complexity overload: identify and eliminate unnecessary bloat
Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
21–30 of 364 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#22Unlimited time and resources? I'd try to tackle the global security issues related to advanced cyberattack. It's such a complex problem I don't even know if it's possible, but it would require hardening software update servers, networks, and utilities (especially electrical power distribution) to the point where a single bad Windows update doesn't take out the economy.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#23A search engine that produces results
you would find interesting/helpful/engaging most of the time. It should heavily penalize SEO optimized, clickbaity listicle trash. Content that was created organically as part of a conversation should rank very highly if it's relevant to the query, as well as blog posts from obscure but highly relevant and informed sources.
Google died when they stopped being well informed librarians and started being aggressive salespeople. It's time for a new search engine to step in specifically catered to the curious.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#24Decent nocode, or some sort of nocode holy grail. I want to be able to plug APIs together, process user input, have persistence and identity, without writing so much boilerplate.
If we don't take software engineers as a fixed population, but rather everyone on Earth with sufficient intelligence to code well with the right no-code framework (which currently doesn't exist), then this is indeed the biggest priority. Of course, I am under no illusion that no code will work for everything, such as developing ML applications from scratch. Even then, it can be a way to interface with pre-built ML apps, and use them in various industries. It would also serve as a pipeline for non-STEM workers into full-blown programming and STEM.
Think about what Excel did to productivity, and multiply that by 3x or more. That's what no code could do as the 60% solution for a 200x larger labor pool (more like 80% solution for anyone who can't access engineering talent). It would also make its creators obscenely rich. With the amount of processing power that we have, the time for no code is now.
By the way, there's a large chance that Big Tech incumbents won't be the ones to create the no-code holy grail. They have institutional handcuffs that will make that difficult.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#25Removing out of date and incorrect advice on c++ from the internet.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#26>What's the most important piece of technical debt across software engineering, that could practically be solved if we put enough energy into it?
Being able to update libraries, tools etc. automatically and without friction. Right now upgrading is so tedious, error prone and painful that most places just keep using ancient versions that are not only lacking bug fixes and newer features but are a huge attack surface.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#27Decent nocode, or some sort of nocode holy grail. I want to be able to plug APIs together, process user input, have persistence and identity, without writing so much boilerplate.
This seems like an antigoal to me.
Abstracting away infrastructure just means it will become increasingly centralized as a commodity and less likely/harder to create independent services.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#28A search engine that produces results you would find interesting/helpful/engaging most of the time. It should heavily penalize SEO optimized, clickbaity listicle trash. Content that was created organically as part of a conversation should rank very highly if it's relevant to the query, as well as blog posts from obscure but highly relevant and informed sources. Google died when they stopped being well informed librar…
This does not seem like a software engineering improvement.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#29>What's the most important piece of technical debt across software engineering, that could practically be solved if we put enough energy into it? Being able to update libraries, tools etc. automatically and without friction. Right now upgrading is so tedious, error prone and painful that most places just keep using ancient versions that are not only lacking bug fixes and newer features but are a huge attack surface.
That is not known to have a solution.
It's a human coordination and cooperation problem on a global scale.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#30CSS bloat belongs somewhere on the list. Thankfully, actual, pragmatic and standards-based solutions (proper design systems, treatment of layout as a first-class concern, and component-scoped CSS-in-JS) are finally emerging.