Another Standard Model

Back in 2004 I summarized the new Standard Model of computing. I was taught its predecessor, which included:

• a character-oriented editor (usually Vi or Emacs);
• C (which mutated into C++);
• Unix command-line tools like cat and grep;
• lines of text as a data exchange format;
• Make for task automation;
• CVS for version control; and
• “power tools” like Yacc and Awk for more complex tasks.

By 2004, that had become:

• Eclipse and its many plugins for editing;
• Java;
• XML as a data exchange format;
• Ant for building and JUnit for testing;
• reflection and things it enabled, like JavaBeans; and
• an online project dashboard that includes a ticket manager and a searchable mailing list archive.

So what’s in the standard model of the early 2020s? Based on my experience over the last four years, my first stab is:

• Python and a relational database (SQLite or Postgres);
• HTTP and JSON for data exchange;
• JavaScript and a front-end framework (e.g., React);
• Docker and [name of cloud goes here] for deployment;
• Slack for communication;
• Git for version control;
• GitHub as a project dashboard;
• GitHub again for linting and testing; and
• Stack Overflow as an external brainspace expander.

Lots of substitutions are obviously possible, like Mongo instead of a relational database or Linear instead of GitHub for issues, but I think this is the baseline against which variations are defined. If I’ve missed anything or included anything that you think people don’t now take for granted, please let me know.