Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

cacm.acm.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 240 posts

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#101

Post by oldsecondhand »

concordDance wrote: post #55
opportune wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's saying that lady's job is bullshit just because it can be automated? There is real value in paying some up front cost in detection/monitoring/validation of data to prevent mistakes. Just because software engineers would consider her job "beneath" them because they could do it faster or better does not make it not worth doing. There are mega-efficient factory farms in Nebraska that are immensely productive per-h…

Does she find that task enjoyable and fulfilling? If not, it's bullshit. And if bet money on it NOT being enjoyable and fulfilling. Humans almost universally hate being cogs doing the same repetitive trivial action over and over.

Do janitors find their job enjoyable and fulfilling? Probably not. Their job is still important for the functioning of society, so I wouldn't call it bullshit.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#102

Post by TeMPOraL »

csomar wrote: post #48
tuatoru wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still basically a join. If it's on a computer, it can be converted to text files, and then it can be JOINed, one way or another.

In these cases, the work is usually about connecting the systems together than the data modification itself.

No, that's just made up work that's not required to solve a problem. Systems are already connected enough by virtue of being accessible by the same person on the same computer at the same time. Turning this into software project and building Proper Integration is only creating a tight coupling between the systems, which will only keep creating bugs and requires ongoing maintenance.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#103

Post by atoav »

omscs99 wrote: post #56
ethbr1 wrote: post #3

I understand this is ACM, but I would say the decline has strictly been a failure of software . Specifically, corporate IT's failure to deliver general purpose development tools usable by anyone in a company to make computers do work for them (aka programming). There's still a ton of general value that could be delivered by general purpose processors/computers. But instead, most non-programmers live in a Kafkaesque r…

Hypothetically, if she figured out how to automate it on her own, would she get any kind of reward for it? If not, why should she automate it? Another example, if there’s some repetitive task that you automate at a software dev job, would you get rewarded for figuring out how to automate it? The answer is obviously dependent on culture, at my current gig you just get brushed off Seems to me like you’re assuming that…

I had a job like this as a student. I automated it and didn't tell anyone and used the newly won time to do other stuff.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#104

Post by atoav »

dingi wrote: post #89
HHC-Hunter wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you're implying that that newly spared time would be hers to spend and not her employers?

why not? she needs to be rewarded for that automation somehow.

Realistically that reward is going to be:

1. more work

2. nice words and then more work

3. nice words, more work and then she is asked to do the same for another person's task who is then fired

Sorry to be cynical here, but it is very rare for managment to reward the few people that do a better than good job with more free time or less work.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#105

Post by nicbou »

c0pium wrote: post #86
radlad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's basically a JOIN The comment you're replying just explained why this is not "basically a JOIN." There are two unrelated systems (not SQL databases) which don't expose any APIs to the analyst.

[flagged]

This is a pointlessly mean and unpleasant comment. It was polite discussion up until that point.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#106

Post by criddell »

concordDance wrote: post #53
troupe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any guess how long it will take to break even? Presumably you charged some amount to spend a few days automating it and hopefully it frees her up to do something more valuable for the company. Sometimes the reason things aren't automated is because there isn't anything more valuable for that person to do so automation doesn't have a positive return on investment.

Can't speak for them, but I've done office automation work with a breakeven measured in days.

I’ve automated things where the breakeven will occur decades from now. It was fun though, the chance of errors is decreased, and I learned a bunch of new stuff.

Sometimes it’s about the journey and not the destination.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#107

Post by russfink »

omscs99 wrote: post #56
ethbr1 wrote: post #3

I understand this is ACM, but I would say the decline has strictly been a failure of software . Specifically, corporate IT's failure to deliver general purpose development tools usable by anyone in a company to make computers do work for them (aka programming). There's still a ton of general value that could be delivered by general purpose processors/computers. But instead, most non-programmers live in a Kafkaesque r…

Hypothetically, if she figured out how to automate it on her own, would she get any kind of reward for it? If not, why should she automate it? Another example, if there’s some repetitive task that you automate at a software dev job, would you get rewarded for figuring out how to automate it? The answer is obviously dependent on culture, at my current gig you just get brushed off Seems to me like you’re assuming that…

I was a temporary worker at a field dispatch office. We had to telephone all of our technicians and enter their time into a time sheet. This was approximately 1990, and it turns out all the technicians had email. Since the time recording format was very simple, I worked out a shell script to Let them enter their time in an email message, mail it to me, then my forward rules would pipe it through a shell script, a couple of ANSI codes later, and the time was entered automatically into the system. I would check it for accuracy, but it saved me having to Tab/enter about 25 times per employee just to get to the part where I entered their time. Literally it was five minutes per person including voice comms time reduced to 30 seconds.

A senior dispatcher got wind of it. She went to the boss’ boss’ boss, and complained that “this boy is going to computerize us out of a job.”

It wasn’t long before I was summoned to appear. Three things happened at that meeting. The Uber boss told me to keep it on the down low. He also gave me a copy of his shell script programming book. And finally, he told me to get the heck out of there, go back to school and stop putzing around at a job like this before you end up becoming a middle manager like himself in a career with low reward.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#108

Post by nonrandomstring »

omscs99 wrote: post #56
ethbr1 wrote: post #3

I understand this is ACM, but I would say the decline has strictly been a failure of software . Specifically, corporate IT's failure to deliver general purpose development tools usable by anyone in a company to make computers do work for them (aka programming). There's still a ton of general value that could be delivered by general purpose processors/computers. But instead, most non-programmers live in a Kafkaesque r…

Hypothetically, if she figured out how to automate it on her own, would she get any kind of reward for it? If not, why should she automate it? Another example, if there’s some repetitive task that you automate at a software dev job, would you get rewarded for figuring out how to automate it? The answer is obviously dependent on culture, at my current gig you just get brushed off Seems to me like you’re assuming that…

> if she figured out how to automate it on her own, would she get any kind of reward for it?

More likely she would be hauled up in front of a gang of rabid, frightened, myopic and punitive ICT managers where she'd be reprimanded for breaking a litany of "policies".

In these kinds of places you are not supposed to think, there, computers are not intelligence amplifiers or "bicycles for the mind"; they are more akin to the presses and looms in dark satanic mills.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#109

Post by bullen »

The problem was the smart phone.

With that closed platforms became the standard.

Non productive hardware is now ubiquitous, most of it can't be fixed.

The open risc-v tablet is the only exit from this mess.

Forget ARM and X86 empires, they will only exploit you as a consume only slave.

It needs working GPU and swap-able battery though!

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#110

Post by dingi »

atoav wrote: post #104
dingi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not? she needs to be rewarded for that automation somehow.

Realistically that reward is going to be: 1. more work 2. nice words and then more work 3. nice words, more work and then she is asked to do the same for another person's task who is then fired Sorry to be cynical here, but it is very rare for managment to reward the few people that do a better than good job with more free time or less work.

She doesn't have to tell anyone
Post reply on HN