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We have used too many levels of abstractions

unixsheikh.com

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Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#151

Post by steeleduncan »

There was a point in the history of aviation where anyone who could fly a plane was also capable of constructing and designing one. I wonder if there were similar concerns at that time about a future where someone could be in a cockpit of a plane without truly understanding how the machine works from first principles?

Today that type of concern would seem absurd, and we've gotten used to the idea that flying a plane and building it are separate skillsets and jobs. After all, we are comfortable with aviation engineers designing the aircraft without knowing how to mine the bauxite, smelt it to aluminium, and machine it into aircraft parts.

As comforting as it is to have an overview of how to trace a complete path from logic gate to web request, it isn't necessary. The decrease in the number of engineers with that overview isn't a cause for alarm, or a problem to be solved. It is just a sign that "tech" has matured, and it is stratifying into a set of interlocking disciplines. The same happened with every other subject in human history, and we've been just fine...

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#153

Post by mensetmanusman »

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #12

I think there is one interesting angle to this problem. I am someone who grew up with the technology, as the levels of abstractions were being added. I am now benefiting from all those accumulated decades of knowledge. As the IT / development world was changing, I had enormous privilege and comfort to learn the things at the pace they were happening. Being able to assimilate changes over long decades. Be a witness to…

A sci-fi semi-solution is to hope that all the relevant information is embodied in these LLMs being built.

A funny possible history is everyone forgetting what’s necessary and then having the relevant information they need accidentally blocked by an AI system they have no idea how to build or fix (maybe because of terms like master/slave going against elite values).

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#154

Post by WanderPanda »

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #12

I think there is one interesting angle to this problem. I am someone who grew up with the technology, as the levels of abstractions were being added. I am now benefiting from all those accumulated decades of knowledge. As the IT / development world was changing, I had enormous privilege and comfort to learn the things at the pace they were happening. Being able to assimilate changes over long decades. Be a witness to…

I used to think that the historical development of a subject can not possibly be the best way to learn a new topic because it is so path dependent and random. But with experience I have seen that there are very few instances where educators mixed up the historical timeline of a subject and made it more easily absorbable. It still baffles me that this is even the case for abstract fields like math

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#157

Post by collsni »

Very good article, 100% whole heartedly agree on devsecops and most infosec team members only knowing specifics tools. We need users with ranges of background not isolated at layer 7.

Personally I think cloud is a pretty big abstraction layer, I prefer to work on non-cloud and hate proprietary terms and disconnected tooling for common problems.

To understand a solution admins need to understand how it works via code and config access.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#158

Post by intothemild »

criddell wrote: post #128
EvanAnderson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be an increasingly important history component in comp sci., software engineering, infosec, and associated fields. I think this is a place where the IT field has done a bad job and, as a result, we've had unbelievable amounts of "wheel reinvention". I'd love to hear from somebody with experience in scientific or other disciplines and IT who could contrast their fields with ours. I only know that I have had…

I couldn’t agree more and it’s something I didn’t understand at all until my final year at university. I was talking with one of my professors and complained about having to learn and use SML and Eiffel for some projects when in the real world , I’d be using something like C (this was 1994). He asked me if I was there for an education or training. I think today it’s probably more true than ever. Schools are under pre…

I completely agree here.

The problem was that there was a shortage of developers, and that most universities still only had CompSci degrees, not Software Engineering degrees, coupled with those degrees were 3-4 years long... So enter the code bootcamp, where you're basically given a hammer, and taught that every problem can be solved with it..

Now those bootcamps aren't all like this, and there were and are good ones out there..

...but from what I've seen (I want to stress that this has happened rarely compared to the rest) a graduate of one of faster bootcamps, that learned a single language, like JavaScript, and try and solve every problem with whatever answer they found someone else upvoting.. without any amounts of thinking if it's the right solution for this specific problem.

The problem is as your professor said. Do you want an education or training... And also as you said, that you can't turn out effective software engineers with a quick or short amount of education.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#159

Post by SanderNL »

tsegratis wrote: post #50
SanderNL wrote: post #31

One thing to keep in mind is that software for a dialysis machine requires a different approach from some overly generic CRUD app exposing how many mansions you have or something. There is a lot of asinine software in the world and that’s fine. Lots of “real problems” are pretty asinine and don’t require heroic engineering feats. Just slapping some bullshit together is good enough in a frightening number of cases. Ha…

> Software for dialysis machines A sizeable percentage of which is made without source control, unittests, and just slapped together like the rest you described Hospitals don't check software quality when making purchasing decisions (much beyond "this button doesn't work")

Wow, sickening.

I guess something like certified engineering may alleviate some of these issues.

If we build bridges like this.. oh.

Re: We have used too many levels of abstractions

#160

Post by bheadmaster »

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #12

I think there is one interesting angle to this problem. I am someone who grew up with the technology, as the levels of abstractions were being added. I am now benefiting from all those accumulated decades of knowledge. As the IT / development world was changing, I had enormous privilege and comfort to learn the things at the pace they were happening. Being able to assimilate changes over long decades. Be a witness to…

> people who really understand the technology that the world runs on, are a slowly dying breed

Not completely. Curious people will always pop up, it's just that they will take as much time as you did to learn everything.

I like to think of myself as one of the curious people. Ever since I was a kid, I had a huge desire to understand how the hell does this magic box called a computer work. Decades later, as a software engineer, no matter how much I learn, no matter how deep I go, there's always this voice in my head going "but WHY? WHY are things the way they are?".

I did start top-down instead of bottom-up, starting from the high-level languages running on modern operating systems, going more and more into the (professionally unnecessary) low-level through pure curiosity, but I still believe I will get to the bottom one day.

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