I have been dropping information in various threads and I thought it would be a good idea to have a long thread about the technology that you use.
Please do NOT post you product or service. This is opensource information to help people understand things.
What is OpenSource is it free?
yes and no. It's a way to give back for free but you can then use that code to make money depending on the license. Many licenses require you open source your code if you built off opensource code.
IF not mistaken, seat belts are an opensource item in the automotive world.
What is a microservice?
A micro service is like the credit card readers that everyone uses, it's part of a business but actually is a whole different part of it.
If you hear that word used in software, it's the same thing. Software will use a payment gateway as a micro service because it's ridiculous to build it yourself.
it's not a special feature. It's just a moving cog. There are benefits to a microservice architecture but it can get overboard. It's nerd topic to debate.
What is the cloud?
Oh gawd, this is the most hillarious of the terms I've heard being thrown around. It's just an evolved form of how websites are powered.
We started with hosted locations. You had a pc located in a location which would hold your website. (a data center).
Machines got smarter and figured out how to have 100's of websites stored in separate parts of the hard drive more like an apartment building.
Someone named this the "Cloud". It's just shared hosting with millions of others of people sharing the same cpu and such. A huge apartment building. everyone shares the elevator and front door.
Is the cloud more secure?
If we think of the Apartment building analogy.
yes and no.
It is only more secure in that the management is more on top of things because more stupid people live there.
it doesn't mean the software running on those machines are secure. If you don't look your apartment door, people can still get in.
What is an API?
An api is like vlookup in excel. You use that function to get data from another worksheet. It's like ordering on doordash. You call to get data form another location instead of cooking it at home. Lots of front end code today uses an api call to the backend to get the data. It's more of developer thing than anything else. It helps developer to separate work responsibility. One team can focus on the exterior like paint and dent repair while your other team focuses on engine repair. An api is how you can give access to your data to another part of software or to entirely different program.
what is full stack?
Developing software is a crazy amount of different technologies. To be full stack you need to know how to design the car, build the engine, build tires, paint the car, how to wire the the harness, and on and on. For a dealer ship it's the sales person, the sales manager, the finance office, the service manager, the mechanics, the people who take care of the lot, and know how to order parts from vendors and have to choose which vendors to use. It takes years to become good at it.
What's the front end?
It's like your paint and collusion department. they do all the pretty stuff you see. I'd say also the interior but not the electronics.
What's the back end?
This is like your regular mechinces who change the oil and fix engines. they also do all the electronics and what not.
What does a hack mean?
This term is actually wrong but even develoeprs roll with it. It's actually a crack. Someone figured out how to pick the door lock and cracked your password. This can be done like reading the canbus data and reverse engineering your sterring wheel button controls to patch into the OEM codes. For software, this is likely because of either bad programmers, or not staying on top of technology. Remember I talked about how much a full stack person needs to know? Well, it's almost daily that new way to read that canbus is developed and the more technology used in your stack the more things you have to make sure are updated. It will never end.
IF your software is on old dated code you are more vulnerable to a hack. This can't be argued. The Cloud can't save you.
Is that software being scanned daily with an OBD reader looking for fault codes? IF not, they are being cheap and risking that expense with your data.
What does corrupted data mean?
it's like an excel file you can't open. It's corrupted. Basically, it can't be fixed or extremly expensive to get it sorted out.
Backups were corrupted too. Well, the data got corrupted at some point and all the backups from that day forward are broken. A hacker will likely not bother with going back into backups to corrupt them. Still basically, the system just won't work right. Like having an address book that put in the washing machine. You just can't sort it out again.
What is good back up plan?
This gets hard. We have gotten lazy and depend on the AWS, Google, and Azure to do this. But it comes at a price.
Having back ups cost money. Storing the backups cost money.
GO as over board as you can afford. Pay for daily back ups that cover months at a time. That data corruption will be at certain date in the past and the day before that will likely still have workable data.
Wanna go crazy? download your data every night, store it in a secure spot, upload it to antoher provider, and back up daily.
How much do developers make?
I'd say the going rate is anywhere from 30k to 200k a year. Experience, skill level, location, and what not all depends on how much they get paid.
Ukraine ? South Americe? India ? Phillipines? American?
A good tech is still a good tech.
Lots of companies will throw cheap labor at the problem hoping 3 people can solve the problems of 1 person.
Ai is good for spinning up a nifty blog but don't expect it to fix an issue with your DMS code.
Does the programming language matter? No ... not really. They all have problems. If there was 1 solid language then we all would be using it. We aren't dumb.
Note:
A lot of software companies will play on your lack of knowledge. they will use big flashy tech words to make sure you pay even more.
Look at the API costs.
If I build a pool in your yard it has a set cost. It is built. It doesn't even cost more for electricity.
So what are the companies really charging you for? the ability to transport in or out your data. The ability ... to do it.
However, some companies will offere a service like weather data, they make it easy for you to get daily updates which they went through all that trouble to gather for you. But if they are charging you tons of money to move your crm data to your dms ... lol ... you are paying to not use their crm most likely, Because creating the code to read that data isn't that expensive. It's hours of work not years of work.
