Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

austinvernon.eth.link

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 212 posts

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#191

Post by Robotbeat »

manachar wrote: post #131
hvs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few nits to pick as a woodworker: 1) You never save money building it yourself (at least not in comparison to a standard consumer option, like a chair or table from your local furniture store. This may hold up if you compare what you build to high-end hardwood furniture. But with the cost of tools, you're probably still losing money if this is just a hobby) 2) 90% of my enjoyment of woodworking is just being in my…

There's something amazing/odd/horrifying about a world where it is generally no longer cheaper to do anything yourself. I love to bake and cook. I can do so fairly frugally. A supermarket frozen pie is still gonna be cheaper than anything I can make, especially if I count my time. It's a benefit and goal of the modern global industrialized supply chain, but I cannot help feel that making me work a full time job to bu…

I mean, division of labor has been a thing since we started organizing in tribes, and maybe even before then (families?).

DIY starts making sense again if there are really high taxes or regulations or if money is scarce (i.e. a recession, money being just a method to organize labor efficiently and that breaks down during a liquidity crisis).

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#192

Post by xmprt »

asdff wrote: post #162
crazygringo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree completely. I'm insanely more productive as part of a team than I was in 199x. Not even talking about things for software development specifically, but for general-purpose word-processing and spreadsheeting and scheduling, you've got: - Live collaborative cloud editing over mobile. The back-and-forth that previously might take a week can now be done in half an hour while you're in the back of an Uber in a…

On the other hand, for all of these points you could argue you aren't gaining all that much added productivity for the amount of compute power this all took vs the 1990s. - Live editing requires people to be working on the same thing at the same time, otherwise its back to back and forthing as people have different schedules and don't get to things right away. - Google has now gone to shit with basic search terms. To…

You're speaking of compute resources like they're the biggest bottleneck and not human time. If something takes 100x more compute resources and it saves me 2x time, then I'm 2x more productive. Sure most of those compute resources are wasted but that's besides the point.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#193

Post by lifeisstillgood »

cactus2093 wrote: post #178
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #145

I am writing a book covering a lot of this ground (shout out to Roald Coase) - but I have a different (ish) conclusion. It's not going to be a few "software-friendly" companies like FAANG that eventually lead the charge and we see productivity - it's waaay longer term than that. My take is software is a form of literacy - and it will only be when managers code daily that we will see enough of the control layers (mode…

> when managers code daily No offense but this doesn't sound like a well thought out idea. Have you worked at a tech company as either a coder or a manager? Why should managers code daily? What would they be coding up anyway? If you're saying they should be coding features in the product, then I think you're just saying there should be no middle managers. That's been tried a lot in many different forms over the years…

Do managers write daily? If so my conjecture is they should code daily.

Will they write a UI button. No. But I am not sure that's what a typical coder should be doing in a "programmable company". I am really finding it hard to express this conjecture (it might be rubbish) but why should humans be involved in day to day creativity in the operations of a company? Is it possible at some point to have the operations of a company encoded, moving along and fixed? This is the ideal anyway (the whole point of "change management" is improvements ).

Anyway, my conjecture is that there become three basic management functions - monitoring the company, modelling the company and mentoring the people. I can easily imagine code written to explore new models (it's what everyone does pouring over excel all day - in fact I would suggest a company that can do away with excel from managers is winning)

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#194

Post by lifeisstillgood »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #149
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #145

I am writing a book covering a lot of this ground (shout out to Roald Coase) - but I have a different (ish) conclusion. It's not going to be a few "software-friendly" companies like FAANG that eventually lead the charge and we see productivity - it's waaay longer term than that. My take is software is a form of literacy - and it will only be when managers code daily that we will see enough of the control layers (mode…

Coding is hard though. I remember helping a smart friend of mine with his homework in college for an intro CS course and even basic fizz-buzz type stuff was very hard for him. This is a guy who has had a highly successful career post-college and did well in his (non-technical) major. I'm skeptical that more than a small fraction of the population will ever learn to code at more than a superficial level.

"They said you couldn't teach women to read" - Santa Claus' Grandfather in Arthur Christmas

(Best Xmas kids film, not best source of political quotes but I am still asleep)

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#195

Post by agumonkey »

nathancahill wrote: post #108
agumonkey wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In stuff like car/van furnishings I tend to believe you can save a lot since its not yet an IKEA like market.

