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    If you can JavaScript, you can backend on the Modern Web Podcast

    Rob Ocell caught me in the middle of a 3 week fire at work for a conversation on the Modern Web Podcast. We talked about DST issues and more in a wide ranging conversation about Serverless, JavaScript backends, and the myth of vendor lock-in.

    Talking points

    • why storing time in UTC doesn't work
    • JavaScript programmers are real programmers
    • the backend is in many ways easier than the frontend
    • what "fullstack" means or how good it is for your career depends on the size of company you work with
    • modern web clients can be as complex as an iOS or desktop app
    • frontend and client code may run on the server 🤯
    • microservices are for scaling organizations, not code
    • serverless takes the idea of microservices and automates/abstracts all the boilerplate
    • thinking about reliability and partial failures is The Big Step when you move from client code to distributed [backend] systems
    • why you shouldn't worry about vendor lock-in
    • the trap of writing decoupled code
    • on being a generalist or a specialist and why that's the wrong question
    • Senior Engineer can be anyone from 5 to 20 years experience and what is it that makes you stand out

    Quotable quotes

    "A microservice is just a small monolith" ~ ST

    "If you're doing a full redesign. The business logic is going to be different. Very little of this code will be salvageable anyway" ~ ST

    "Just lean into it, go with your decision, use the vendor, rely on them. It's going to make your code a lot simpler" ~ ST

    "So many mid engineers becoming senior engineers and senior engineers becoming architects, believe this idea and will just try to avoid coupling to anything." ~ RO

    "Unless you're actively using two vendors for the same thing at the same time, your abstraction is almost definitely vendor locked-in in ways you don't even realize until you try to use someone else" ~ ST

    "When somebody is hiring an experienced engineer. What they're really looking for are the battle scars" ~ ST

    "I see so many teams crash on the rocks of trying to avoid vendor lock-in" ~ RO

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