GenAI should not exist, all development of it should be ceased immediately. Freed time, resources and brainpower should be invested into development of precision tools which do not require boilerplate to be produced at scale.
Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
81–90 of 96 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd say that engineering is in this case a mindset. It means bringing rigour and precision to the craft. I agree that many software developers are not software engineers.
The problem is that "rigour" is defined by a religious belief in some particular set of OCD habits.
No? Rigour means setting up systems and countermeasures to ensure a certain standard of quality. It's the science of delivering reliable software.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
#83I have two and, judging from colleagues’ reactions, I am unsure which is more unpopular. The font size in my text editor/terminal is 22 pt (I think; it might be 24). I want to avoid eye problems when I am older and I believe avoiding strain on them when I am younger will make that more likely. My lines of code are no longer than 80 characters because reading vertically is faster and less error-prone than reading hori…
I experimented working with large fonts when I was in my early 20s. I discovered that it turned out to be bad for the eyes. I believe I understood the issue. I was able to continue to read text fine in spite of not taking any breaks for hours or even not blinking for long periods, letting the eyes dry out. Sure, the text would get blurry, but because the font was so large, that wasn't an impediment.
So while I did confirm the obvious readability of large characters, what you actually want is a small font which is not readable unless your eyes are relaxed and moistened by sufficient blinking.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
#84DEI hiring mandates destroy teams.
I’m curious if anyone has witnessed this happening, and why it was DEI that was the problem?
I've seen it.
> From what I've seen, it means that the hiring pool for junior developers is locked into programs for disadvantaged minorities (for example black / female). This means that if you want to hire a junior, you must hire from those pools. How this is not a disadvantage for people outside those pools I don't understand.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the duck tape that holds systems together
In case you're not making a deliberate duck joke, you should know that it's "duct tape": tape for assembling sections of air duct piping.
The original term "duck tape" appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1899 - it was called that due to it being waterproof (c.f. "water off a ducks back") though it was a non-adhesive cotton tape, so different to the modern product. During WWII, Johnson & Johnson were given the job of producing the tape (for securing ammunition boxes) with self-adhesive properties and thus the modern duck tape was invented. After the war, the tape was mass produced and one of the common uses was to wrap air ducts, but the term "duct tape" didn't enter the dictionaries until 1965, although the term "Ductape" was trademarked in 1960 by Albert Arno Inc - their product was a flame-resistant tape that could withstand temperatures up to 204 °C. Note that modern "duck tape" is not heat resistant and it's generally considered dangerous to use on ducts as it can release poisonous fumes and catch fire.
However, "duct tape" is a term that is frequently used to refer to "duck tape", but is surely a misnomer as it's not suitable for use with air ducts (arguably not suitable for use with ducks either) and yet it is waterproof (like a duck).
Re: Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
In case you're not making a deliberate duck joke, you should know that it's "duct tape": tape for assembling sections of air duct piping.
The original term "duck tape" appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1899 - it was called that due to it being waterproof (c.f. "water off a ducks back") though it was a non-adhesive cotton tape, so different to the modern product. During WWII, Johnson & Johnson were given the job of producing the tape (for securing ammunition boxes) with self-adhesive properties and thus the modern duck tape was invented. Afte…
People who say "duck tape" today are mishearing "duct tape", and not referring to a water-resistant, non-sticky wrapping from the 19th century.
Duct tape (the non-heat-resistant, flammable type) is in fact used for ducts anyway.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The original term "duck tape" appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1899 - it was called that due to it being waterproof (c.f. "water off a ducks back") though it was a non-adhesive cotton tape, so different to the modern product. During WWII, Johnson & Johnson were given the job of producing the tape (for securing ammunition boxes) with self-adhesive properties and thus the modern duck tape was invented. Afte…
People who say "duck tape" today are mishearing "duct tape", and not referring to a water-resistant, non-sticky wrapping from the 19th century. Duct tape (the non-heat-resistant, flammable type) is in fact used for ducts anyway.
Not necessarily as Duck Tape is a well known brand in the UK. Also, using it for ducts is prohibited in California and by building codes in other places (according to Wikipedia).
Re: Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
During this political cycle I learned pretty much nobody knows what DEI is. No, it's not affirmative action. No, we aren't hiring black people because they're black. It's mostly outreach and employee resource groups. It's completely harmless and no, it doesn't make white people disadvantaged.
From what I've seen, it means that the hiring pool for junior developers is locked into programs for disadvantaged minorities (for example black / female). This means that if you want to hire a junior, you must hire from those pools. How this is not a disadvantage for people outside those pools I don't understand.
Right, it's not a disadvantage because this isn't happening.
If you look at the statistics, black individuals and women make up an extremely small proportion of software developers. White men are not disadvantaged, I'm sorry to say.
For the record, I myself am a white man. The reality is that simply having a white-sounding name makes your likely hood of getting hired go up by over 50%. I'm not going to sit here and act like I'm some sort of victim because some people got together and made an ERG for black engineers. Who cares.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
During this political cycle I learned pretty much nobody knows what DEI is. No, it's not affirmative action. No, we aren't hiring black people because they're black. It's mostly outreach and employee resource groups. It's completely harmless and no, it doesn't make white people disadvantaged.
Not all DEI initiatives do all of those, but all of those are DEI initiatives. Do you are wrong, yes affirmative action is DEI, as are hiring black people because they are black. Those actions are done for DEI reasons, so they are DEI policies.
It is illegal, and has been illegal for quite some time, to hire individuals do to their status as a protected class. Nobody is getting hired because they are black. The reality is these are perfectly qualified individuals.
This rhetoric that black people are being hired and they're unqualified is just not true. There's a lot of qualified people vying for a position, and some of those people will be black and some of them will be hired. That doesn't mean they're hired because they're black.
There's this sort of strange implication that if someone is hired and they're a minority, they must not be qualified. But nobody makes the same argument for white people - we just assume that white people are qualified if they're hired.
This systemic racism is why DEI was implemented in the first place. Merely mimicking that rhetoric is not a stab as DEI - quite the opposite.
Re: Ask HN: What's your most unpopular dev opinion?
#90Lisp is a king of PLs, those who do not write in Lisp are just ruining our world because FOSS values are effectively lost if bad guys can use GPL code which becames elusive after compilation. Lisp program which does not share its source code can not share full set of properties which are expected from Lisp code. Some devs really understand how it is inevitable to be fully FOSS for the sake of preventing digital feuda…
You can fully compile a Lisp program too right?
then it stops being Lisp program.