91–100 of 437 posts
I have worked for software companies for over 25 years, mostly on teams building software, and I hate software. I find bugs in every software I use (my freaking microwave oven control panel!). In addition to questionable quality, software is often downright hostile (lose all the data you typed into a web form if you accidentally backspace while not in a text field, because it navigates off the page). Ironically softw…
This might sound like a flippant question, but it's not. Isn't the point of tech to tinker? When did problems become problems that you shouldn't try to solve, instead of a reason to learn about the tech? I've really been down about technology lately, after working with 6-12th graders. They just don't get how anything works, if it doesn't immediately work for them. They don't want to take it apart and figure it out. T…
Nowadays most software doesn’t let you tinker with it. Want to tinker with your chat client? Too bad, everything (that any of your friends actually use) is closed source and proprietary now. Frustrated with social media? Unless you can convince all your friends to switch to mastodon, you’re stuck with whatever Facebook/Instagram forces upon you. Excited about the future of virtual reality? Hope you don’t mind playing…
instead of feeling helpless i get to make a calculation: ok, so to fix this issue i have to get the source version, identify the problem, figure out how to fix it, submit the fix upstream.
hmm, 5 hours of work? do i have the time? can i pay someone to do it? is it worth it?
if the answer is 'no' then i made a conscious decision to tolerate this issue, because i considered the tradeoff.
because i have this choice, i feel empowered, even if i decide not to do anything about it.
with closed source software i don't have this choice and any issue i run into makes me feel helpless.
I have worked for software companies for over 25 years, mostly on teams building software, and I hate software. I find bugs in every software I use (my freaking microwave oven control panel!). In addition to questionable quality, software is often downright hostile (lose all the data you typed into a web form if you accidentally backspace while not in a text field, because it navigates off the page). Ironically softw…
Thankfully that can be disabled, but I find it to be one of the most infuriating 'features' of Firefox. If it weren't something that could be turned off, it would be a deal killer all by itself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The definition of non-sucky technology is not having to waste time on any of that. If you think tinkering and configuring are fun you should stay as far away as possible from software design, because you have no insight into what most users expect from tech.
> If you think tinkering and configuring are fun you should stay as far away as possible from software design You overlook that not giving the user options to configure their systems is bad practice as it can force all manner of dark patterns on them, and they are left constrained in that software, unable to bend it to their will. Let them tweak, I say!
I have worked for software companies for over 25 years, mostly on teams building software, and I hate software. I find bugs in every software I use (my freaking microwave oven control panel!). In addition to questionable quality, software is often downright hostile (lose all the data you typed into a web form if you accidentally backspace while not in a text field, because it navigates off the page). Ironically softw…
My gas car stinks, destroys the planet, needs yearly maintenance, crashes in everything the second I stop paying attention.
My house decays days after day. Floors need constant cleaning, wall have holes from small impacts, paint contains inedible fragments and disperse nocive gas.
Bees are building nests on my balcony and it’s definitely not what it was built for, nor where they should be.
How can we tolerate such a life ?
> People expect technology to suck What people? Of the people I know not in the tech industry, most people like technology and talk more about the benefits than sucking. Including my 87 y/o grandmother who loves her ipad.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it were only for novel products this would be a reasonable argument. See Netscape's rush to release their browser as an example of what you're talk about. But the worst part is that this is an issue with established products that have secured their market, and will even receive money every year from their customers. They have both the money and the time to pace themselves and test things properly, but they don't.
Can you name a few of those who really truly have time but don't take their time? Also it seems there's always an opportunity cost. So time is always "of the essence".
I feel like the slow decline of software quality has been in lockstep with the gradual transition from (expensive and non-measurable) manual software/hardware testing and QA to automated frameworks and rollout-based quality assurance. I constantly encounter broken functionality, buggy or unpleasant UIs, just as the author has. It feels like many of these problems could be avoided if you just had one person whose job…
Um, how long have you been in the industry? Software has always sucked and had these issues. It has nothing to to with automated QA. The reason you see more issues is 'way back in the day' your software had a very limited number of things that it did, and in general it did not involve accessing a network or chugging down massive volumes of data from untrusted sources. I work for a company that has a lot of individual…
30 years ago, software bugs might interfere with you professionally, but they wouldn’t stop your ability to get money from the bank, cook food, or do any other day to day tasks.