Then why is all my software slower, buggier, and with a worse UX?
Right? Past couple years software quality has taken a shit.
Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
31–40 of 744 posts
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#32Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#33> I'm sure every organisation has hundreds if not thousands of Excel sheets tracking important business processes that would be far better off as a SaaS app. Far better off for who? People constantly dismiss spreadsheets, but in many cases, they are more powerful, more easily used by the people who have the domain knowledge required to properly implement calculations or workflow, and are more or less universally acce…
Author here. Of course not everything needs to be a web app. But I'm meaning a lot of core sheets I see in businesses need more structure round them. Especially for collaboration, access controls, etc. Not to mention they could do with unit testing.
Counterpoint: if a small part of the process is getting tweaked, how responsive can the team responsible for these apps be? That’s the killer feature of spreadsheets for business processes: the accountants can change the accounting spreadsheets, the shipping and receiving people can change theirs, and there’s no team in the way to act as a bottleneck.
That’s also the reason that so-called “Shadow IT” exists. Teams will do whatever they need to do to get their jobs done, whether or not IT is going to be helpful in that effort.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#34> I'm sure every organisation has hundreds if not thousands of Excel sheets tracking important business processes that would be far better off as a SaaS app. Far better off for who? People constantly dismiss spreadsheets, but in many cases, they are more powerful, more easily used by the people who have the domain knowledge required to properly implement calculations or workflow, and are more or less universally acce…
I’m yet to see a spreadsheet workflow successfully replaced by something else.
Streamlit apps or similar are doing a great job at this where I'm at.
As simple to build and deploy as Excel, but with the right data types, the right UI, the right access and version control, the right programming language that LLMs understand, the right SW ecosystem and packages, etc.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#35Had the cost of building custom software dropped 90%, we would be seeing a flurry of low-cost, decent-quality SaaS offering all over the marketplace, possibly undercutting some established players.
From where I sit, right now, this does not seem to be the case.
This is as if writing down the code is not the biggest problem, or the biggest time sink, of building software.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#36Copying GPL code, with global search&replace of the brand names, has always lowered the cost of software 'development' dramatically.
I would love to see where I can find a full test coverage to paste in for an internal too that I can search&replace on to get it working…
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#37[dead]
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#38I keep seeing articles like these popup. I am in the industry but not in the “AI” industry.
What I have no concept of, is the current subsidized, VC funded, anywhere close to what the final product will be?
I always fall back to the Uber paradox. Yes it was great at first, now it’s 3x what it cost and has only given cabs pricing power. This was good for consumers to start but now it’s just another part of the k shaped economy.
So is that ultimately where AI goes? Top percent can afford a high monthly subscription and the not so fortunate get there free 5 minutes per month
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Author here. Of course not everything needs to be a web app. But I'm meaning a lot of core sheets I see in businesses need more structure round them. Especially for collaboration, access controls, etc. Not to mention they could do with unit testing.
Counterpoint: if a small part of the process is getting tweaked, how responsive can the team responsible for these apps be? That’s the killer feature of spreadsheets for business processes: the accountants can change the accounting spreadsheets, the shipping and receiving people can change theirs, and there’s no team in the way to act as a bottleneck. That’s also the reason that so-called “Shadow IT” exists. Teams wi…
i've seen many attempts to turn a widely used spreadsheet into a webapp. Eventually, it becomes an attempt to re-implement spreadsheets. The first time something changes and the user says "well in Excel i would just do this..." the dev team is off chasing existing features of excel for eternity and the users are pissed because it takes so long and is buggy, meanwhile, excel is right there ready and waiting.
Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?
#40> I'm sure every organisation has hundreds if not thousands of Excel sheets tracking important business processes that would be far better off as a SaaS app. Far better off for who? People constantly dismiss spreadsheets, but in many cases, they are more powerful, more easily used by the people who have the domain knowledge required to properly implement calculations or workflow, and are more or less universally acce…
Spreadsheets are an incredible tool. They were a key innovation in the history of applications. I love them and use them.
But it's very hard to have a large conventional cell-formula spreadsheet that is correct. The programming model / UI are closely coupled, so it's hard to see what's going on once your sheet is above some fairly low complexity. And many workplaces have monstrous sheets that run important things, curated lovingly (?) for many years. I bet many or most of them have significant errors.