Ask HN: What are problems that need to be solved?

Post by jasonlbaptiste » Fri, Jun 11, 2010, 7:50 PM UTC

fjabre wrote: post #16

edw519 wrote: post #6

Enterprise software sucks. We don't talk about it much here at hn, but think about it. Every man-made object you encounter every day was manufactured somewhere. And moved, more than once. Now add in all the sales, marketing, customer service, operations, accounting, finance, human resources, etc., etc., etc. needed to support that manufacturing and distribution. Next, add financial markets, healthcare, energy, entert…

So true. Also don't forget how many people actually major in information sytems in college. The whole industry is self perpetuated by overly complicated software. The more complicated the more they can milk their clients.. Such a waste.. Although I suppose in the current environment it's better to have these guys employed instead of looking for jobs.

Post by peteforde » Fri, Jun 11, 2010, 7:51 PM UTC

peteforde wrote: post #7

As it turns out, humans are really bad at answering questions about what they need. Often if they knew they needed it, we would be competing to provide the best solution for it. This is the difference between inductive and deductive analysis. Deductive would be tasking a student with applying pattern matching to a known domain to find an expected result. Inductive analysis is when you don't actually know if there's a…

Post by jcromartie » Fri, Jun 11, 2010, 7:52 PM UTC

fjabre wrote: post #16

edw519 wrote: post #6

Enterprise software sucks. We don't talk about it much here at hn, but think about it. Every man-made object you encounter every day was manufactured somewhere. And moved, more than once. Now add in all the sales, marketing, customer service, operations, accounting, finance, human resources, etc., etc., etc. needed to support that manufacturing and distribution. Next, add financial markets, healthcare, energy, entert…

So true. Also don't forget how many people actually major in information sytems in college. The whole industry is self perpetuated by overly complicated software. The more complicated the more they can milk their clients.. Such a waste.. Although I suppose in the current environment it's better to have these guys employed instead of looking for jobs.

Post by tjmaxal » Fri, Jun 11, 2010, 7:55 PM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #10

edw519 wrote: post #6

Enterprise software sucks. We don't talk about it much here at hn, but think about it. Every man-made object you encounter every day was manufactured somewhere. And moved, more than once. Now add in all the sales, marketing, customer service, operations, accounting, finance, human resources, etc., etc., etc. needed to support that manufacturing and distribution. Next, add financial markets, healthcare, energy, entert…

A friend of mine suggested truly distributing companies. His theory is that if you can outsource payroll, then you should be able to outsource everything, everything, that is not core to your business. In a sense that is what the App Store does. You build the software (your main skill) and you do not even need a website. You could take it further and pay another company x% of revenue and they take care of marketing,…

Post by jasonlbaptiste » Fri, Jun 11, 2010, 7:57 PM UTC

jcromartie wrote: post #25

fjabre wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. Also don't forget how many people actually major in information sytems in college. The whole industry is self perpetuated by overly complicated software. The more complicated the more they can milk their clients.. Such a waste.. Although I suppose in the current environment it's better to have these guys employed instead of looking for jobs.

Every single Information Systems graduate that I've met has made a horrible horrible mess of every piece of code they touch. I hate to stereotype, but when it's all you have to go off of, it's all you can do.