rambleraptor

I’m working on [Homestead](https://myhomestead.dev), which is my OSS solution for building personal apps. You can build web-apps and Homestead will handle backend, agent support, authentication, notifications, and a bunch of other stuff.

I’ve used it to build a grocery store list, credit card perk tracker, address book, mini-golf scorecard app, and a bunch more. It’s really helped having all of the “platform” stuff handled for me so I can just focus on the app.

I’ve been working on an OSS backend-in-a-box called [aepbase](https://aepbase.io/).

For the past few years, a group of us from Google, Microsoft, GM, IBM, Roblox, Rubrik + more have been working on a design standard for APIs called [AEP](https://www.aep.dev). The goal is twofold: learn from our companies mistakes around APIs and enable better tooling with less configuration.

We’re at a point where AEP-compliant APIs get a resource-oriented CLI, MCP server, full UI, and Terraform provider for near-zero configuration.

Aepbase has been my way to tie the whole ecosystem together. You run a single binary and define the schema for a resource with one API call. Now, you’ve got a full set of CRUD APIs and support for CLI/TF/MCP/UI. After one API call.

It’s a really cool way to tie together all of the work AEP has been doing.

Love to hear HN’s opinions on all of this. We’re still trying to figure out the best way to sell people on AEP.

What’s GSAP?

The AEPs were originally based off Google AIPs, but we did a hard fork and have altered a lot since then. For one thing, the AIPs were entirely protobuf focused, while we're focusing equally on protobuf + OpenAPI.

The CRUD methods are great examples where we deviate from the AIPs.

I'm not convinced that any of these are solving API design problems.

AEP began its life as a fork of AIP! We’ve got a bunch of ex-Google folks on the project, including the former API Lead at Google.

I’ll make a plug for aep.dev, which is a collection of API design best practices and assorted tooling

Aside - where was the diagram made?

Grades aren’t terribly important. Some companies (including notable ones) will filter those with lower than a certain GPA, but there’s always ways around that.

If you don’t have good grades, rely on your school name. If your school isn’t notable, projects are key.

These are the same kinds of communities are just being ravaged by brain drain. Their brightest students And their college graduates are being driven out of town from lack of opportunity.

Those are the people who businesses want to hire. Instead, Youngstown’s best chances of a brighter future are moving to Columbus nearby or the coasts to places that already have plenty of advantages.

Remote work could change this. But, these types of communities really need to embrace white-collar workers and not keep praying for a blue-collar comeback.

A lot of it has to do with credentialing. MOOC credentials aren’t worth the time investment.

It's really cool to see a unicorn come out of Detroit. The area isn't known for tech, despite having the largest concentration of engineers in the country. Hopefully, more startups like StockX and Duo Security will shine light on the area as a tech hub.

That seems very unusual for a low CoL city. It seems like there's an unbelievably large gulf between high + low CoL cities (far more than CoL would account for)

Why pick Michigan of all the universities for this stereotype?

This is also responsible for geographic inequality throughout the country.

The large tech companies are based out of Silicon Valley and Seattle. The majority of their employees and economic activity will be in those areas.

At what point does it become cheaper to buy real estate in cheaper cities and use the excess money to attract talent there?

I feel like this potentially buried the lede. Apple is planning on opening up a new campus in the USA.

I feel like Amazon's HQ2 search is going to open the floodgates for tech companies asking for public incentives. Tech companies in the Bay Area have been creating tens of thousands of jobs for years without asking for much publicly. Expect that to change now.

With how much talent the coasts seem to suck in, there needs to be a better conversation about how the rest of the country attracts talent. It's becoming more and more obvious that economic growth is predicated on solid jobs requiring a college education.

I'm curious if we'll see the Detroit economy take off as a result of more self-driving car work in the area. It seems like Metro Detroit hasn't seen many of the tech gains that the coastal tech hubs have seen.

People in the Metro Detroit area seem to conflate University of Michigan, Michigan State, and Wayne State as being equals / near equals.