A mistake that killed Japan’s software industry? • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by langitbiru » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:38 AM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #45

fexecve wrote: post #20

I disagree with everything in this article post-2000. There were no "software gatekeepers" preventing Japanese software from flourishing on the PC or Mac. I'm not sure what the author is talking about there. So there's still the unexplained question of why Japanese software is still bad, in 2023. And I think the answer is the language barrier. Windows and Mac dominate the world's computer systems, and the development…

> The struggle of a Japanese developer to make an app is greater than that of a primarily English-speaking developer. And yet somehow, Chinese developers manage just fine?

I think the population factor plays here.

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

#62

Post by makeitdouble » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:38 AM UTC

The key part to me:

> But the rest of the word was moving in a different direction. The rest of the world was moving away from dedicated hardware and towards innovative software running on standard hardware platforms.

This piece is about Japan vs the world, but looking at countries other than the US I'm not sure this narrative works.

For instance did the UK become a Software behemoth ? France ? Germany ? Brazil ? India ? Perhaps each country has their own failure story, but if we see the same result accross the board, are the individual specificities significant ?

Most advanced country have seen a few successes and has a decently sized software development power, but not that much bigger than Japan, and certainly not to the scale of the US. The real story would be to me "the US ate everyone's lunch"

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

#63

Post by braingenious » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:39 AM UTC

asddubs wrote: post #52

braingenious wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it?

yes?

@dang I’d look into this.

Edit: There are two accounts that are happy to publicly disagree with me within seconds of eachother, and three-six that are are happy to downvote privately within those same seconds.

Maybe I’m magically guilty of having The Wrong Take or there are some people that will kneejerk use their network of accounts to downvote things that aren’t useful to their buddies.

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

#64

Post by courgette » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:40 AM UTC

tehnub wrote: post #51

>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 Reddi…

I worked for a startup that was based on the fact ( amongst other ) that Sony was making a good hardware product, but terrible software for it.

Mostly the UI, but also weird restrictions on the input / output while it was a 20k professional pieces of hardware in a highly normalized market. ( easy to see that Dolby was NOT restricting it for instance )

We had a good run. Thanks Sony.

Detail : the setup of that industry made it that Sony and other HAD to let some api open for us insects. That was our opening.

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

#65

Post by noobermin » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:40 AM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #45

fexecve wrote: post #20

I disagree with everything in this article post-2000. There were no "software gatekeepers" preventing Japanese software from flourishing on the PC or Mac. I'm not sure what the author is talking about there. So there's still the unexplained question of why Japanese software is still bad, in 2023. And I think the answer is the language barrier. Windows and Mac dominate the world's computer systems, and the development…

> The struggle of a Japanese developer to make an app is greater than that of a primarily English-speaking developer. And yet somehow, Chinese developers manage just fine?

The only difference I see is the Chinese market is large enough that you don't need to appeal globally.

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

#66

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:40 AM UTC

tehnub wrote: post #51

>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 Reddi…

[deleted]

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

#67

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:41 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#68

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:41 AM UTC

Cloudef wrote: post #24

The japanese way of working doesn't work for software industry. Everything is so slow and there's too many different organizations cooking the same soup. Japanese way of working works best for things that already have been designed for you and just needs building. The only exception would be video games, but it seems game development is heavily followed and developed by a single company, compared to typical corporate…

[deleted]

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

#69

Post by Loocid » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:41 AM UTC

braingenious wrote: post #60

Loocid wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So no.

What?

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

#70

Post by Barrin92 » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:42 AM UTC

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.

You can successfuly export Japanese games, they're valued because they are different. You can't successfully export Japanese enterprise or user software because it really predominantly is designed for the Japanese market which is very unique. It's not even awful as the author claims, just different.

People always create these complicated narratives for why non Anglosphere countries don't create many consumer or business facing software products and the answer is simply because they're at a comparitive disadvantage both in terms of culture and scale.