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Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

nytimes.com

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Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#501

Post by fieldcny »

dredmorbius wrote: post #317
fieldcny wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your house doesn’t burn to the ground every time there’s a short in the system

That was not happening as a matter of course in the 1980s. The basic mechanism to reduce such risks was established in the '80s. The 1880s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UL_(safety_organization)

Have you ever looked at 1950s electrical wiring? How about electrical appliances from the 1950s?

We used to have Christmas tree lights from the 1950s that were passed down from our grandparents. Two unshielded wires and no fuses, we burned out many an outlet and tripped the breaker every year.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#502

Post by cudgy »

pmontra wrote: post #451
KronisLV wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> well, they aren't doing the demanding, if you're the one who wants those shiny features! That's just the thing: they use all of these browser based UI technologies, these slower scripting languages and other ways to ship software in a reasonable time and so i could have the actual fancy features that pertain to the logic... ...except that I'd be far happier if they hadn't cut those corners and I'd have a fully nati…

Those technologies that make the IDE slow are the ones that improved the productivity of the developers of the IDE and let them deliver those features in a fraction of the time they would have needed 20 years ago. So their productivity improved. The productivity of their customers, I don't know. I'm not one of them and I can't judge. I guess it's a matter of the tradeoffs you wrote about.

IDEs 20 years ago were not vastly insufficient and there were many “RAD” (rapid application development) tools for those that leaned towards high level languages. Some were abominable like Visual Basic, but many of the web platforms used today are equally poor performers.

The modern GUI designers in IDEs are notably better, but many shops don’t take advantage of them due to issues with slow performance (eg storyboads in xcode) and issues with multiple developers modifying the resource files simultaneously.

Refactoring and static analysis tools are improved as well, but none of these improvements afford orders of magnitude in efficiency.

The biggest gains in efficiency come from the extended libraries, open source code, ORMs, and the fact that most of what is coded has already been built by someone into a framework or library.

Software development does not now require the expertise of knowing the intimate details of the code and how it works. Many modern apps are plugging together libraries that developers do not understand and are unable to fix any issues in those libraries. The default now is to Copy / paste from Stackoverflow or submit an issue to the library maintainer on github and pray that it gets fixed; or find another library and swap that in. Software development (especially web development) has become a more decentralized effort usually resulting into in a mishmash of layers and dependencies whose inefficiencies are allowed by the amazing hardware. Unfortunately, performance and user experience are sacrificed to the interests of “efficiency” and using the latest language/platform fad of the year.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#503

Post by fieldcny »

dvdkhlng wrote: post #441
fieldcny wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that GPS and maps/directions are a magnificent improvement. I remember what it was like to get lost, and be lost for hours, late at night nothing open, no one but unsavory characters out. I remember how hard long trips could be even with maps or trip-tiks from AAA (which were awesome) GPS enables all sort logistics, it allows transport companies to ensure trucks are driven safely, to know when and where goods…

But you need to be aware of the downsides of becoming inadvertently over-reliant on GPS [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_GPS

No offense, but that’s not really a downside of GPS, people make bad decisions all the time tech or no tech.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#504

Post by adwn »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #498
adwn wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I opened a Full HD video in a web browser, connected my laptop to a TV using an HDMI cable, moved the browser window over to the TV screen, and watched the video. And it just worked, with sound and all. I didn't have to download or configure anything, neither on the computer nor on the TV. That would have been utterly unbelievable 20 years ago, bordering on magic (especially the no-download/no-configuration…

I'm pretty sure XP let you hot plug displays? You could simply open windows media player and stream video 20 years ago. The resolution would have been the main impressive thing, along with how much money you spent on that high speed internet connection. But far from utterly unbelievable. I'm not sure anyone would have cared which program you used.

In theory, maybe. In practice? Something would have broken, or you'd have to fiddle with some settings, or you'd have to download the video (somehow) before you could play it in a standalone program – the experience would have been much less streamlined, at least. Also, which single cable would you have used to carry video and audio, and which could be plugged into a laptop and a TV?

