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If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?

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Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?

#61

Post by graemep »

hypfer wrote: post #52
graemep wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is simply racist. I do not disagree with what your said, but I think it just boils down to that.

Fix to what? Sorry to say, but that word probably has an equally low impact on regular people by now. Worse if we look at what people actually think/vote/etc. People by now at large seem to be rather fine with both being called racist or just.. well.. being racist. We do not actually want that, because (big surprise upcoming) racism is bad. But I think we might need to remind people why that whole cluster of ideas is…

I edited my wording before I saw your reply to take the word fix out.

> People by now at large seem to be rather fine with both being called racist or just.. well.. being racist.

I disagree. I do not get that feel at all in real life (in the UK, BTW). On Facebook you get that feel because it is full of ragebait and attracts nutters.

There are some people like that, but most people would be deeply ashamed to think themselves racist or be thought racist.

Edit, to add: DHH also seems to have a weird obsession with the UK. At least two of his racist blog posts about the UK. His first racist post that I was aware off is essentially "two many non-white people in London".

Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?

#63

Post by benfortuna »

fhd2 wrote: post #12

Right now, the majority of companies I interact with seems to look at their now (let's assume) increased capabilities, and turns up the speed. But there's other knobs to turn up instead. Robustness, quality, user experience. Optimistically, I think we might just enter a new phase at some point, where businesses make very conscious decisions about what to invest in to differentiate. Like, everyone has support bots now…

I think it's fair to say that AI amplifies our abilities, but it needs to be in the hands of people that know what they are doing.

If developers are producing garbage to begin with, chances are they still produce garbage just at an accelerated rate.

Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?

#64

Post by soco »

Kiro wrote: post #32
Hugsbox wrote: post #5

Just a little gripe, but near the end of the article he links to a site for something called "Omarchy" which appears to be a Linux distribution. If you click on the link, the only information available is in the form of a video. If you're making a Linux distro, please don't do this. I will not watch your video. I was interested, and now I'm not.

Bad advice considering the success Omarchy has had in marketing it. Whatever they're doing other distros should take note.

I'm a Linux user and this is the very first time I hear this name. Data set of one, which says don't base your marketing on that.

Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?

#65

Post by purpleflashing »

As a non-technical person compared to the rest of HN, I think this has always been the problem of software made for non-technical audiences. The design was driven by programmers’ heuristics and trends in technology stack (e.g. if a company can hire a lot of JS devs bc JS is trending, they will choose JS even regardless of whether JS is the best choice for the problem).

There was a brief stint of UX, ergonomics and HMI getting traction in enterprise, and, imo, the biggest technological achievements in consumer software has been in the realm of UX in twenty first century. But it lost its importance, I suppose, as you don’t need to make good software to make money off consumers.

Whatever capabilities AI gives to programmers in terms of speed of development, etc, doesn’t change the fundamental behavior —- commercial software is not developed for humans. It is developed for investors, markets, around operational needs, based on CEOs whims, developers’ personal itches, relying on approximation of human experience that gets regurgitated through layers of commercial processes of product managers, UX researchers (who, if present at all, often don’t get invited to the conversation until there are buttons to move in a GUI of an already existing product). Where human experience is considered, it’s from the perspective of our natural weaknesses with the goal to exploit them to maximize profits. Hence why 21st century tech gave us all the dark patterns, feeds, social media, LLM chatbots, etc.

Even when I talk to individual engineers who are committed to creating something good, wholesome, something that they can be proud of -— many think and reason about the problem in a way that sounds like they are trying to engineer human experience the same way one would engineer instructions for machines.

It will never get better, IMO. AI only exemplifies what already exists.

Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?

#66

Post by frameset »

anonzzzies wrote: post #54
frameset wrote: post #37

> I opened Slack on macOS, the icon kept bouncing in the dock for a few seconds. I got impatient, switched to Ghostty, and started typing. Just then, the Slack window appeared, stole focus from Ghostty and the git pull command was sent to the group chat. One of my absolute favourite features on KDE Plasma with Wayland is the global setting to control what can steal focus. It works wonderfully, and I always miss it wh…

That is definitely needed. On Mac it is really infuriating how stuff (auto update etc) just take focus/pop up crap. I am literally never interested in it and am confused why I cannot just say [x] Force apps to mind their own business. We have f’ing notifications for this; why does it need a dialog window?

Maybe it's a hazy memory, but from 2007-2011 my main computer was a MacBook Pro. I swear in that era, when an app wanted attention it would bounce in the dock endlessly.

That was annoying, but it let you finish doing what you were doing until you were ready to switch focus.

Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?

#67

Post by anonzzzies »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #48
dwedge wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year I bought a book from Amazon for over $100 and they sent the wrong book. I contacted Amazon support, they said they will refund it, I don't need to send it back (throw it away if I want), and also give me a $20 credit for the inconvenience. A month later, no refund. I contacted them again, they said unless the book is sent back, no refund. I told them about the previous conversation and they said that the CS…

I have 400 orders a year on Amazon and never have any of those weird issues. How strange!

Haha yeah, Uber, Amazon, Starlink, Hotels etc just send me stuff or refund without even asking anything. I use all of them all the time for everything; that indeed seems to help. Logical of course.

Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?

#68

Post by 7952 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #48
dwedge wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year I bought a book from Amazon for over $100 and they sent the wrong book. I contacted Amazon support, they said they will refund it, I don't need to send it back (throw it away if I want), and also give me a $20 credit for the inconvenience. A month later, no refund. I contacted them again, they said unless the book is sent back, no refund. I told them about the previous conversation and they said that the CS…

I have 400 orders a year on Amazon and never have any of those weird issues. How strange!

But that could just mean you are a more profitable customer. And that could be influencing how amenable the AI/agents are and how much money they are willing to write off to retain you.

Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?

#70

Post by hypfer »

graemep wrote: post #61
hypfer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fix to what? Sorry to say, but that word probably has an equally low impact on regular people by now. Worse if we look at what people actually think/vote/etc. People by now at large seem to be rather fine with both being called racist or just.. well.. being racist. We do not actually want that, because (big surprise upcoming) racism is bad. But I think we might need to remind people why that whole cluster of ideas is…

I edited my wording before I saw your reply to take the word fix out. > People by now at large seem to be rather fine with both being called racist or just.. well.. being racist. I disagree. I do not get that feel at all in real life (in the UK, BTW). On Facebook you get that feel because it is full of ragebait and attracts nutters. There are some people like that, but most people would be deeply ashamed to think the…

Hm. I mean I would wish that your observation is correct, but I kinda doubt it.

Doesn't match what I am seeing outside of the Internet.

But, regardless of that, I still believe that shorthand terms and indirection are a less clean solution, and, if possible, the cleaner one with less dependencies should be used.

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