Ask me! I'll be glad to help!
Please do NOT post you product or service. This is opensource information to help people understand things.
What is OpenSource is it free?
yes and no. It's a way to give back for free but you can then use that code to make money depending on the license. Many licenses require you open source your code if you built off opensource code.
IF not mistaken, seat belts are an opensource item in the automotive world.
What is a microservice?
A micro service is like the credit card readers that everyone uses, it's part of a business but actually is a whole different part of it.
If you hear that word used in software, it's the same thing. Software will use a payment gateway as a micro service because it's ridiculous to build it yourself.
it's not a special feature. It's just a moving cog. There are benefits to a microservice architecture but it can get overboard. It's nerd topic to debate.
What is the cloud?
Oh gawd, this is the most hillarious of the terms I've heard being thrown around. It's just an evolved form of how websites are powered.
We started with hosted locations. You had a pc located in a location which would hold your website. (a data center).
Machines got smarter and figured out how to have 100's of websites stored in separate parts of the hard drive more like an apartment building.
Someone named this the "Cloud". It's just shared hosting with millions of others of people sharing the same cpu and such. A huge apartment building. everyone shares the elevator and front door.
Is the cloud more secure?
If we think of the Apartment building analogy.
yes and no.
It is only more secure in that the management is more on top of things because more stupid people live there.
it doesn't mean the software running on those machines are secure. If you don't look your apartment door, people can still get in.
What is an API?
An api is like vlookup in excel. You use that function to get data from another worksheet. It's like ordering on doordash. You call to get data form another location instead of cooking it at home. Lots of front end code today uses an api call to the backend to get the data. It's more of developer thing than anything else. It helps developer to separate work responsibility. One team can focus on the exterior like paint and dent repair while your other team focuses on engine repair. An api is how you can give access to your data to another part of software or to entirely different program.
what is full stack?
Developing software is a crazy amount of different technologies. To be full stack you need to know how to design the car, build the engine, build tires, paint the car, how to wire the the harness, and on and on. For a dealer ship it's the sales person, the sales manager, the finance office, the service manager, the mechanics, the people who take care of the lot, and know how to order parts from vendors and have to choose which vendors to use. It takes years to become good at it.
What's the front end?
It's like your paint and collusion department. they do all the pretty stuff you see. I'd say also the interior but not the electronics.
What's the back end?
This is like your regular mechinces who change the oil and fix engines. they also do all the electronics and what not.
What does a hack mean?
This term is actually wrong but even develoeprs roll with it. It's actually a crack. Someone figured out how to pick the door lock and cracked your password. This can be done like reading the canbus data and reverse engineering your sterring wheel button controls to patch into the OEM codes. For software, this is likely because of either bad programmers, or not staying on top of technology. Remember I talked about how much a full stack person needs to know? Well, it's almost daily that new way to read that canbus is developed and the more technology used in your stack the more things you have to make sure are updated. It will never end.
IF your software is on old dated code you are more vulnerable to a hack. This can't be argued. The Cloud can't save you.
Is that software being scanned daily with an OBD reader looking for fault codes? IF not, they are being cheap and risking that expense with your data.
What does corrupted data mean?
it's like an excel file you can't open. It's corrupted. Basically, it can't be fixed or extremly expensive to get it sorted out.
Backups were corrupted too. Well, the data got corrupted at some point and all the backups from that day forward are broken. A hacker will likely not bother with going back into backups to corrupt them. Still basically, the system just won't work right. Like having an address book that put in the washing machine. You just can't sort it out again.
What is good back up plan?
This gets hard. We have gotten lazy and depend on the AWS, Google, and Azure to do this. But it comes at a price.
Having back ups cost money. Storing the backups cost money.
GO as over board as you can afford. Pay for daily back ups that cover months at a time. That data corruption will be at certain date in the past and the day before that will likely still have workable data.
Wanna go crazy? download your data every night, store it in a secure spot, upload it to antoher provider, and back up daily.
How much do developers make?
I'd say the going rate is anywhere from 30k to 200k a year. Experience, skill level, location, and what not all depends on how much they get paid.
Ukraine ? South Americe? India ? Phillipines? American?
A good tech is still a good tech.
Lots of companies will throw cheap labor at the problem hoping 3 people can solve the problems of 1 person.
Ai is good for spinning up a nifty blog but don't expect it to fix an issue with your DMS code.
Does the programming language matter? No ... not really. They all have problems. If there was 1 solid language then we all would be using it. We aren't dumb.
Note:
A lot of software companies will play on your lack of knowledge. they will use big flashy tech words to make sure you pay even more.
Look at the API costs.
If I build a pool in your yard it has a set cost. It is built. It doesn't even cost more for electricity.
So what are the companies really charging you for? the ability to transport in or out your data. The ability ... to do it.
However, some companies will offere a service like weather data, they make it easy for you to get daily updates which they went through all that trouble to gather for you. But if they are charging you tons of money to move your crm data to your dms ... lol ... you are paying to not use their crm most likely, Because creating the code to read that data isn't that expensive. It's hours of work not years of work.
Ask me! I'll be glad to help!
