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Programming Still Sucks
21–30 of 354 posts
Re: Programming Still Sucks
#22[flagged]
Re: Programming Still Sucks
#23This is absurdly well written. I don’t know how someone takes the familiar anxiety around AI replacing developers and turns it into something this beautiful and funny. Once again, the programming industry has robbed literature of a potential Nobel Prize candidate.
[flagged]
26% means not ai 3/4 times...
Re: Programming Still Sucks
#24[flagged]
Re: Programming Still Sucks
#25The USB stick hints at a big problem in our trade though: how do you "reboot" your IT infrastructure if it literally burns to the ground? I'm not talking about Google-scale systems (which still couldn't restart from scratch IIUC but they're actually working on it?) but only about SMEs. How does a medium-sized SME were all the payrolls depends on Sara and her USB stick do if, literally, their servers do catch fire. Yo…
> How does a medium-sized SME were all the payrolls depends on Sara and her USB stick do if, literally, their servers do catch fire.
Like every job, we overestimate our importance.
What do they do? They pay everyone the same as last month as a temporary measure, ask you to talk to your manager if your pay should be more this month, warn everyone that they're going to recalculate the payroll and adjust any differences next month. Then they calculate everyone's pay from the inputs, which really isn't such a hard problem when the alternative is failure. Maybe they pay some fancy consultants or an SAAS provider for a few months. Maybe they have to cut a few corners. Maybe they even get fined by their state's DoL. Life goes on.
Re: Programming Still Sucks
#26This is absurdly well written. I don’t know how someone takes the familiar anxiety around AI replacing developers and turns it into something this beautiful and funny. Once again, the programming industry has robbed literature of a potential Nobel Prize candidate.
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Would you accuse someone of murder with 26% matching evidence?
Re: Programming Still Sucks
#27> AI didn't take our jobs. Greed did. Same greed that moved factories to Bangladesh and keeps slaves in cobalt mines in the Congo, wearing a new mask. Tell the nephew to do something else. Anything. It won't save him either, but at least he won't have to pretend the thing destroying his life is a robot.
This hit me hard. This article is art. I think I need to sleep on this and read it again in the morning.
Re: Programming Still Sucks
#28The USB stick hints at a big problem in our trade though: how do you "reboot" your IT infrastructure if it literally burns to the ground? I'm not talking about Google-scale systems (which still couldn't restart from scratch IIUC but they're actually working on it?) but only about SMEs. How does a medium-sized SME were all the payrolls depends on Sara and her USB stick do if, literally, their servers do catch fire. Yo…
> How many SMEs out there are depending on Sara's knowledge of the USB memory stick and how to use it?
I think at least in part, that is the point: orgs are missing the part of the equation where the institutional and organizational knowledge is critical. Sure, the code to accomplish parts B and C can be re-duct-taped together in a month or so by off-shore, or maybe an agent... but part A, its plumbing, and why it does what it does the way it does it due to historical failures and the knowledge behind that is probably what keeps it going.
Those things are learned starting at the ground level by bumping into them in the trenches.
Re: Programming Still Sucks
#29The USB stick hints at a big problem in our trade though: how do you "reboot" your IT infrastructure if it literally burns to the ground? I'm not talking about Google-scale systems (which still couldn't restart from scratch IIUC but they're actually working on it?) but only about SMEs. How does a medium-sized SME were all the payrolls depends on Sara and her USB stick do if, literally, their servers do catch fire. Yo…
The company just shuts down and its customers switch to competitors. This is economically efficient. The redundancy of a company is another company. It's a bit like how we don't insist on every server running two CPUs in lockstep in case one fails, because we have more than one server to handle requests.
Re: Programming Still Sucks
#30[flagged]
I hope to never work with you.
No offense.