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Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#111

Post by leidenfrost »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #75
SoftTalker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all software can be abused or co-opted for surveillance purposes. It's one of the reasons I've grown more disillusioned with computer tech over the years.

I had this realization in stages. 1. Almost all software can be abused or co-opted for surveillance purposes. 2. Some software comes already designed for surveillance purposes up front . 2a. This includes plenty of well-known mass appeal software; importantly, the customer-facing marketing copy and the investor pitch can present a completely different value proposition. 3. Software doesn't become used for surveillanc…

Thing is, when the company that pays you actively wants to track everyone, there's little you can do as the person that creates tech form them.

If the piece of software you created is unbiased and unopinionated, it can be used for evil purposes. If you make the software deliberatedly against that, you have to (a) take measures without the company knowing (b) have the manpower to do it alone while still reaching development goals (c) those measures can be undone by another developer that cares less that you.

After all, software big enough is collective by nature. It's also unfair to us to think that we're responsible for any misuse as if we were mechanical engineers creating weapons for war

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#112

Post by TeMPOraL »

Symbiote wrote: post #99
TeMPOraL wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How long ago was that? It's not like their abuse of [foreign] workers is anything new. It's also not like it's common knowledge. Myself I only learned about it couple years ago, here on HN , because of some comment threads that segued into discussions about Qatar construction projects. Point being, without knowing anything about OP, including where are they from, you can't assume they had a chance of knowing this b…

I expect it to be very common knowledge, but possibly it's only known in Europe, as we are much closer to the Middle East and the football angle is more relevant. Here's several articles from 2017, for example. https://www.theguardian.com/world/qatar?page=19

> Here's several articles from 2017, for example.

That's around the time I learned about it. Notably, this is couple years after the poster worked on their project.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#113

Post by vlovich123 »

LVB wrote: post #101

Early in my career (late 90s) I worked at a big company that just loved getting patents, had a big patent wall and did plaque presentations, etc. I got swept up in this and patented some "novel" (:eyeroll:) uses of a device that a partner/supplier made. Yay... I got a plaque and a few bucks, but Big Corp was never going to commercialize these uses, that was clear. They just wanted to run up the patent count. But the…

Pretty sure it’s Qualcomm. Not familiar with any other companies that were so proud of their parents to build a wall to them

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#114

Post by eternityforest »

I'm not sure I've ever built something that I'm unhappy about the ethics of, aside from participating in a few products I believe were completely pointless.

Most of my big regrets were bad technical decisions that worsened the quality. I'm sure every dev has stories like that but for a long time my mistakes followed a pattern.

Often because I didn't follow best practices and reinvented a wheel, without being aware of how much time the project would take up.

A lot of my biggest regrets were personal projects, they almost all were major time drains that I would say worsened my life. My expectations were too high and the disappointment was far larger than any enjoyment.

I am still working on selling things on eBay and decluttering stuff bought for DIY projects.

Now I constantly advocate for best practices. A lot of my biggest contributions come from finding ways to make things work without adding more custom software.

There's just so much good software out there, often that already does exactly what you want.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#115

Post by turtleyacht »

localhost wrote: post #77

My first job at Microsoft was to build IronRuby, which was an implementation of Ruby on top of the Common Language Runtime. I got the job because I had built a bridge that connected MRI (Matz's Ruby Interpreter) to the CLR before I joined the company. This project ultimately failed because of a principle that we learned from the school of hard knocks: respect developers' existing code investments. Developers couldn't…

Does this mean a version of VB6 (classic ASP) could run on .NET Core (Linux)? That would finally liberate the language from the platform (IIS on Windows).

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#116

Post by Negitivefrags »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #32

I built a lighting system for to save energy by turning off hallway lights when not in use. The environmental aspect was great and saved hundreds of thousands in electricity. Someone eventually realized that the mesh network I built to connect all the lights together and report usage statistics could also be used to track employees moving throughout the building and catch them taking unauthorized breaks in the stairw…

What is so bad about catching people taking unauthorised breaks?

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#117

Post by vilhelmen »

I built a system for distributing and collecting homework assignments, and the assignments themselves were distributed with automated tests. Students would have instant feedback on their homework with clear tests and point assignments. Great idea, right? A high level required course of 40+ students could be scheduled, collected, and graded all in under an hour.

Not to mention the nightmare of early GitHub for Education used in the first semester (all forks mutually visible, what were they thinking!?), a genuinely shocking percentage of the class tried to cheat their way around it, thinking that I wasn't looking. Cheating felt like it had significantly increased the moment they thought we weren't looking. I expected some cheating, sure, but it really felt like it went higher and stayed higher than before.

The course has moved to others (who I have nothing but respect for), but I hear it is "notorious" for cheating. I was so proud of this system, and the distribution/collection systems are still used by a department, but the experience has really left me with a bad taste in my mouth wrt anything related to automated grading.

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#118

Post by [deleted] »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #32

I built a lighting system for to save energy by turning off hallway lights when not in use. The environmental aspect was great and saved hundreds of thousands in electricity. Someone eventually realized that the mesh network I built to connect all the lights together and report usage statistics could also be used to track employees moving throughout the building and catch them taking unauthorized breaks in the stairw…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#119

Post by dathinab »

SoftTalker wrote: post #35
AlotOfReading wrote: post #32

I built a lighting system for to save energy by turning off hallway lights when not in use. The environmental aspect was great and saved hundreds of thousands in electricity. Someone eventually realized that the mesh network I built to connect all the lights together and report usage statistics could also be used to track employees moving throughout the building and catch them taking unauthorized breaks in the stairw…

Almost all software can be abused or co-opted for surveillance purposes. It's one of the reasons I've grown more disillusioned with computer tech over the years.

> Almost all software

which is why it's less of a technical problem and more of a social problem

people need to realize that with how the technology is today we can't afford to rely on marked self regulation for a lot of things especially wrt. privacy protection it just fundamentally does not work

(Or in other words, such usage of employee surveillance should be just plain out forbidden by law not just to be used but to be deployed)

Re: Ask HN: What is the thing you've built that you regret the most?

#120

Post by birdyrooster »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #75
SoftTalker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all software can be abused or co-opted for surveillance purposes. It's one of the reasons I've grown more disillusioned with computer tech over the years.

I had this realization in stages. 1. Almost all software can be abused or co-opted for surveillance purposes. 2. Some software comes already designed for surveillance purposes up front . 2a. This includes plenty of well-known mass appeal software; importantly, the customer-facing marketing copy and the investor pitch can present a completely different value proposition. 3. Software doesn't become used for surveillanc…

Don't worry, Free Software will save us. /s
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