos of a home, there were some wrong decisions. We’ll start questioning ourselves and others in power. We’ll demand better and do better. Will technology let us dodge Armageddon? No. Someday, . some creatures will also eat our descendants, in the shape of us, with the power they generate by burning our corpses At first, this was hard to digest. As I got older, I made peace with it. After all, ending up a nugget is probably not the worst that could happen. What in life is truly objective and not subjective? Respect for other living beings, hard work and the need for thoughtful progress. Also, that everything changes. Is an individual purpose why we are here? Yes and that purpose changes every day. I don’t like any of the motivational blurb out there, especially those about finding your purpose, because I don’t think there’s any one-size-fits-all solution yet. Not with the education systems we have, or with the economic realities we’re in. But if there was a solution, it would probably be related to developing an obsession for what interests you and pursuing it relentlessly. Do we have free will? Yes, because losing our belief in it will be a catastrophe for humanity’s systems of philosophy and theology. I might change my mind as we continue to unravel the nature of our minds and if I get more capable in understanding the science behind it. In fact, many neuroscientists already agree that we have no free will. As researchers such as proved in the latest century, humans act on decisions long after they went golden-brown within the electrical bakery that is the human brain. In other words, all human decisions are the works of nothing else but some human brains firing up neurons here and there. No free will organ anywhere. Benjamin Libet Is mind or matter more real? Objectively, mind is more real. Einstein proved this in June 1905, in his paper titled space and time measurements are never absolute. They depend on who’s measuring. , On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies Intuitively, I agree. Mind is more real. You are what you think, you are how you focus, and all that. Protect your focus like your life depends on it. Lead image: An earthling deciding whose reality to pursue: Mind or matter. Illustrated by kertburger.

Why Are We Here? - Musings on The Future of the Human Race

Say someone has an IRA (Individual Retirement Account) set up as a smart contract. Where he/she or their employer or both deposit a certain amount of money into it every month, the contract is set to pay out on their 65th birthday, or on proof of death. But due to unforeseen circumstances, they need money now and would like to break/sell the smart contract. If we make a new contract that changes the ownership, then the old owner would have to hand over the seed phrase to their wallet to the new owner, but the old one would still be able to access it. However, we could code the wallets in such a way that, in addition to the access seed phrase, the owner of any given wallet could set up an added security inside the wallet with their own seed phrase, and could change it at will. In this way, the only manner to get money out would be if you know the inside security codes. There are some additional concerns. What if the first party changes jobs and money stops coming in? We could add some kind of insurance for such an eventuality. Or both parties could agree that only the sum in the contract at the moment of sale would become available at the stipulated time. In the case of the currency in the account being Bitcoin, for instance, this might grow to be more valuable over time, which would turn this into a kind of futures contract, like in the stock market. Food for thought? Let me know what you think! Share your thoughts in a blog post with this opinion writing interview.

Musing About Concepts: Is a Smart Contract Within a Contract, Smart?

