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Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

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Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#61

Post by bena »

mjr00 wrote: post #41
bena wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he though? It seems like he just makes these broad critical statements then pisses off to continue to do nothing. I wouldn’t even say he’s accomplished great things. He’s accomplished some decent things. He’s released two games which barely qualify as games. They’re more like puzzles. You don’t need to play them ever again after you finish the first time. Braid is ok. And the Witness is just Flow. And then after…

> He’s released two games which barely qualify as games. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but it's worth pointing out that Braid is not only widely considered one of the best games ever made[0], its success was also instrumental in the explosion of indie games in the late 00s/10s. The Witness didn't quite reach the same heights, but it got an 87 on Metacritic and was a financial success. Even if it's only two games…

I like Braid. I do. But, it’s more of a puzzle than a game. Once you figure out the answer, you’re done. Like Myst.

Games have some element of skill involved and Blow’s products lack that.

And that’s not to knock the products. I like puzzles. And not everything has to be a game. Will Wright has said that he does not make games, he makes toys. Digital toys.

I also think people judge his work on his reputation more than on its merits

Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#62

Post by TheMode »

wanderlust123 wrote: post #52
sd9 wrote: post #10

Blow often makes fantastic points about development, and often completely misses the mark. He’s accomplished great things and has ideas worth listening to - but also plenty of nonsense that’s presented indistinguishably. I felt quite strongly that the collapse of civilisation talk was one of those pieces of nonsense, and I’ve largely ignored it (despite listening to it twice). I’m grateful to OP for providing a more…

What do you disagree with Casey Muratori on specifically? I have seen some of his content and he seems pretty humble but opinionated on things he knows about. I also think he did a great job with handmade hero.

I personally do not like how his solution boils down to "just learn more" which may be true at an individual level, but not as the general solution to awful software.

You will never be able to force developers worldwide to start writing everything in C/Assembly, or even to care beyond "it performs fine on my machine". Individuals can have fun micro-optimizing their application, but overall, we have the app we have because of compromises we find somewhat acceptable.

More likely the solution will be technical, making great/simple/efficient code the path of least resistance.

Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#63

Post by patrick451 »

sd9 wrote: post #10

Blow often makes fantastic points about development, and often completely misses the mark. He’s accomplished great things and has ideas worth listening to - but also plenty of nonsense that’s presented indistinguishably. I felt quite strongly that the collapse of civilisation talk was one of those pieces of nonsense, and I’ve largely ignored it (despite listening to it twice). I’m grateful to OP for providing a more…

Muratori's main talking point seems to be that modern software is slow. I think he is 100% correct on this. It's absolutely insane how long it takes jira to show me a ticket or slack to switch chat rooms and that vscode can't keep with up with normal typing speed.

Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#64

Post by pyeri »

gerdesj wrote: post #58
recursivedoubts wrote: post #13

I teach the systems class at Montana State, where we go from transistors up to a real computing system, and I have students that don't understand what a file system really is when they start my class I agree that blow is wrong on some details, but I really think we need to be thinking hard around a NAND-to-Tetris style education that starts in high school for our technical students. I use "outdated" models like Littl…

"I teach the systems class at Montana State," You teach and hence deal with this: "Information passed on between generations is diluted" Is it diluted? No it isn't. Your job is teaching and books and computers help us avoid calling you a bard 8) Mind you, being called a bard is not a bad thing! In the end this is a blog post response to another blog post. I have no idea about how "important" those bloggers are but I…

The IT industry has gotten highly specialised over time. The NAND-to-Tetris style education helps create computer scientists who know their stuff from ground up. But tech companies are constantly on the lookout for vocational pragmatists (like "Python Engineer" or "Java Engineer") who could quickly replace another like them. I think that's why the high level language first approach has gotten so popular.

Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#65

Post by masfuerte »

jiggawatts wrote: post #57
wanderlust123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you disagree with Casey Muratori on specifically? I have seen some of his content and he seems pretty humble but opinionated on things he knows about. I also think he did a great job with handmade hero.

Personally I find that Casey presents simple hard facts that rile people up, but at that point they're doing... what? Arguing with facts ? He had a particularly pointed rant about how some ancient developer tools on a 40 MHz computer could keep up with debug single-stepping (repeatedly pressing F10 or whatever), but Visual Studio 2019 a on multi-GHz multi-core monster of a machine can't . It lags behind and is unable…

Single-stepping is moderately complicated. I'm even less impressed with modern editors that can't keep up with typing. My first computer could do that. It had a 2MHz 6502.

Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#66

Post by jakelazaroff »

jiggawatts wrote: post #57
wanderlust123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you disagree with Casey Muratori on specifically? I have seen some of his content and he seems pretty humble but opinionated on things he knows about. I also think he did a great job with handmade hero.

