Ask HN: What's your unpopular tech, programming opinion

We need operating systems that enforce file selection, instead of deferring to the applications. This is known as capability based security, and most people think of "allow access to X" on their phone, which is NOT what I mean.

When you want to open a file, an application shows a system supplied dialog box, then goes ahead and opens whatever the heck it wants with the full trust of the OS, no matter how wrong that is.

All I'm asking for is the OS to handle the file dialog and pass a capability (like a file handle) to the app instead of trusting it blindly.

The downside is that unless there are clever shims, this requires rewriting everything.

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The reason we have VMs then Docker then Containers is that our Operating Systems don't enforce capability based security, and we've been improvising a replacement for it in this manner.

These tools allowed domain experts to get a GUI tool built in a matter of hours, and for the most part, those solutions just worked.

Microsoft Access 2000 managed tables and relationships automatically. You could have master/detail relationships multiple levels deep and it all just worked. It did queries well enough, hooked to SQL via ODBC, and did pretty good reports.

It was a pretty cool environment when you tied it all together.

- Then Microsoft got obsessed with .NET and Borland got greedy, and ruined it

On the Web side of things, there were WYSIWYG Web editors that worked in much the same fashion, with a whole stack to support it. You could lay out a Form, and have a CRUD app running on the web in short order.

- Then Ruby on Rails came along, and ruined it

The main thing we've gotten in the past decade is faster hardware, especially thanks to SSDs, and GIT. GIT is amazing, but don't be fooled into thinking it actually stores deltas, it just acts like it does. GIT is a snapshot tool, way better than stacks of floppy disks/USB sticks labeled Archive001 -- Date

Programs written using the Win32 GUI and forms still work decades later. Its a shame there isn't an equivalent in the Linux world.

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We should have rich source text by now. You should be able to freely time comments, include notes, links, images, etc. in the source code of a program, and still have it compile correctly.

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We should be able to directly modify the Abstract Syntax Tree of programs, renaming as it is stored in the tree would cause it to correctly change the name of every use with zero errors. Refactoring this way would be much faster and more reliable.

Every time I hear someone wanting to rewrite something without a VERY solid reason is a flag for me. It is hard improving a system that’s already there, but can be super rewarding if you change your mindset.

Everyone is eager to go with a blank canvas and greenfield a project but ultimately we’ll end up with the same shit situation in 5-6 years after the original authors have bounced and the newer devs are side-eyeing the code.