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What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

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Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#11

Post by marcosdumay »

Waterluvian wrote: post #7
gmluke wrote: post #4

> Just as knowing why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up, the citizens of the 21st century need to know that computers are not magical boxes but composed of dynamic models. In all honesty, I don't know why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up. I just know that they do. No doubt that improving software literacy is a worthwhile goal, but I think the author hasn't made a strong case for it in the opening paragraph…

One of the most common challenges that I see engineers face is to effectively empathize with the user. When you know a lot about something, you just see it in a fundamentally different way. This makes it difficult to focus on making it easy for the user to do what they want, not what you think they should want. When I drive my car, I just want to get from point A to point B while listening to a podcast. I don't care…

> When I drive my car, I just want to get from point A to point B while listening to a podcast. I don't care to know how they work.

Yet, you've spent months explicitly training for that task.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#12

Post by striking »

CJefferson wrote: post #2

I usually try hard not to be cynical, but in this case I can't stop myself. This seems to be another attempt at a grand, unified packaging and IPC / linking method. There have been hundreds of these, and there is no attempt at all to discuss where all the others went wrong, and how this will improve upon them.

What's more, I'm fairly certain developers would prefer smaller, incremental, and separate improvements to their software ecosystems.

"One library to rule them all" isn't as compelling as the UNIX principle. Because when one of these systems is proven to be inefficient or buggy, it doesn't discredit the entire library.

I want some of these parts in some of my apps. But not all, always.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#13

Post by CmdrSprinkles »

vetinari wrote: post #8
Waterluvian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most common challenges that I see engineers face is to effectively empathize with the user. When you know a lot about something, you just see it in a fundamentally different way. This makes it difficult to focus on making it easy for the user to do what they want, not what you think they should want. When I drive my car, I just want to get from point A to point B while listening to a podcast. I don't care…

The problem with computers (abstracting from accidental complexity) is, that they do what you tell them to do , not what you think you told them to do . You cannot somehow make an agreement or solve it, how it is solved with humans - by communicating. You must formulate your thought exactly. And that's what most people have a problem with - except for some hard sciences, they never needed to formulate their thought t…

Not to be rude, but how often do you interact with other human beings?

Communication is a huge problem in everyday life. Anyone who has ever had even a short term SO (longer than a one night stand/few dates) has learned that it is important to be careful in how you phrase things and to understand that people may not understand what you were trying to say.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#14

Post by dreta »

This industry is in its infancy. We have some of the greatest minds working in it, and yet we barely know how to make things work right, and OP’s suggesting we try and design tools that an average person can use to create powerful software. How about we let highly-trained specialists figure out how to write complex software first, before we try to teach average programmers how to do it, and perhaps then we can turn our heads towards the masses.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#15

Post by _pmf_ »

gmluke wrote: post #4

> Just as knowing why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up, the citizens of the 21st century need to know that computers are not magical boxes but composed of dynamic models. In all honesty, I don't know why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up. I just know that they do. No doubt that improving software literacy is a worthwhile goal, but I think the author hasn't made a strong case for it in the opening paragraph…

> In all honesty, I don't know why apples fall down and aeroplanes fly up.

The problems usually only start when it's the other way around.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#16

Post by dreta »

marcosdumay wrote: post #11
Waterluvian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most common challenges that I see engineers face is to effectively empathize with the user. When you know a lot about something, you just see it in a fundamentally different way. This makes it difficult to focus on making it easy for the user to do what they want, not what you think they should want. When I drive my car, I just want to get from point A to point B while listening to a podcast. I don't care…

> When I drive my car, I just want to get from point A to point B while listening to a podcast. I don't care to know how they work. Yet, you've spent months explicitly training for that task.

And that’s just learning how to use the car. We’re talking about building one.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#17

Post by euske »

mooreds wrote: post #3
CJefferson wrote: post #2

I usually try hard not to be cynical, but in this case I can't stop myself. This seems to be another attempt at a grand, unified packaging and IPC / linking method. There have been hundreds of these, and there is no attempt at all to discuss where all the others went wrong, and how this will improve upon them.

Obligatory xkcd cartoon: https://xkcd.com/927/

I tend to think that these xkcd URLs are becoming like bible verses for geeks. I find myself memorizing those numbers. (e.g. "Ugh, he's getting like xkcd/386 again.")

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#18

Post by JoeAltmaier »

CmdrSprinkles wrote: post #13
vetinari wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with computers (abstracting from accidental complexity) is, that they do what you tell them to do , not what you think you told them to do . You cannot somehow make an agreement or solve it, how it is solved with humans - by communicating. You must formulate your thought exactly. And that's what most people have a problem with - except for some hard sciences, they never needed to formulate their thought t…

Not to be rude, but how often do you interact with other human beings? Communication is a huge problem in everyday life. Anyone who has ever had even a short term SO (longer than a one night stand/few dates) has learned that it is important to be careful in how you phrase things and to understand that people may not understand what you were trying to say.

You can engage in a dialog with humans. "What? Hey! Don't get mad! Let me explain!" Instead of just deleting all your files without recourse.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#19

Post by CmdrSprinkles »

marcosdumay wrote: post #11
Waterluvian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most common challenges that I see engineers face is to effectively empathize with the user. When you know a lot about something, you just see it in a fundamentally different way. This makes it difficult to focus on making it easy for the user to do what they want, not what you think they should want. When I drive my car, I just want to get from point A to point B while listening to a podcast. I don't care…

> When I drive my car, I just want to get from point A to point B while listening to a podcast. I don't care to know how they work. Yet, you've spent months explicitly training for that task.

And people have spent years learning how to check facebook.

The problem with this pitch is that it doesn't understand the distinction.

By a lot of people's standards, I am a scientist (just not a domain scientist). I spend my life understanding how things work and figuring out ways to further our understanding of those. It is great. If you ask me about how a computer works, I can talk for hours. Physical phenomena? Minutes. Biology? I can make a crude joke

As for a car? I vaguely understand the principles of a combustion engine, but I couldn't for the life of me make one. My understanding is "You get gas into the engine. You light it with a spark plug. It bursts into flames which moves a piston which moves a crank which moves a bunch of gears and eventually moves wheels". I don't know anything beyond that

Hell, another good example is in the realm of video games. Kerbal Space Program is awesome and does a great job of making people remember why they learned physics. But engines are a black box for the vast majority of us and you genuinely don't need to understand how the fuel gets to the thruster or what happens. It is just a black box where fuel goes in one end and fire comes out the other, with fire generating delta V.

And same here. Most people don't need to know WHY an apple falls. They just have to know that stuff will fall. Whereas the physicists and funky table makers DO have to understand why the apple falls and how it can be stopped.

Re: What's wrong with Software nowadays and how we can fix it

#20

Post by CmdrSprinkles »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #18
CmdrSprinkles wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be rude, but how often do you interact with other human beings? Communication is a huge problem in everyday life. Anyone who has ever had even a short term SO (longer than a one night stand/few dates) has learned that it is important to be careful in how you phrase things and to understand that people may not understand what you were trying to say.

You can engage in a dialog with humans. "What? Hey! Don't get mad! Let me explain!" Instead of just deleting all your files without recourse.

Again, I don't want to be rude, but have you been in a relationship? Recovering from a foot in the mouth can be a lot harder than hoping you actually have a back-up somewhere.

Also, that is kind of a worst case scenario and is pretty hard to pull off these days (most OSes are smart enough to prevent rm -rf * from doing much more than ruining your afternoon).

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