Personally I find that Casey presents simple hard facts that rile people up, but at that point they're doing... what? Arguing with facts ? He had a particularly pointed rant about how some ancient developer tools on a 40 MHz computer could keep up with debug single-stepping (repeatedly pressing F10 or whatever), but Visual Studio 2019 a on multi-GHz multi-core monster of a machine can't . It lags behind and is unable…

If I only spoke Arabic or Russian or Chinese, could I write words in my language on those ancient developer tools? Or would I be limited to ASCII characters?

If I were blind, could the computer read the interface out to me as I navigated around? If I had motor issues, could I use an assistive device to move my cursor?

I'm not saying this excuses everything, but it's easy to point at complexity and say "look how much better things used to be". But a lot of today's complexity is for things that are crucial to some subset of users.

Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#67

Post by bena »

torlok wrote: post #30
bena wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he though? It seems like he just makes these broad critical statements then pisses off to continue to do nothing. I wouldn’t even say he’s accomplished great things. He’s accomplished some decent things. He’s released two games which barely qualify as games. They’re more like puzzles. You don’t need to play them ever again after you finish the first time. Braid is ok. And the Witness is just Flow. And then after…

I think you're getting close to ad hominem. It should be sufficient to point out how little overall people like Blow have accomplished. Blow is a hard worker, and yet it took him and his team 8 years to develop The Witness, which as you pointed out isn't anything revolutionary. I think there's a weird form of elitism at play here. Working close to the hardware isn't hard. There was a point in my early 20s where I too…

Blow routinely trashes software he’s never had to write.

Single user software that is the sole focused application when it is running. It saves nothing of importance and doesn’t alter any system to any appreciable degree.

You know what’s more impressive than The Witness? Any web browser. It has to deal with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, SGML, SVG, etc. An entire runtime environment with garbage collector. A web browser can run VS Code. It can run Doom. It can be made to run The Witness.

Blow does not remotely acknowledge the complexity needed to make modern software. He treats his incredibly small domain as the pinnacle of the craft.

Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#68

Post by john_the_writer »

jiggawatts wrote: post #57
wanderlust123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you disagree with Casey Muratori on specifically? I have seen some of his content and he seems pretty humble but opinionated on things he knows about. I also think he did a great job with handmade hero.

Personally I find that Casey presents simple hard facts that rile people up, but at that point they're doing... what? Arguing with facts ? He had a particularly pointed rant about how some ancient developer tools on a 40 MHz computer could keep up with debug single-stepping (repeatedly pressing F10 or whatever), but Visual Studio 2019 a on multi-GHz multi-core monster of a machine can't . It lags behind and is unable…

I've had the same thing happen with a drawing app.. I've an older android tablet that has a sketch app. It works great.. I got a new high powered tablet, because the battery on the old one wouldn't keep a charge.. New one has a sketch app that lags.. draw line... wait. draw line... wait. It's unusable.. It has a newer processor, and more memory, but I can't draw.

Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#69

Post by patrick451 »

TheMode wrote: post #62
wanderlust123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you disagree with Casey Muratori on specifically? I have seen some of his content and he seems pretty humble but opinionated on things he knows about. I also think he did a great job with handmade hero.

I personally do not like how his solution boils down to "just learn more" which may be true at an individual level, but not as the general solution to awful software. You will never be able to force developers worldwide to start writing everything in C/Assembly, or even to care beyond "it performs fine on my machine". Individuals can have fun micro-optimizing their application, but overall, we have the app we have be…

The real problem is that we have a broken, anti-performance culture. We have allowed "premature optimizaiton is the root of all evil" to morph into "optimization is the root of all evil. That single quote has done untold damage to the software industry. We don't need to pass laws to force all programmers worldwide to do anything. Fixing our culture will be enough. In my view, that's what Casey is trying to do.

Re: Is software abstraction killing civilization? (2021)

#70

Post by rglover »

Ill-considered abstractions, yes. There are a lot of abstractions that you can tell are the first draft or attempt but because of tech's "religion of speed"—and being drunk on hubris—end up shipping (vs being one of several iterations).

Then, if those abstractions are part of a popular project, other people copy them due to mimetics (under the watery banner of "best practices").

Rinse and repeat for ~10-20 years and you have a gigantic mess on your hands. Even worse, in a hyper-social society (ironically, because of the technology), social consensus (for sake of not being found out as an "impostor") around these not-quite-there solutions just propagates them.

FWIW, I love that Jonathan Blow talk and come back to it at least once per year. He doesn't say anything controversial, but deep down, I think a lot of developers know that they're not shipping their best (or guiding younger generations properly), so they get upset or feel called out.

We've just reached a state of culture in which chasing novelty has become commonplace (or in some cases, celebrated). Well-considered solutions used to be a cultural standard whereas now, anything that's new (whether or not its actually good) has become the standard.

We can navel gaze and nitpick the details of Blow's argument all we want, but the evidence is front and center—everywhere. And yes, over a long enough horizon, that can lead to civilizational collapse (and when you consider the amount of broken stuff in the world, arguably, already is).

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