Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think • Hacker News Board

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#251

Post by akjha » Wed, May 13, 2020, 10:16 AM UTC

ci5er wrote: post #228

_bxg1 wrote: post #7

I remember reading this article about SAP a few months ago, and it just blew my mind: https://retool.com/blog/erp-for-engineers/ Here was an entire market segment I'd never heard of, and just the market leader is worth $163B . And on top of that, the technology is so totally alien to anything I'd ever heard of before. It's like an alternate-history kind of thing. Like if we discovered a continent somewhere in the Pac…

I've got a - maybe silly - question: Do you think that software engineers read about the business of technology? I mean, some of these behemoths (or used-to-be behemoths) of technology, like Oracle and Intel and Microsoft (Ok - everyone knows them) and Dell and Apple (mostly the 2nd one) and places like SAP (which is arguably the biggest database and logistics and supply chain (sans the EDI middle-ware vendors on the…

This is something a lot of us lack. Do you know of any resources which can help in learning about the business side of the technology?

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#252

Post by shavingspiders » Wed, May 13, 2020, 10:17 AM UTC

sq_ wrote: post #239

NikolaNovak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if it helps understand the ecosystem and its seeking oddness, this is the crucial part of article: "Implementing ERP isn’t just a purchasing decision: it’s committing to redoing how you handle operations. Installing the software is the easy part; adjusting the whole company’s workflow is the most of the work." Don't think of erp and implementing it as a software development challenge. Sure, Developers can fscrew…

This reminds me of something I read while helping a business major friend with a case study a while back. One of the readings she had as background mentioned that companies like SAP that sell ERP are almost selling the process/workflow more than the actual software. Part of me wonders if these things are more of a "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" thing than anything else. Are people buying the workflow because…

Another view of this - if the true purchase is of a group of workflows, are they purchasing for the things they know they need or the assurance that behemoth IBM/SAP/whatever has a process for whatever they didn't think about? Purchasing to minimise some future operational risk.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#253

Post by huffmsa » Wed, May 13, 2020, 10:21 AM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #245

cambalache wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want your mind to be blown even more? I worked for a multinational company, I would not be surpised that this company is among the top 10 SAP customers worldwide. Well, everybody hated hated hated SAP, it was a huge hindrance instead of any help.Any use beyond of a "dumb" database was a huge PITA, and I am not fully convinced that all in all it helped more than damaged the business. It was clunky, unintutive, slow, u…

SAP's ugly green, old style-UI screens are wonderfully optimised for data-entry. You can be ultra-fast . It's like VIM. It's like driving at 300 mph. Its all the new fangled dumbed-down, web-ui's that is sheer crap and leaves your head scratching. Well..the old UI's were coded by old-school, C programmers who started their career in the 70s and 80s. They even wrote a multi-process Erlang style kernel to back the appl…

Saw a big write-up somewhere about this. It's easy to learn the muscle memories for various patterns on a text only UI, and you can become extremely fast.

But almost no one is fast with a mouse based GUI

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#254

Post by ci5er » Wed, May 13, 2020, 10:29 AM UTC

JackMorgan wrote: post #250

ci5er wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough - I was just curious if the average modern software developer read books by Andy Grove ("Paranoid"), or Crossing the Chasm, or the biography of Steve Jobs, or kept track of what's up with the top 250 global tech companies on planet Earth every week for 20 years. Now, that's a little unfair because I read really fast. But - I guess I was just curious about how a tech person couldn't know about SAP. NOT as…

I would guess - at least for a lot of developers in my cohort - we came into tech at a time when every few years there was some big improvement to software productivity. Staying current with language features, new languages, and new paradigms could be the difference between getting that next job or not. Especially since people younger in their career are often expected (yes, even in tech) to be current with all the l…

That makes perfect sense. They are looking for jobs. (Which is not bad!)

"We" were going to build a new world. So I guess we were some kind of idiots. After I sold my first "game" on an Apple 2 in 1984 (they paid me a lot), I went to work a semiconductor manufacture, and AT&T and Apple and General Magic and Motorola were going to re-invent the world. Good engineering work - bad vision. Didn't work.

Meanwhile in Japan, where I worked, I translated Nintendo Games (In addition to the adobe and lucas arts stuff, which was more for Sega) to the 6502 (hey, I'm old), and made money trying to make the meet the new.

I think it was easier back then. I think there was less intergenerational hostility.

Why do we have inter-generational hostility? I know how to bring the old arcades alive! :-) (Actually I know how to activate satellites - if we want low-cost back-haul - packets here - packets there - There are 0.1% utilized GPRS networks out there.

AND Now we are getting into topics that you don't want to hear about.

I do really appreciate your willingness to share tonight. You broke open a couple of pre-conceptions. And I guess that's the reason you talk to people.

Thank you.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#255

Post by ci5er » Wed, May 13, 2020, 10:32 AM UTC

akjha wrote: post #251

ci5er wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a - maybe silly - question: Do you think that software engineers read about the business of technology? I mean, some of these behemoths (or used-to-be behemoths) of technology, like Oracle and Intel and Microsoft (Ok - everyone knows them) and Dell and Apple (mostly the 2nd one) and places like SAP (which is arguably the biggest database and logistics and supply chain (sans the EDI middle-ware vendors on the…

This is something a lot of us lack. Do you know of any resources which can help in learning about the business side of the technology?

Start here: https://www.andykessler.com/andy_kessler/excerpts/How_We_Got...

