People expect technology to suck because it sucks

Post by hrktb » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 11:05 PM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #181

hrktb wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you, but feel like we are biased by what we accepted as normal in our formative years, and that filter doesn’t apply on what we are discovering now that we’re grown up professionals. For instance books have been with us for centuries, and honestly most of them suck. Paper pages are thin and sometimes cut your finger (how many times did you get cut by an ebook ?), most are weak to liquids yet our world is fille…

We’ve also had centuries to improve the technology of books and I think that makes a difference. Although the weaknesses you cite seem like problems in search of a solution. No one ever expected books to have variable font size ... why would they? Lastly let’s recall the book five hundred years ago is dramatically different from the book of today. For example your point about liquids is now in many ways resolved by t…

Post by WheelsAtLarge » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #95

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…

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…

Post by pdimitar » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

asciimov wrote: post #260

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 don’t know what has to happen for people to stop tolerating software as it is. Deaths, a lot of deaths. Software Engineering needs a PE type licensure and a union. We need a way to stand together to advocate for better working conditions, practices, and tools.

Post by WheelsAtLarge » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

Post by julianlam » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 11:45 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #303

julianlam wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.