Comment by charcircuit

3 months ago

If you ignore Android / iPhone, where language choice is limited, practically all other development is web.

Most of your electronic devices work with embedded software. Production lines, transport gates, cranes, computer hardware, ships, planes, rockets, cars, e-bikes, smart lights...

There is also scientific programming, that feeds research and analysis. Weather reports? Statistics, etc.

And there is gaming.

Devops, infrastructure? Databases? Tools for artists? Most of those aren't web. And yes I've heard of Figma.

There are probably tens of categories I'm missing.

Web is still bigger probably, but I have a problem with the saying "practically all other development is web".

  • I really doubt you’re using .NET (it literally is named in the dotcom style and refers to the interNET) in embedded software.

    In an article about .Net its fair to talk primarily about creating APIs and other internet focused uses.

> practically all

Define “practically all”. I would accept “clear majority”.

But practically all? Nah. I mean the hot new areas for funding right now are AI and robotics neither of which are web!

I’m coming up on 20 years professional experience. Exactly none of it has been mobile or web! The programming field is so much bigger than HN likes to pretend.

  • >I mean the hot new areas for funding right now are AI and robotics

    Most developers are not in such startups. There is a lot of boring software out there which is a website. Even for AI, the first company that comes to mind OpenAI is known for ChatGPT, a web product. Most of the AI companies are building web products.

It's web in a (limited) sense that there's probably a web frontend somewhere, but this "somewhere" is usually pretty far away from where most of the code is developed.

Most of the backend logic is not related to serving data for the browsers, it's doing actual backend stuff - communicating to databases, APIs, etc.

Is Google search backend a web app? I think it's really stretching the term.