The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
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Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
#2Do you think this is a tooling problem or more about incentives and how engineers are trained now?
Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
#3You could say COBOL has had this "problem" for 40 years also. That's why we need to constantly be inventing new ways of making things. The old ways are always forgotten over time.
If you REALLY need something long-forgotten, then you have lazy-load it back into being at significant cost. That's the price of constant progress.
Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
#4> Optimized for minimum cost with zero margin for surge. On paper, efficient. In practice, one bad day away from collapse.
I'm going to steal that one and add it to Stross': "Efficiency is the reciprocal of resilience."
Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
#5> I run engineering teams in Ukraine. My people lived the other side of this equation. Not the factory floor. The receiving end.
With all due respect, but many european taxpayers help pay for Ukraine. I am not disagreeing on the premise of the West killing itself via systematic recessions - Trump invading Iran leading to inflation as an example - so a lot of things are going on that show a ton of incompetency both in the USA and the EU, but at the same time I also get question marks in my eyes when this criticism comes from a country that receives money from others. That money could instead go to make EU countries more competitive, for instance. I am not saying this should necessarily be the case, mind you; I fully understand the nature of Putin's imperialism. But we need to really consider all factors when it comes to strategic mistakes with regards to production - and that includes taking up debts all the time. There are always a few who benefit in war, just as they benefit from subsidies from taxpayers (inside and outside as well).
Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
#6> Optimized for minimum cost with zero margin for surge. On paper, efficient. In practice, one bad day away from collapse. I'm going to steal that one and add it to Stross': "Efficiency is the reciprocal of resilience."
Yes that is one key that resonated with me. The author did a great job of putting these recurring concepts into their own words
The other that really resonated was something that I read before along the lines of… we think that once humanity learns something, that knowledge stays and we build on it. But it’s not true, knowledge is lost all the time. We need to actively work to keep knowledge alive
That’s why libraries and the internet archive are so important. Wikipedia, too
Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
#7Do you think this is a tooling problem or more about incentives and how engineers are trained now?
I think the article is making the point that it is a cultural problem about cost cutting and short term thinking.
Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
#8>I read the Fogbank story and recognized it immediately. Not the nuclear material. The pattern. Build capability over decades. Find a cheaper substitute. Let the human pipeline atrophy. Enjoy the savings. Then watch it all collapse when a crisis demands what you optimized away.
>In defense, the substitute was the peace dividend. In software, it’s AI.
Before it was AI, the cheaper alternative was remote contract dev teams in Eastern Europe, right?
Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
#9>I read the Fogbank story and recognized it immediately. Not the nuclear material. The pattern. Build capability over decades. Find a cheaper substitute. Let the human pipeline atrophy. Enjoy the savings. Then watch it all collapse when a crisis demands what you optimized away. >In defense, the substitute was the peace dividend. In software, it’s AI. Before it was AI, the cheaper alternative was remote contract dev t…
Happy to help and eventually take over.
Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
#10>The combination of technical skill and the judgment to know when the AI is wrong barely exists in the market anymore.
I see a talent pipeline collapse in next 5 years. "Software engineering is over coding is a solved problem" as being chanted by semi literate media and the AI grifter's marketing departments would further scare away the allocation of human capital to software engineering easily commanding 3x rise in salaries due to resource shortage.