W51 - Observing Terminal Convergence Changes from D2

Last week I went through some text and video from D2, digested it over the week, and will share some of my shallow views on this edition of D2.

This D2's theme is "Fusing the Future." For the first time in seventeen years, D2 upgraded its positioning from a front-end technology conference to an endpoint/terminal technology conference, which carries some historical particularity.

Because D2 had no keynote and went straight into two days of vertical domain talks, the agenda by itself looked like a live version of our "Mobile Front-End Monthly" and didn’t seem especially distinctive. I’ll try to derive some output from the change in theme and interpret the historical particularity as I understand it.

The "fuse" in the theme refers to the convergence of terminals.Around 2017 the industry proposed and popularized the first convergence, known as the "big front end," and it has continued since. That convergence happened at the organizational node level; it did not deeply integrate engineers’ skill models or career ladders. Web and native engineers still largely worked independently, and a single requirement might still need three separate teams to support it. The 2022 convergence goes further on the foundation of the big front end and merges it into the terminal. The organizer made a bold move this year by merging Web and Native job codes. That implies Web and Native skill models and promotion models are now broadly aligned, with expectations of multi-skilled roles embedded. I think this change can be called a transformation, because in the medium to long term it alters engineers and restructures organizations.

On technological transformation.The Hybrid path is difficult and long, but internal and external historical experience tells us that under a long-term perspective Hybrid is promising and, under certain historical conditions, unavoidable. The direction is clear; what’s uncertain is the technical route — whether the end state will be progressive enhancement or generational replacement. Many cross-platform technologies are popular now, but none is an absolute benchmark in depth and maturity. Until a factual standard emerges, I think they are still in an exploratory, ascending phase. Overall, technology evolution increasingly favors implementing capabilities at lower layers: from client layers, to container layers that use webviews as platforms, to self-rendering frameworks like Flutter, and now to JS engines like QKing shared at D2. Within our finance group, the progression from Titans to Neo to Recce also supports this evolutionary path.

On human transformation.First, lower development barriers and increasingly unified workflows bring less need for coordination. To optimize collaboration, one approach is to improve efficiency; another is to reduce the number of parties that need to coordinate. Terminal convergence follows the latter route. With the growth of infrastructure and frameworks, a requirement that once needed multi-end collaborative development can shift to single-person closed-loop delivery. Second, there are higher and broader fundamental skill requirements. Final convergence is not a bet on a single tech stack; we should focus on engineers’ fundamentals. In the skills toolbox, abilities in programming, engineering practices, and architecture will be demanded more comprehensively.

On why initiate this transformation at this moment.First, the survival environment has changed. The company is the same company, but the internet is no longer what it used to be. Five years ago, if a company counted you as late for being ten minutes shy, would you choose to join? Today you’d find that hardly matters. Second, market expectations have shifted. True immersive internet, Apple's XR, the metaverse — many of these feel unreal or speculative. You can dismiss or doubt them, but when the whole world longs for a new platform, that emerging force is unstoppable. In that context, whoever figures out terminal R&D cost and efficiency before the new platform scales will gain a head start.