People expect technology to suck because it sucks • Hacker News Board

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#301

Post by swirepe » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #208

hrktb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t reality suck the same ? 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…

I live in an old house, and routinely discover ugly hacks that were done by the previous owner, presumably due to laziness, cost or just lack of skill. For example, they buried tons of stuff (toys, furniture, water heater etc) in the backyard and built a terrace on top of the pile to cover it up, apparently because they were too lazy to take it to the dump. The terrace decayed, so I had to tear it down, but in doing…

To be fair, the previous person didn't know you were going to try to plant vegetables in their landfill.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#302

Post by dublin » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

Out_of_Characte wrote: post #116

happytoexplain wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference is that the entire software/hardware stack is a world created entirely by humans, untouched by "reality" for the purposes of all these annoyances, so it feels like we should be able to wrangle it better after so many decades. It's entirely our own creation, and we decide every iota of it, and yet it bites us (justifiably or not - turns out thousands of people each creating different layers of a…

Reality creeps in from us creating tech-utopia trough "legacy" systems where the internet, cryptography, multi-core architecture and full program isolation didn't exist yet. Software has a nasty habit of iterating on yesterday's ideas instead of rewriting for tomorrow. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it seems to be the path of least resistance thusfar.

I disagree - by and large, we don't need to "rewrite for tomorrow". Almost every significant problem in Computer Science and Software Engineering was solved (well) decades ago, often in the 1960s. Security is a bigger issue now, but it was largely solved years ago.

The problem is that we do engage in so much "rewriting", instead of leveraging known good, quality code (or at least fully-fleshed out algos, etc.) in our "new, modern, elegant, and trendy" software edifices of crap.

To me, this may be the one really good thing to come of the cloud (as opposed to the re-mainframe-ication of IT): the "OS" of the 21st century, allowing plumbing together proven scalable and reliable cloud/network services to build better software. (Again, not a new idea, this was behind the "Unix Philosophy" of pipes, filters, and making each program do one thing well. Eventually, it will be in fashion to realize this really is a better way...)

We need smaller, better software, not the latest trendy languages, insanely complex platforms that no one understands, and toolchains of staggering complexity that produce crap code so bloated that it requires computers thousands of times faster than the Crays of the 1990s just to do ordinary desktop stuff. (Seriously, folks, the Raspberry Pi 4 on the next table is a rough match for the Cray we had in Houston when I worked for Chevron in the early 90s! Think about that, and then think about how little data you really need to deal with to do the job, vs what you're actually shuffling around.)

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#303

Post by robocat » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

julianlam wrote: post #139

efitz wrote: post #83

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…

> 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 Nowadays, I would consider this a problem with the browser. How often does one navigate backwards with the backspace key? Recently, I had some doubts over whether or not I should clobber the native browser behaviour for "ctrl-s", but then I realized that nobody anywhere EVER saves a…

> but then I realized that nobody anywhere EVER saves a web page to disk...

Some people do it all the time. I was emailed a saved page the other day.

I was responsible for a single page web app, and the error detection code was stored in a tag within the page, so I got plenty of “errors” logged for people trying to access saved pages.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#304

Post by young_unixer » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

Bugs are not our biggest problem, our biggest problem are deliberate decisions that privilege vendor control, tradition, and ease of implementation instead of good architectural design.

All three major desktop operating systems (Windows, MacOS and Linux distributions †) are so bad that it's infuriating at times. We can't have a single operating system to rely on and say: "This system works well and won't give you unnecessary headaches."

How can we develop good end-user products when the very tools software developers use to create those end-user products are broken?

† The kernel may be decently reliable, but the actual distributions are an ungodly mess.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#305

Post by wwright » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #85

wwright wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work somewhere that primarily relies on manual testing rather than automated testing. It definitely does not make the software more reliable here, at the least. :-)

There're three kinds of manual testing: 1. Manual testing that should be manual (exploratory). 2. Manual tests that are new and haven't been automated yet (but will be). 3. Manual tests that should be automated. (3) is the one many people see and suffer through (I know I have). They need to be automated to free up time for (1), which is where many issues are actually discovered. But if (3) dominates your time, you ca…

This is very insightful, thanks!

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#306

Post by robocat » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

rglover wrote: post #274

efitz wrote: post #83

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…

Discipline and professional responsibility on the behalf of programmers, coupled with patience. Everyone is in such an irrational hurry, it's been built into the "culture" such that rushing and making messes is acceptable. And by extension, customers expect things to be shit so you don't get in much trouble for doing it. It's a feedback loop that only stops if companies (and individual programmers) start taking pride…

> It's a feedback loop that only stops if companies (and individual programmers) start taking pride in craft

Most programmers, and many companies, want to produce something of quality, well crafted.

The drive for low quality kibble comes directly from consumers, and the inability/cost of judging value.

A consumer can’t be expected to be a UI expert, and a slightly better UI might not drive sales because other factors are more important. I try to buy hardware with good UI, but I often make compromises for other factors.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#307

Post by tracerbulletx » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

Am I the only one who completely disagrees with this premise and find that software is not only doing more incredible things than ever before, but is much more reliable than it ever has been? And when I run in to problems they don't prevent me from doing my work, are at worst mildly annoying, and are exceedingly rare considering I now have a running computer in my pocket 100% of the time 24/7 and do all of my work on a computer? I honestly don't get this grumpy attitude everyone has about software, are people expecting some kind of platonic ideal of software?

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#308

Post by oever » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #105

pas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Microsoft, Apple, Google. An MS bug in an enterprise piece of software (so they get paid every year for it) is Skype for Business. Perhaps my org hasn't updated their installation, but if I drag a contact from the chat window (say you message me and aren't in my contacts yet) and then drag it to the contact list (in status view) it will reliably crash the program. If I drag it to groups view it'll place the contact i…

So more telemetry is not a guarantee for bugs being fixed.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#309

Post by scubbo » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

mikewarot wrote: post #284

hrktb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t reality suck the same ? 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…

When is the last time leaving your keys in the car caused your house to suddenly slide 10 foot southwest? When is the last time you flipped a light switch, and suddenly your pool disappeared? Have you ever had French doors appear in your dining room because of a "Windows Update" on Wednesday morning? Have you ever had to wait for half an hour for your house to boot later on that same Wednesday? When is the last time…

I agree with your underlying point, but it's also important to point out that computers are also singularly wonderful in that it's usually much faster and easier to reverse failures, and then to diagnose and debug in a non-impactful manner.

To take your second example - if I could then flip the light switch back, and the pool reappeared, then I'd be miffed but not particularly annoyed (assuming I was able to fix that obvious-bug either myself or with an update in a timely fashion). If the pool stayed gone, then yeah, I'd be pissed.

Of course, that whole argument goes out the window when the tech in question isn't controlled by you. Which is often the case.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#310

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

ghostpepper wrote: post #226

efitz wrote: post #83

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…

I know a product that can do more damage with an accidental backspace: the iMessage app for MacOS (Messages). If you're any sort of power user, you likely know that you can backspace by the word instead of the by the character, using Ctrl + BS on Linux or Cmd + BS on Mac. In the Messages app, the shorcut to delete your _entire chat history_ is also Cmd + BS, and it works even if your caret is in the text box. So if y…

This always annoyed me but it looks like this behavior is gone in Big Sur. You can ⌘⌫ to your heart's content.