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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?

#331

Post by quercusa »

cutemonster wrote: post #324
dudeinjapan wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the same as in the US. In the US, consensus would be achieved through brainstorming, open debates, etc. and at the end maybe a vote, or maybe the leader just says "let's try it my way, and if it doesn't work we'll do it your way." In a Japanese company, people in general do not speak openly in meetings, because they are afraid of disrupting group harmony. Ideas need to be circulated in a series of one-on-one…

What if one person disagrees? If s/he is "lowest in the hierarchy"? What if is in the middle of the hierarchy?

Don't know if it still works the same way, but "rubber stamping" used to be real - everybody would stamp a document with their 'hanko' [0] (name stamp). Those who were not completely on board would make their stamp at a slight angle.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(East_Asia)#Japanese_usag...

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

#332

Post by amadeuspagel »

brewdad wrote: post #322
olivermuty wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because move fast and break stuff doesn’t really work in non-software business I’d say.

Move fast and break things gets you established in the marketplace early and can bring some advantages from that. I have yet to see evidence that it leads to companies that survive for the long haul. At some point, people want products that actually work and don't completely change with a given update.

You can still move fast and break things in development.

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

#333

Post by unity1001 »

hbn wrote: post #319
_skel wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being culturally Japanese didn't prevent Japanese companies from achieving dominant positions in electronics, automobile manufacturing, video games, shipbuilding, steel production... Why is software so special? I would argue that the kind of risk aversion that holds back software companies is just as evident in most of Europe as it is in Japan. It is also the norm in a bunch of American companies in the tech industry…

Software is different from those other industries cause it's not really a science. No one's figured out a "right way" to make software, and it seems being well-made is a very small factor in the grand scheme of whether a piece of software becomes ubiquitous/successful. So throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks works better than iterating and perfecting a technique. Video games are a strange exception I supp…

> Software is different from those other industries...

...because it is the intersection of art and engineering.

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

#334

Post by olivermuty »

twblalock wrote: post #301
olivermuty wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because move fast and break stuff doesn’t really work in non-software business I’d say.

But again, how is that a Japanese problem specifically, when the same risk aversion exists in corporate culture in other countries (as I mentioned)? The reality is that only a few countries are dominant in software, and they dominate to such an extent that they draw in software engineers from the rest of the world. That didn't happen because all the other countries have a Japanese business culture... A convincing exp…

Fair point, I don’t really have oppinions on that.

My point was the inverse, that the archetypical Japanese approach to engineering suits the iterative careful development that hardware requires.

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

#335

Post by unity1001 »

PsycheOS wrote: post #146
midoridensha wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xerox's PARC has to be the biggest example of a company not capturing the value of its inventions.

Absentee leadership with no understanding or care to monetize it - including the pricing on the first Xerox Computers. Also many deca billion dollar spinouts from Xerox Parc: 1. SGI / silcon graphisc based on Jim Clarke's work on 3D chips. 2. 3Com / ethernet based on Bob Metcalfe's work. 3. Adobe based on John Warnock and Charles Geschke on vector graphics and printing. etc.

> Absentee leadership with no understanding or care to monetize it

Its not that. Its that pushing digital photography and other stuff and monetizing them would kill their existing business. However you look at it, its a risk.

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

#336

Post by unity1001 »

skissane wrote: post #128

Bit of history many people are not aware of - in the 1980s, Japan developed its own indigenous operating system, TRON. Towards the end of that decade, the Japanese government wanted to adopt it as a national standard. The US government started threatening trade sanctions, which gave Japan cold feet. (Some accused Microsoft of being behind it, although others insist that’s untrue.) How would have the Japanese software…

> How would have the Japanese software industry turned out without US threats, or if Japan had ignored them?

Good question. The same question can be asked about the defense industries of the UK, Germany and many other NATO countries. In some cases, the US killed their industries through threats and bribery that were later revealed as scandals.

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

#337

Post by alfalfasprout »

bitL wrote: post #187
Dalewyn wrote: post #77

Speaking as a Japanese-American, I personally think the biggest problem with Japanese programmers comes down to the Japanese being too crafty and elitist. What do I mean by this? Basically: If you're a wizard at peeling the skin off an apple with your knife you never need an apple peeler; consequently, you never get a good peeler industry going. Meanwhile, Americans manufacture the best apple peelers because they can…

The same holds for Germany. Beside the "no pain no gain" attitude, the pursuit of "perfection" leads to weird outcomes. For example, the music band Kraftwerk dissolved because half of the members wanted to make sounds that looked "perfect" on an oscilloscope and not how good they sounded.

They played a live show recently here in the US and it was super fun!

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

#338

Post by alfalfasprout »

djmips wrote: post #249
Dalewyn wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to remember that it's the writing, the graphics, the music in Japanese video games that make them great, not necessarily their programming. They are amazing works of art, but unimpressive technical demonstrations.

I disagree, they were often impressive technically but what I feel was at a great cost. They had some great individual programmers but they did not seem to develop technologies that could be shared and amplify and did not value systems or computer science or sharing. Contrast that to say a John Carmack who lifted an entire industry in the west with his thoughtful engineering and complete openness (all ID code was sha…

Maybe Kazushige Goto? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazushige_Goto)

His optimizations for linear algebra computations on commodity hardware are widely, widely used even to this day.

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

#339

Post by com2kid »

yurishimo wrote: post #236
rippercushions wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are people really leaving dirty dishes in the dishwasher for a week? That sounds like it would smell terrible and anything left on the earlier plates would be dry as cement by then.

Dishes have been known to sit in my house for 3-5 days depending on how many we use. The only reason we don't run it every day is to save on washing pods. Ideally, I would probably run it every day right before bed and then unload it first thing in the morning. As is, I forget, then there are too many dishes to fit in the machine and I need to wash them by hand to cook with immediately.

Don't bother with the dishwasher pods, they cost more and don't work as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04

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

#340

Post by froh »

galangalalgol wrote: post #162
wil421 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! It’s been a while since I’ve seen that type of peeler. Makes sense that it was popular in the 50/60s my grandparents had one. I recently bought a peeler that I don’t like and I’ll try the Jonas one.

Why peel apples? I do cut it in half and take out the core, but that is mostly to be sure there is no Griswald.

griswhat?
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