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A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry?

disruptingjapan.com

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Re: A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry?

#51

Post by tehnub »

>I am not going to waste your time or mine cataloging and complaining about the many, many bad practices, user-hostile design decisions, mind-boggling complex workflows, and poor development process that afflict Japanese software.

>If you want details and debate about exactly how Japanese software falls short, or if you just in the mood for some good old-fashioned venting about being forced to use it, check out Reddit or maybe Hacker News. This topic comes up pretty often there.

>No, for the sake of this podcast I’m going to assume that we are all in agreement that on average, Japanese software. is just … awful.

What are some examples of Japanese software? I'm not aware of any Japanese software I use besides a few random apps from the App Store, all of which seem fine to me. "Japanese Software is awful" is a common topic on Hacker News?

Re: A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry?

#54

Post by habitue »

bvanderveen wrote: post #41

All credibility lost here: > Cloud computing drastically reduced the capital and time required to start a startup. In the dot-com era a decade before, starting an internet startup required purchasing racks of servers and paying system administrators to keep them running, but suddenly fully configured, maintained, and secure serves could be had for a few cents per minute — pay as you go. > Suddenly Japan’s software de…

In pure dollars per minute, yes, but the primary benefit being alluded to here is a political one. A small team can use tiny discretionary funds and build a working prototype quickly. The same project is dead in the water if you have to go get buy in to allocate company compute, get multiple VP signoff on a project proposal, etc etc.

Cloud computing turned asking permission into asking forgiveness, and that's a real benefit politically.

Re: A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry?

#55

Post by noobermin »

kryptiskt wrote: post #50

Yet Japan has had a flourishing video games industry since the 70s starting with arcade games. I would have liked the article to touch on such counterexamples and what is different in their case.

This is a question mark for me. In nintendo in particular, many of the software engineers ended up being quite important in the company, although there were also game designers so may be the logic is different here?

Re: A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry?

#56

Post by fyresala »

bvanderveen wrote: post #41

All credibility lost here: > Cloud computing drastically reduced the capital and time required to start a startup. In the dot-com era a decade before, starting an internet startup required purchasing racks of servers and paying system administrators to keep them running, but suddenly fully configured, maintained, and secure serves could be had for a few cents per minute — pay as you go. > Suddenly Japan’s software de…

It feels like the author is talking more about self-hired indie hackers so the payroll doesn't count. But I don't know if that was really a fashion.

Re: A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry?

#57

Post by Loocid »

braingenious wrote: post #40
barry-cotter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a joke you humourless person. Now to upvote this story purely to spite you and people like you.

I love humor! Can you give a short (5-10 word) explanation of how this is funny enough to make it to number one on this website? edit: bonus points if you can explain two posts with identical responses within seconds of eachother https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34321582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34321579 edit: with identical responses to mine, seconds apart.

It's funny because it's an absurd comparison.

It's not at the top of HN because of that specific joke.

Re: A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry?

#58

Post by iforgotpassword »

spullara wrote: post #28
rippercushions wrote: post #11

I don't disagree with much of the story, but there are other factors too. A big one is that due to the complexity of the Japanese writing system, PCs never went mainstream: the older generations survived with handwriting, faxes and dedicated word processors, and the newer ones jumped right to mobile phones, meaning the PC hacking generation of the 70s and 80s that kicked off the dot-com boom was much smaller than in…

There is a good reason though that the most common communication mechanism in China is talking rather than typing.

I'm not so sure. Have you watched them type on computers and phones? It's a bit more complicated because you need an IME, sure, but it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference. I guess it's tempting to draw that conclusion, but I think it's much more related to culture. Even among European countries, and within countries but between age groups, the usage of voice vs text is pretty different.

Re: A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry?

#59

Post by quietbritishjim »

bvanderveen wrote: post #41

All credibility lost here: > Cloud computing drastically reduced the capital and time required to start a startup. In the dot-com era a decade before, starting an internet startup required purchasing racks of servers and paying system administrators to keep them running, but suddenly fully configured, maintained, and secure serves could be had for a few cents per minute — pay as you go. > Suddenly Japan’s software de…

The part you've quoted is pretty clear that the cost it's referring to is maintenance cost for on-prem servers:

> ... and paying system administrators to keep them running.

That agrees with your main point, which is that employee time is the main relevant cost. (Nowadays, cloud services seen to have gotten so complex that you still need an eternity of employee time to set them up, but that's another matter.)

Re: A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry?

#60

Post by braingenious »

Loocid wrote: post #57
braingenious wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love humor! Can you give a short (5-10 word) explanation of how this is funny enough to make it to number one on this website? edit: bonus points if you can explain two posts with identical responses within seconds of eachother https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34321582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34321579 edit: with identical responses to mine, seconds apart.

It's funny because it's an absurd comparison. It's not at the top of HN because of that specific joke.

So no.
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