bus
11 HN recommenders · recommended in 16 months, 2019–2023
1:04:41 · 268K views · May 18, 2019
Jonathan Blow's DevGAMM 2019 talk argues that software knowledge is being lost between generations and that growing layers of abstraction could lead to a decline in technological civilization.
A perennial HN reference for arguments that software is getting worse and that hard-won knowledge is disappearing.
20 comments from Hacker News
I am not so sure. This is a handwavy advise I always hear from contemporary business wizbangs, but I don't think it is objectively or universally true. Pedantic, careful and attention to detail, perfectionist products that just work without things breaking all the time are a pleasure to use from the standpoint of the customer. Figure out the implementation details, funding, motivation, etc. as an entrepreneur - shipping broken products to paying customers is something that I only see in the software industry. You don't buy a vacuum cleaner and expect to send half of the missing screws to the customer 6 months later. Hell, just 20 years ago when you bought your SEGA game cassette, it shipped as a final product. Not to be patched ever. Once its out to the factory, if you found a bug, tough luck. Yes, this analogy has its limits, but silicon valley mentality of this startup hustle is questionable. I recommend watching this incredible talk (it's about software) : this video
>Nostalgia for the simplicity of the past ends up having ugly cultural implications. It's easy to say "let's go back to the time when things were simple"; it's a lot harder to say "folks in (e.g.) Israel shouldn't be able to type in their native language". This is a ridiculous mischaracterization of what Jonathan Blow was talking about. Here is the full presentation. Very much worth watching in its entirety and thinking about: this video
I took a couple of compiler courses in university, and I think for the most part it made me a better programmer, mainly because it enforced understanding of how specific programming concepts and constructs are generally implemented. That, and a more intense look at the "heap of abstractions" you're generally working with when you write a higher-level language. I've always advocated that, if you want to really understand the tools you are using, you need to understand at least one level below the "surface abstraction" that you are working if. Even better if you can understand two or three levels down. There's a great talk from game developer Jonathan Blow [1] that describes how knowledge is lost "generationally" due to our lack of understanding of the black boxes we build things on top of. Not sure I 100% agree with his thoughts, but it's an interesting take. [1] this video
> software actually becoming less efficient? I'd argue that software is becoming worse in some ways. It seems that the acceptable tolerance is _very_ low these days, with most people are just shrugging issues off. Personally, I find this talk by Jonathan Blow to be rather inspiring: this video As for software becoming less efficient specifically, I'd say that it is, for example, relying on microservices for everything is probably not a good idea for most companies. Not everyone is AWS, nor do they need to be.
It costs so much mostly because programmers don't know how to write software cost-efficiently. As everybody follows the same path, VCs start to believe the cost is increasing when in fact it's the programmer's knowledge of cost-efficiency software design that is decreasing. Take a look at this: this video The costs to develop software are ridiculous and unrealistic. It turns out that if enough people act as ridiculous and unrealistic that becomes the new normal.