Mine is tech related, but make it easier to form and operate tech cooperatives. In general, I've found engineers have the knowledge of what the best thing for their product is, and are often pulled away for various reasons. Making them a part of the owenership structure for their work could pay dividends in quality and usability of software.
Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
141–150 of 364 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#142Understanding the problem.
Most of the time the users haven't taken enough time to understand their own problems and have trouble articulating them in a way that's meaningful for a product manager or developer. And on the opposite side of that product managers and developers often do not develop sufficient domain experience to understand the problems users are trying to express.
This is why the absolute best software is built by people who are developing for themselves. You know when it's not solving your problem and you fix it because you know nobody else will.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#143There are so many times where I think think to myself, "We shouldn't be doing this in 2020". Just mundane stuff like checking for null values and stuff. You'd expect we'd have this covered by now
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Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#144Development environments. The amount of time and hassle I've seen lost to getting a working development environment up and running is incredible. Every time I talk to someone who's learning to program I tell them: "Setting up your development environment will be a nightmare. I have been doing this for twenty years and it's STILL a nightmare for me every time I do it. You are not alone." Docker is reasonably good here…
This is my calling. I'm the cofounder of Repl.it and I've dedicated my career to solving this problem. Simon -- since you're the cocreator of Django, you might get a kick out of this: From loading up a Django environment to adding and rendering the first view takes less than a minute: https://gifs.amasad.repl.co/django.gif Before starting this company I was a founding engineer on the React Native team where I focused…
I love Repl.it and taught my daughter python there. Can you please make a self hosted version? I think the only thing I've seen is that maybe sometime in the future you'll have it.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#145Removing out of date and incorrect advice on c++ from the internet.
Same with python. I was looking for a good message queue yesterday and all the results were from 8 years ago due to stackoverflow's zealous dupe rules.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#146Requirements specification. It trumps every single concern raised so far. If you're seriously considering R&D in this space, count me in.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#147I seem to spend far more time on the deployment of code than I ever used to, more time writing CloudFormation and ansible than the Java backend, python lambdas and static UI that it deploys. That seems nuts to me. I'm not sure how you fix it without being Amazon/Google. People moan about Terraform too before that gets mentioned.
We're working on this at Spaceship: https://spaceship.run
We've still got a lot to build, but the goal is zero config deployment for any app/service.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is my calling. I'm the cofounder of Repl.it and I've dedicated my career to solving this problem. Simon -- since you're the cocreator of Django, you might get a kick out of this: From loading up a Django environment to adding and rendering the first view takes less than a minute: https://gifs.amasad.repl.co/django.gif Before starting this company I was a founding engineer on the React Native team where I focused…
I love Repl.it and taught my daughter python there. Can you please make a self hosted version? I think the only thing I've seen is that maybe sometime in the future you'll have it.
Great to hear :-)
Certainly the plan. Just a matter of priorities and time. I'm curious, what's so attractive about self hosted version?
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#149We need a faster web framework that generates HTML on mobile phones with no JS on the main thread. The web is the "single top-priority" software platform, but it's in big, big trouble. On mobile, users spend less than 7% of their time on the web. https://vimeo.com/364402896 All of the rest of their time is in native apps, where big corporations decide what you are and aren't allowed to do. As a result, the money is g…
100% agree with this. Another thing that users have to deal with on the web, but not on apps: Endless banners and popups telling you about useless things like cookies, emails subscription, notifications, gimme-your-location, "download our app", etc.
Re: Ask HN: What is the single top-priority software engineering problem?
#150We need a faster web framework that generates HTML on mobile phones with no JS on the main thread. The web is the "single top-priority" software platform, but it's in big, big trouble. On mobile, users spend less than 7% of their time on the web. https://vimeo.com/364402896 All of the rest of their time is in native apps, where big corporations decide what you are and aren't allowed to do. As a result, the money is g…
Why HTML whatsoever?