Scene: “ You just got back from a flight and immediately pull out your phone to call an Uber. It's a busy day as always at the airport, with people bustling out of the airport in search of their cars. But you manage to track down your Uber and get in. After that, it's an uneventful ride back home. But you have one thing left to do before you start browsing for your next trip. Finally! You need to rate the Uber ride experience. If everything went well, and you don't have complaints, perhaps you'll give it a 4 or 5. But what if you had hailed the ride in peak hours. Your bill jumped up exponentially, and just to get home 1 mile away, you had to pay $100. What rating do you give then? How about if you've never ridden in an Uber before and don't know what to expect?” We think we may be giving a rating depicting the prowess of the driver, but do we think to account for our own biases and emotions? Or even the design of the rating system? Did you know if your driver's rating drops below , they get suspended? If I can find a 4.6 star rated restaurant on Google I think I probably wouldn't have any complaints. But the two systems have very different ranges of operation. ~4.6 See tweet here. How do People Assign Ratings? Unless the driver did something absolutely preposterous or was a terrible driver, I likely would give them a rating of 5. Sure, Uber averages the past ratings, so even if I did give them a low rating, it likely wouldn't have an impact. 500 But, once they do drop below the threshold, they're out. So for me, there is a norm for handing out 5s. For restaurants, I'd probably give them a 4 unless they were subjectively excellent or marginally terrible. The question is, how do these norms overlap between groups of people? 1. Lashing out and Sharing the joy As hard as I might try to remain logical throughout my reasoning, emotions tend to creep through. Unfortunately for goods and service providers, they can sometimes be at the mercy of the emotions of people. Have a bad day before you go to eat out at a restaurant? Maybe every minute your food doesn't arrive makes you even more upset. Now you feel you have to warn the rest of the world of your terrible 1-star experience. Conversely, if you find yourself hailing an Uber to go hang out with your friends might put you in a giddy enough state where you give a 5-star rating and a $10 tip without even thinking about it. What are the conventions for giving reviews and assigning ratings? What are we motivated by and what manipulates us into giving reviews that we might think are very much our own? 2. Rating not Based on the Object, but Your Expectation Ratings are never absolutes. What does a 5 mean? What does a 3.34 mean? If there was only one product in the world, does it even matter what rating it has? What this means is that when people assign ratings, they are comparing the product/service relative to others. But also, to the expectation of the ratings. What do I expect a 4.5 star rated laptop to feel like? If they don't live up to the expectations of what other relative 4.5 star rated laptops have given me, I might give it a lower review. Where does that expectation come from? And how high (or low) can that expectation be? Kimberly was skeptical about the effectiveness of a carpet cleaner, but ended up giving a 5-star review afterward! Would it be just 4 stars if she didn't have such low expectations? Even if the product worked perfectly? 3. Do you Need Social Proof? How often do feel like you need to conform to the group? Usually, when you don't already have strong preferences, you are susceptible to being into action. nudged One such way is through social proof, where people will copy the actions of others when faced with a decision they may be unsure about. We know that these behavioral designs can affect consumer behavior, as analyzed in this literature review on nudges. What this means is that we can also be 'nudged' into providing reviews that align with the current rating of the product/service. At least when we don't have clear preferences. Asked to review a place on google maps? Just pick the average it currently has. I must admit, it's the most simple strategy to badge up on . Local Guides Conversely, those who wish to defy the norm will go against the grain. A study published in the showed that people might use writing reviews as a way to develop their brand and worth. Journal of Interactive Marketing If there is a sea of bad reviews, writing a strongly positive review tends to stand out, especially if you think the bad reviews are unhelpful. This bolsters one's image as a connoisseur within the domain. Design Rules us all These online review systems aren't built randomly. Most companies will design some form of system to get them what they need from the reviews. Here, take a . look What this means is that different products and services define the conventions around them. Uber has designed their system where drivers get kicked off below a threshold. This creates high sensitivity where a driver with a 4.9 is vastly better than one with a 4.8-star rating. But that also means the range is pretty useless. We know what a 1-star driver would look like because we have no way to compare. don't So we might use other cues like relative experiences and expectations. If we see that they have received a high rating before, they might not have to do much to even get us to give them a high rating! So what does this mean for us? Well, if you're about to get into an Uber, understand that there might be multiple reasons for their current rating, and maybe the best way to rate is off of a heuristic. If you would ride with this driver again, a 5 would make sure they don't drop below the threshold from your review. Maybe a restaurant you really couldn't be bothered with again but was still decent is a 3. To others, it is a 4, or maybe a 5. Rating systems have a lot of bias so treating them with a grain of salt might be worth it, right?

