from Hacker News

Ask HN: What's the term for the way how platforms like Vercel and Fly.io work?

by sigalor on 2/6/25, 4:33 PM with 4 comments

Both from the UI and the functionality perspective, I really like platforms like Vercel and Fly.io. It's this kind of "no frills" approach, where everything can be automated, the UI is clear and simplistic, and you can just do what you want with just a few clicks. Essentially the absolute opposite of how e.g. Azure works.

Is there a term for this specific kind of high-quality software engineering? Most importantly, something I can also look out for when searching for software engineers?

Because I'm noticing again and again how incredibly bad many programmers are, even at the most basic UI tasks. Many don't even get spelling or punctuation right, which my OCD brain just can't deal with. Vercel or Fly.io seem weirdly different: Everything's broken down to the absolute minimum, where they just get the job done while taking up as little of your time as possible.

Are there maybe even communities of programmers who don't want to develop any kind of software, but who want to develop software like that? Who have this eye for the details?

  • by ashryan on 2/6/25, 4:40 PM

    I'm not sure if I understand the question, but I tend to refer to these kinds of services as either:

    - Value-added hosting providers

    - Value-added infrastructure providers.

    My personal mental model for them is that they take lower level cloud offerings and build on top an opinionated on-rails experience for common stacks.

    So their services come with a higher price tag, but with a streamlined developer experience.

  • by PaulHoule on 2/6/25, 5:13 PM

    Empathy?