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Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

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Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#11

Post by viraptor »

If you believe that's all there is to those ideas, maybe you need to step away and think about them for a while. Sure, there's going to be some resume padding happening in larger orgs. But all those ideas solve real problems too.

I think you're just in a very negative space if you start with "Distributed systems" as something overly complicated. At some scale getting a bigger machine either doesn't make financial sense or is just not possible to implement efficiently. Some ideas are taken too far or implemented where not needed. But I'd rather recommend you to learn where each one of them started and why. Criticize for valid reasons, but don't become a curmudgeon.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#13

Post by hestefisk »

One hypothesis (but not a single answer) is that complexity creates jobs. Engineering something complex and clever creates job security and consulting hours. Fads, trends, and ideas come and go like the tide, and it makes the big wheel go around. Kubernetes, which 99% of developers have no use case for, is indeed “job security” for what could equally be achieving achieve with Unix and a few she’ll scripts. (I’m being deliberately provocative here).

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#14

Post by xpe »

This question is getting a lot of attention. As such, it is consuming our time. I’d suggest it can be improved and revised. Currently, it is rather vague. I suspect the author could take more time and make it clearer. There are a lot of interesting themes — it deserves to be unpacked and clarified.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#15

Post by [deleted] »

xpe wrote: post #9
baremetal wrote: post #2

The pendulum always swings back the other way. Perhaps after a downturn, things will revert to the mean.

To what degree is this valid logic? Under what contexts does “reversion to the mean” apply? Over what time frame? The “mean” implies one dimension. What quantity are you referring to?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#16

Post by impjohn »

usrn wrote: post #8
impjohn wrote: post #5

First software ate the world. Now software is eating software too. My point is, what you write makes sense if the target isn't moving. Writing software will inevitably become more complex because the envelope is always being pushed. What you say about needless complexity is a very valid point, but it's just growing pains imo.

I wonder if "growing pains" fully captures what's going on here. It might just be natural for people to grab more layers and tools when the run into problems. Everyone loves to demo how the new thing works with "just a simple YAML file." Honestly everyone would be better off doing everything in code (python, bash, go, rust, c it doesn't matter) directly. They're easy to debug, flexible, and everyone already knows how…

I suppose grabbing more layers and tools instead of thinking deeply about why you're having the problem and resolving it at its core is the growing pain I'm referring to.

On the other hand perhaps the industry is being ever-increasingly led by a younger workforce who already came into this ecosystem, and there's less chance of a full retro/introspective about why things are they way they are.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#17

Post by xpe »

xpe wrote: post #9
baremetal wrote: post #2

The pendulum always swings back the other way. Perhaps after a downturn, things will revert to the mean.

To what degree is this valid logic? Under what contexts does “reversion to the mean” apply? Over what time frame? The “mean” implies one dimension. What quantity are you referring to?

From Wolfram Math World

> Reversion to the mean, also called regression to the mean, is the statistical phenomenon stating that the greater the deviation of a random variate from its mean, the greater the probability that the next measured variate will deviate less far. In other words, an extreme event is likely to be followed by a less extreme event.

It is a stretch (and invalid, generally) to extrapolate this well-defined phenomenon to a complex system. There are many complex systems that maintain or increase their complexity.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#19

Post by xpe »

xpe wrote: post #9
baremetal wrote: post #2

The pendulum always swings back the other way. Perhaps after a downturn, things will revert to the mean.

To what degree is this valid logic? Under what contexts does “reversion to the mean” apply? Over what time frame? The “mean” implies one dimension. What quantity are you referring to?

https://www.econlib.org/is-there-a-swing-of-the-pendulum/

> Is There a Swing of the Pendulum?

> By Pierre Lemieux

> People are often tempted to see social (including economic and political) phenomena in terms of a “swing of the pendulum.” In this perspective, problems such as wokism (just to give an example) will be corrected when the pendulum swings back. I suggest that this approach is easily misleading and seldom useful.

Re: Ask HN: Have we screwed ourselves as software engineers?

#20

Post by reisr3 »

I think about it more from the perspective of "building stuff that is useful and interesting". I can very quickly build a lot of cool, useful stuff with JS + Node + React + Postgres.

Yeah there is a lot of overbuilding and BS in our industry, but I don't think we're unique in that regard. It is safe to block out the noise and focus on what excites you.

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