Message me after. I am at wmarchibald@gmail.com

EDIT: Oh! Also "Eat People" by same author - Kessler : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049U4KC6/

Semi-edited: Everybody else will say Zero to whatever, and the Hard things about Hard Things, and Jimmie's book Good to Great and Crossing the Chasm, and you might call me mad (and I may be!), I am the only person who will recommend a book called "Eat People". (It is a good book, though)

EDIT2: U - akjha - Please let me know what you thought. You have my email address.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#256

Post by ci5er » Wed, May 13, 2020, 10:43 AM UTC

akjha wrote: post #251

ci5er wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a - maybe silly - question: Do you think that software engineers read about the business of technology? I mean, some of these behemoths (or used-to-be behemoths) of technology, like Oracle and Intel and Microsoft (Ok - everyone knows them) and Dell and Apple (mostly the 2nd one) and places like SAP (which is arguably the biggest database and logistics and supply chain (sans the EDI middle-ware vendors on the…

This is something a lot of us lack. Do you know of any resources which can help in learning about the business side of the technology?

Please let me know how those two resources treated you and we can go from there. (Part of it will require that I know where you want you career to go)

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#257

Post by NikolaNovak » Wed, May 13, 2020, 10:44 AM UTC

piokoch wrote: post #244

NikolaNovak wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is fascinating to me, because virtually all my friends have heard of SAP outside of IT - as users or recipients. My engineer friend uses it for supply chain management, a beer store hq clerk helped implement it, construction accountant has used it, etc. At the same time, I guess you have to be at a company of a certain size for it to be relevant to your life... But that perhaps proves the point - HN is very star…

"My engineer friend uses it for supply chain management, a beer store hq clerk helped implement it, construction accountant has used it, etc." Is SAP something that can be somehow scaled down? if this is used for a beer store, it has to be really large store, if that's what is written in the cited article is true: "A basic installation of SAP has 20,000 database tables, 3,000 of which are configuration tables. In tho…

Ah,I guess context would help - "The Beer Store" is Ontario's [Corrected From "Canada"] monopoly province-wide beer retail chain.

You are absolutely right, a single retail store would not use such an ERP :)

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#258

Post by golergka » Wed, May 13, 2020, 10:49 AM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #121

tlb wrote: post #59

The metal economy is huge. Almost every product requires metal. But metallurgists don't take home a big fraction of it. What's special about the software economy is that people who write the software take home a large fraction of it. Maybe more than half, depending how you count. Which is unprecedented. It's not just because software can be zero marginal cost. Musicians don't take home half of music revenue. In most…

" people who write the software take home a large fraction of it. Maybe more than half, " Where do you get that figure? The vast majority of people writing software are not paid enough salary + benefits to come anywhere close to 50% of the revenue their work is responsible for earning.

In companies that actually manage to get to revenue, may be. But if you take together all the software companies, including many that have not yet and may never get to revenue at all, I think it would be much closer.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#259

Post by golergka » Wed, May 13, 2020, 10:50 AM UTC

lainga wrote: post #111

tlb wrote: post #59

The metal economy is huge. Almost every product requires metal. But metallurgists don't take home a big fraction of it. What's special about the software economy is that people who write the software take home a large fraction of it. Maybe more than half, depending how you count. Which is unprecedented. It's not just because software can be zero marginal cost. Musicians don't take home half of music revenue. In most…

Maybe that analogy would be accurate if you could make new and pleasing music out of hundreds of small samples of other music, and also 90% of the musicians were used to either getting their samples via torrent or picking one album and playing it in an orchestra of 5,000 for the next 40 years

That's literally how most of music production works. You torrent sample libraries, get used to a couple of genres that you do well, and then use the same tools all over again for every client.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#260

Post by NikolaNovak » Wed, May 13, 2020, 11:01 AM UTC

ivalm wrote: post #21

NikolaNovak wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is fascinating to me, because virtually all my friends have heard of SAP outside of IT - as users or recipients. My engineer friend uses it for supply chain management, a beer store hq clerk helped implement it, construction accountant has used it, etc. At the same time, I guess you have to be at a company of a certain size for it to be relevant to your life... But that perhaps proves the point - HN is very star…

> At the same time, I guess you have to be at a company of a certain size for it to be relevant to your life... But that perhaps proves the point - HN is very starup focused That’s pretty dismissive. I work at a company with ~80B in revenue, I never interacted or heard of SAP in work context. In fact it is only incidentally that I’ve heard of them previously. There are hundred of thousands of engineers working in com…

-“ The perspective “of you haven’t worked with SAP you are in a small org” is wrong.”

I would fully agree with that, my generalization was kind of the opposite - if you work at a small company you are unlikely to use or work with SAP.

My other generalization was that HN was focused on startups, their technical culture, the cool and interesting, and almost by the definition not on boring bread and butter aspects. Does not mean that people/users themselves do not work there - I have spent twenty years on PeopleSoft/Oracle myself, but that is not why i come here and yes, the overall zeitgeist on HN toward e.g. Oracle is pretty consistent :->

FWIW, comment was not meant to be dismissive. I was genuinely fascinated, late at the night, at the notion that IT industry professionals might not be exposed to a behemoth such as SAP or even ERPs at large, and was pondering as to how that might come to be; there's absolutely personal bias & hubris in it, which is why I tried to understand where it came from and what's the diff between background of my friends and colleagues, vs perhaps some other IT professionals :)