Critical Musings: Psychology, Validity, and Reliability of Online Ratings

I've been planning some of my personal projects lately and this subject kind of caught my mind. I've seen so much hype about microservices, that I need to put my thoughts into perspective... I know that microservices is a very valid architectural model and perhaps an inevitable stage of cloud software development once it scales… But I believe it is a bad idea to use the microservice architectural style from the start of a new project. I see that a microservices architecture adds a huge complexity overhead on the infrastructure, and the developers need to take a lot of extra steps not directly related to code to do their job, i.e. communication and coordination. Basically, you need not only a team to build a microservices architecture, but you need a very good team. It is very easy to build a bad microservices architecture, because it involves very high-level tasks which are not intuitive to the average developer or infrastructure manager. I see small companies trying to take the “leap” to microservices, but they do not meet the criteria for such leap, mirroring themselves on big companies like Amazon and Netflix. I've read an interesting article some time ago on small companies trying to emulate the big ones, here it is: by a guy called Oz Nova. You Are Not Google I am not saying that microservices are only for big companies with huge demands, what I am saying is that you need to have a real need to make the leap for microservices and also have the right people and know-how, otherwise things can go very wrong very quickly. Do not do it only because other people are doing it. A bad microservices architecture is much worse than a good monolithic architecture. Also take into consideration that successful companies which run microservices have started out with monolithic applications. I believe that the software architecture a company produces must mirror its communication structure. Crudely, if a company has a single ten-people team with no specialization, its software should be a monolithic application, or as close to that as possible. I think it is inevitable that the number of people should increase proportionately to the application's growth. Therefore, when the need arises, that single team will be split and grown—considering an optimal team size of ten people—and then there will be a need to start splitting the monolithic application in order to mirror that. Each team becoming responsible for a single service, ideally. It stands to reason that the software and the organization will evolve together, and at some point, the organization will need more teams, and the software architecture most efficient in this case will be microservices. Therefore, the need for microservices will arise eventually if the software is successful enough. This natural evolution from monolith to microservices must be respected for optimal results, and you should take the time to train developers and make sure they know what they are doing, if you do not have that expertise readily available. Do not go head-first into something you do not know about, only because other much bigger companies are doing it. Developing software is all about pragmatism, circumspection and patience. Great software is not built, but it is grown and then split and then merged and then split again, just like a living organism. It’s a game of managing the complexity of very complex systems, and what better teacher than nature? Just look around you, sometimes the questions we ask have already been answered by nature—or civilization. Observe how human organizations have grown and specialized to optimize culture and communication. How cells grow and then split into more cells in order to build something much more complex. How living beings are born, grow, reproduce and then die—gracefully, ideally. Have great day, and if you have the time, follow me on . LinkedIn Thanks for reading, I plan on writing more articles, this is just the first one, it helps me make my ideas clearer and hopefully generates value for the community. If you have anything to say, please do, I am often happy to join constructive discussions. Leonardo Venturini is a young developer and digital entrepreneur from Brazil, having worked on small ERP and CRM systems. He has a huge passion for entrepreneurship, programming, data modeling and software architecture. Picture: Man Jumping on Intermodal Container by Kaique Rocha