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#505

Post by cudgy »

adwn wrote: post #471
marginalia_nu wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a weird disconnect with computers. The software we use is 1000 times more complex than it was 20 years ago, leading to performance that really have not improved a lot, and a lot of functional stagnation. Many applications are slower to start today than they were 10 years ago, because back then they were binaries and today they are Electron apps. Your average web based word processor with cloud storage perform…

Recently I opened a Full HD video in a web browser, connected my laptop to a TV using an HDMI cable, moved the browser window over to the TV screen, and watched the video. And it just worked, with sound and all. I didn't have to download or configure anything, neither on the computer nor on the TV. That would have been utterly unbelievable 20 years ago, bordering on magic (especially the no-download/no-configuration…

An ActiveX control or Netscape plugin accomplished this just fine 20+ years ago.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#506

Post by cudgy »

fieldcny wrote: post #501
dredmorbius wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was not happening as a matter of course in the 1980s. The basic mechanism to reduce such risks was established in the '80s. The 1880s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UL_(safety_organization)

Have you ever looked at 1950s electrical wiring? How about electrical appliances from the 1950s? We used to have Christmas tree lights from the 1950s that were passed down from our grandparents. Two unshielded wires and no fuses, we burned out many an outlet and tripped the breaker every year.

I can barely get modern Christmas lights to last more than one season.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#507

Post by cudgy »

bluGill wrote: post #293
dmitriy_ko wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern houses have PEX plumbing. It has some advantages over copper, e.g. it won't burst if it freezes. But the main advantage -- it's less labor to install.

PEX doesn't corrode like copper will. Depending on your local water this may not be an issue you notice, but one house I had it was an issue.

But will PEX harden over the years and eventually crack like most plastics?

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#508

Post by IshKebab »

kareemsabri wrote: post #139
IshKebab wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> could you tell that you're not in the 80s? Well yes, because we have solar panels and heat pumps and battery powered power tools and vacuum cleaners and dishwashers and microwave ovens and smart lights and ... You wouldn't expect walls and carpets to change.

> vacuum cleaners mainstream since at least the 1950s > dishwashers 1970s > microwave ovens available but fairly expensive in the 80s, ubiquitous in the 90s

> mainstream since at least the 1950s

Of course. What about battery powered vacuum cleaners?

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#509

Post by IshKebab »

anfilt wrote: post #242
IshKebab wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> could you tell that you're not in the 80s? Well yes, because we have solar panels and heat pumps and battery powered power tools and vacuum cleaners and dishwashers and microwave ovens and smart lights and ... You wouldn't expect walls and carpets to change.

Makita made the first power tools running on batteries in 1978...

Yeah but they were pretty terrible until relatively recently.

Re: Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?

#510

Post by cudgy »

robocat wrote: post #270
colechristensen wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, spending $4000/mo in Mountain View, you tend to have a few expectations. (in other words, it is more or less impossible to rent anything of actual quality) The garbage materials of today didn't exist nearly as much in the 80s so they'd have to have used at least cheap solid wood instead of sawdust foam.

> garbage materials of today didn't exist nearly as much in the 80s Most of the 80s homes I have looked at have plenty of garbage materials: wasn’t the 80s when polystyrene decorative mouldings started being popular? Polystyrene houses and leaky building syndrome are definitely an 80s thing, but crappy claddings[2] have existed since the 20s. There are plenty of garbage homes made with a variety of different garbage…

> Watch out for embedded asbestos fibre in stucco ceilings or external claddings especially before the 80s - that shit can really tank resale value because it is hideously expensive to remove (vendor doesn’t legally have to declare it {in New Zealand}, but at some point in the future I expect that will be required).

Best not to remove asbestos unless it is flaking and unpainted. Disturbing it is likely to make things worse. It lasts forever and has incredible insulative properties despite its toxic nature.

Almost all older homes (pre 1973 I think) have lead paint too with the same caveat to not disturb it unless absolutely necessary. Lead plumbing is a different matter and should be removed unless possibly it is a sewage pipe.

Resale prices are relative to other homes in the neighborhood. If all the other homes are old too, then they all have the same toxic building materials so no devaluation is likely.

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