Absolutely. A van buildout gets crazy pricey when you contract it out. It's relatively easy and cheap to DIY.

some companies are starting to produce systems in volume though, still pricey but it's probably gonna change

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#196

Post by Too »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #166
jjk166 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A carpenter charges like $50/hr. A tablesaw alone would likely set you back more than the labor for some simple shelves. Then they can get better deals on material, they do higher quality work, and they do all the parts that aren't fun, like cleaning up at the end. Also your time still has value even if you enjoy what you're doing. You could be doing other hobbies you enjoy more, or other aspects of the same hobby, o…

Over your lifetime, you might need 5 or 6 sets of shelves. Buy yourself a porta-tablesaw for about $400-$500 (or cheaper on craiglist etc), learn to use it, and chances are that somewhere in the middle of your life, the cost equation will have flipped in your favor.

You don't need a tablesaw to make some shelves. You'd get very far with a hand held jigsaw. Can be stored in a drawer and costs around 100€ for a decent brand. You just need to be a lot more careful to get things perfectly straight, compared to a circular saw.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#197

Post by tsimionescu »

robertlagrant wrote: post #126
tsimionescu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But can you imagine how much better the world would be if we didn't run businesses and didn't need the people motivated only by money at all?

Not any better? The allocation of finite resources is best done with money.

Money is a means to an end - profit should not be justification in itself, like it is today. Also, there are other good ways of allocating finite resources - allocation by money tends to create long-term winners and losers, as it is usually allowed to propagate across generations, reaching absurd levels such as people living off good land purchasing decisions made by their ancestors centuries ago. Sure, allocation by money is better than allocation by force or allocating all resources to the king, but it's hardly ideal.

Either way, we weren't discussing limited resources here, but just the opposite: creating new value. There are people who actually create the useful items or services, and people who profit off it - and we have all mostly accepted that it's good and proper that these are different people. But looking at this with a cold rationality shows it to be absurd: we take a group of people who are interested in something of use, and instead of letting them do it, we take another group of people who just want to accumulate money&power and put them in charge of deciding how the useful thing will be produced. This is quite obviously absurd, and it has led to global warming denialism, cigarette cancer denialism, and so many other issues.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#198

Post by selfhoster11 »

manachar wrote: post #131
hvs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few nits to pick as a woodworker: 1) You never save money building it yourself (at least not in comparison to a standard consumer option, like a chair or table from your local furniture store. This may hold up if you compare what you build to high-end hardwood furniture. But with the cost of tools, you're probably still losing money if this is just a hobby) 2) 90% of my enjoyment of woodworking is just being in my…

There's something amazing/odd/horrifying about a world where it is generally no longer cheaper to do anything yourself. I love to bake and cook. I can do so fairly frugally. A supermarket frozen pie is still gonna be cheaper than anything I can make, especially if I count my time. It's a benefit and goal of the modern global industrialized supply chain, but I cannot help feel that making me work a full time job to bu…

If you can't costume certain food ingredients, it's likely you'll have to pay extra for a pie that meets your requirements, or bake it yourself.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#199

Post by wizzwizz4 »

mgkimsal wrote: post #103
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With paper, you do it your way , which maps to the organisation's way at both ends (and is probably just a minor improvement over the organisation's way). With computers, unless you can reprogram the system (which is tricky even for programmers), you're doing it the computer's way, which is often worse than the way the organisation would want to have it set up.

"which maps to the organisation's way at both ends" this isn't always a positive or benefit to an org as a whole, although sometimes it's a net benefit to a specific decision maker. many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time. As things grow, the org info changes, needs change, and people try…

> many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time.

Whereas the “computer's way” was basically set by some people in Microsoft who'd never heard of the organisation and likely weren't even thinking about what it does, because that's not what they were making the software to do.

Re: Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?

#200

Post by mgkimsal »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #199
mgkimsal wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"which maps to the organisation's way at both ends" this isn't always a positive or benefit to an org as a whole, although sometimes it's a net benefit to a specific decision maker. many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time. As things grow, the org info changes, needs change, and people try…

> many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time. Whereas the “computer's way” was basically set by some people in Microsoft who'd never heard of the organisation and likely weren't even thinking about what it does, because that's not what they were making the software to do.

if you're just dumping everything in to excel, perhaps. I was more thinking about custom software, internally developed or contracted by the company to automate/amplify whatever their processes are.
Post reply on HN