Musings On Software Architecture: Monoliths to Microservices 

According to the latest Octoverse report by Github , Kotlin has seen 2.6x growth in contributions as of September 2018 and is already becoming the go-to programming language for Android development. Understand what has made it inevitable. got big when it acquired the backing from the search engine behemoth at It is now the official programming language for Android development besides Java and C++ and #4 most loved languages in the tech world. Kotlin Google I/O 2017. (Source: StackOverflow ) As one of the most modern, statically-typed, open-source programming languages, Kotlin can run seamlessly on Java Virtual Machine (JVM). It has similarity with Java, JavaScript and C++. So as a developer, if you know these languages, you can get started with Kotlin in a couple of hours. Initially, when Kotlin was rolled out, most experienced developers started giving it a try. However, since it has been made the official Android language, more students and developers are moving towards Kotlin to build apps. According to a RedMonk Report - Around 80% of Developers are using Kotlin to build Android apps. About 31% use it for backend/server-side applications, while another 31% said they used it for SDK/libraries. Source: Pusher.com JetBrains — The ‘Brain’ behind Kotlin Kotlin has been around 2010. developed it to solve their own, internal development & productivity challenges. They are a software development company, and their core area of expertise is — IDEs. The basis of an IDE is a programming language. The first version of Kotlin came out in early 2016. And, since then Kotlin has been witnessing exponential growth. JetBrains Why was Kotlin built? Almost 70% of JetBrain’s products are built with Java. Slowly and gradually the company was getting tired with the old fashioned ways of writing code. With Java, even a fundamental thing like “Hello World” would require any developer to write three lines of code whereas modern languages can do this in about three words. This means more repetitive work. What JetBrains needed was a new language compatible with Java that would translate to adding new features to existing apps without rewriting things from scratch, and that is less code. They tried Scala, but it was not as fast as they wanted it to be. That’s how they built Kotlin. Developers are gravitating towards Kotlin because it’s making them happier. If you are into Project Management and Team Communication, chances are you use The company has been one of the earliest adopters of Kotlin. ‘Basecamp’. A third of the Android app’s code was Kotlin-based back in May 2016 . What’s going on, you might ask? ( it’s now 100% Kotlin ) The code is better, users are happier (the ultimate goal for any developer) and so are the programmers. Source: Signal v/s Noise Dan Kim, the android guy at BaseCamp, found himself uttering ‘holy-shit’ quite a few times when he started writing code using Kotlin. A popup adapter was his first Kotlin class. He completed it in 86 lines. The code was concise, readable and more importantly, he had fun writing it. Less was, indeed, More. Next, while converting an existing helper class, he just reduced 94 lines of code. He had just fallen in love with a programming language and as a developer myself, I can tell you how hard it is to love a language. Here are some of his favourite Kotlin features which they regularly use at Basecamp. Interestingly, he also shares how Kotlin has made him a happy programmer. As developers, we want to use frameworks/languages to come up with creative solutions to business problems than just cranking up some boilerplate code. Here’s how he puts it - Writing code that’s concise, clear, and expressive makes me happy. Focusing on creative solutions to business problems, not boilerplate and ceremony, makes me happy. Feeling an intense motivation to learn, which was missing in the Java days, makes me happy. And that’s super important. Because being happy isn’t just good for the soul. It’s great for your programming skills too. The more capable and friendly your language is, the happier you are. The happier you are, the better code choices you make. The better code choices you make, the better habits you build. And the better habits you build, the better programmer you become! This is exactly what’s happened with Kotlin and me over the past year. And I’m a better programmer because of it. Read more about his thoughts on Kotlin . here Christina Lee is an Android Engineer, and she was one of the first, few people at Pinterest to try Kotlin for the She says, video pin feature. “working with it will bring a smile on your face.” Any organization/company that has been using Java for years can quickly find itself in a quagmire — whether to continue using Java or try Kotlin? Because Java can do everything that Kotlin can. Millions of apps, today, are still baked with Java and continue to function well. The difference is that Kotlin speeds up the development. How? With more straightforward and easier to read code. No more using that boilerplate code. Kotlin sure has a more beautiful syntax, but it’s not about the features and functionalities any more. These features ensure that you have a more productive development environment. The Kotlin-based feature was introduced to approx. 150M users a month. Similar to Dan’s views, Christina opines that — Kotlin is not a radical departure from Java, as both produce bytecode for the JVM. But what makes it so nice to work with is that it is essentially a version of Java where best programming practices have been built into the language, so it is much easier to do the right thing than it is to do the wrong thing. This allows a developer to code with speed and confidence and removes much of the rote work that had been required while using Java. Because coding, like writing, is an expressive art form, having a tool like this that allows you to express your thoughts clearly, quickly, and accurately is a satisfying phenomenon and one worth getting excited about. When you combine this with the industry-leading tooling and interoperability of the language and the thorough and thoughtful language leadership displayed by the team at JetBrains, it was difficult not to fall in love with it. Listen to her thoughts here Caviar app, the on-demand food delivery app owned by Square is also 100% Kotlin-based. When Valeriy Ovechkin joined the Caviar team as a software engineer, the app was 100% Java. He started experimenting with Kotlin as a ‘passion project’ and pitched to the ‘Square’ team that it will make the development faster. When the existing features were rewritten in Kotlin, there was no significant impact on the end-users. But for developers, it was a game-changer. With Java, coding can be slow, and results can be clunky at times. Valeriy, gradually, started writing the new features in Kotlin because it’s easier to learn and makes the whole experience delightful. Writing fewer lines of code is what makes developers stick around. “What is interesting with Kotlin is basically it leverages the existing skills of Java developers and finds the right tradeoffs to provide new features and provide things that make Java developers more efficient without going too far,” — Pivotal engineer Sébastien Deleuze According to Ovechkin, the code (for Caviar’s Android version) is smaller by 15–25%. That’s because — Kotlin allows you to write concise, smaller amounts of code which results in easier management. Developers can focus on more significant problems than routine tasks. From Uber to Atlassian, biggies across the globe are using Kotlin to power their apps, back-end etc. Its usage will only grow in 2019. Why a 100% Kotlin-based Android App is the best bet for your business? — Start small by rewriting an existing feature of your app and see how it goes. Have it as a side project and see how your users react. This means your entire product does not need to invest much in the beginning. It is possible because Low Risk Kotlin classes export a Java API which is similar to Java code. — Kotlin is backed by Google and has become the official language for developing Android apps. There are tons of resources, talks and community help available to solve your queries regarding anything you feel stuck at. Active support community — You don’t need to purchase Kotlin. It’s freely available. If you know Java and C++, you can quickly develop your MVP and start testing your idea before investing full-fledged. You can crank out the best MVP within limited time and budget. Open source — When your team has to code less, it becomes more productive. Use their time efficiently to work on bigger, better issues than just code usual, routine stuff. It saves their time. It helps them work faster and better. Efficient teams — Less code, less maintenance, fewer nightmares. Additionally, there are tons of IDEs available for your developers, let them choose the SDK/toolkit of their liking. Easy on maintenance — Ask any Android developer, and you’ll know the pain point I am talking about. Kotlin is 100% backwards compatible. Compatible with previous versions — The last thing you would want on your app is impaired performance. Kotlin helps avoid No more memory leaks memory leaks. — Old projects working on Java? Never mind. Continue working on them with Kotlin. Interoperability with Java Ending Notes We strongly suggest you start using Kotlin for your android apps. At , we too have shifted from Java to Kotlin for building products for our clients, and they have been more than happy with the result. Start taking small steps today to reap big benefits tomorrow. Solutelabs Cheers!

Musings: What the tech world saw in Kotlin

In my previous article ‘ ’ I highlighted the size of the global freelancing economy — over one hundred million freelancers and counting. Moreover, the large super-platforms have millions of users apiece. Decentralised Freelance Platforms are Coming After the Large Incumbents The many freelance platforms are a magnet for both freelancers and clients seeking jobs to be done, the reason, traffic generation (a work supply for freelancers). In this article I will explore how and why freelancers may be trapped on the super-platforms, and where they may be able to save themselves. Its all about the Money So on the surface, everything looks rosy for both the clients and the freelancers. The freelancers can find work and clients can quickly post a job/project for completion by a global workforce. Do not get me wrong, these super-platforms (such as Freelancer, Upwork, Fiverr, and TaskRabbit) provide work for millions of independent workers, however the platform fees levied by these corporations are not paid for by the clients! Freelance platform fees are absorbed by the freelancer. One could argue without such platforms the consistency of work for a freelancer to undertake may/will diminish. Yes. But, the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of freelancers have little choice. To mitigate an inconsistent pay-check, freelancers are drawn to the super-platforms. I dare to say that the choice to be a freelancer in the modern economy is not a choice at all. Furthermore, the cost of living pressures required to keep food on the table, and pay your rent, is not a seldom struggle. What if I were to tell you that all the power is actually in the hands of the client? Think about it, it’s the client (a freelancers de facto employer) who makes the market. Freelancers are coming to the platforms to get paid by the client. It is the client who posts the project/job. No clients mean freelancers with no food on the table. As long as there are hungry freelancers the super-platforms can charge what ever they wish. How did we get here? I would argue that the growth of the super-platforms is a spawn of the VC market, the global casualisation of the workforce, and the adoption-rate of internet usage. Obviously global technology businesses have capital and operational costs that only increase with growth and scale. And any risk-taking entrepreneur should be able to be rewarded for his/her endeavours. I have zero issue with platform innovators being successful. So why are the super-platforms charging such ? Simple — VC money demands a return on investment higher than inflation, plus the risk premium self-assigned by the king makers. large fees Mira Muurinen has written an interesting , interviewing Fabrice Grinda (co-founder of venture fund FJ Labs) talking about what VC’s look for when investing in marketplaces. With investment being contingent on such large unit cost metrics it is no wonder the platform fees for the super-platforms are so high. article I am not advocating for a freemium system, just a more even-handed power balance. A mutiny is rumbling What if freelancers had the power to direct their clients to an unchartered nirvana? A place where the super-platforms do not ‘tax’ them with high fees. What if clients could recognise the hardships of inconsistent work, including the mental health anxieties, and venture over to said freelance nirvana? I have two magical words for you — ‘ ’. decentralised freelance , in his article ‘ ’, outlines the current decentralised freelance platforms operating. He also believes — Michiel Mulders Working Remotely For Crypto — Is it possible? the market still needs to grow to find a larger variety of services asked and offered Freelancers need to jump-ship and explore the decentralised world. Then once there, they need to invite, talk, beg, and plead their clients to join them. Clients need to start making some ethical choices when it comes to how and where they engage with the freelance talent they rely upon. We now have a zero marginal cost solution to the super-platform fee problem, we just need a freelance mutiny en masse to pull clients over. <a href="https://medium.com/media/3c851dac986ab6dbb2d1aaa91205a8eb/href">https://medium.com/media/3c851dac986ab6dbb2d1aaa91205a8eb/href</a>

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