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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?

#231

Post by iLoveOncall »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #116
iLoveOncall wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My house never burned down once in 40 years.

According to the comment I was responding to, he got 3 bad experiences out of 3 orders, so 100% rate of issues. What's the expected rate of house fires?

Both you and the other commenter about his grandma's smoking habit are making nonsensical comparisons about things that are extremely rare, to support something that is supposedly extremely common, if you were to believe the parent's comment (or other stories you read online).

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

#232

Post by ghusto »

eviks wrote: post #179
ghusto wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many strange assumtions, but the most striking is that you're presuming the user doesn't know what they want to happen. "you'd prefer to seamlessly be switched back to the main app to do the thing you launched it for" Would I? How do you know? Why do yo think so? This is such an odd thing to be sure about.

My real presumption is that the user knows exactly what they want to happen, but can't encode that knowledge into OS configuration because people have no imagination for trivial use cases, so demand blanket bans. While another group is just as limited and encoded blanket allows > Would I? You would > How do you know? By being the omniscient being that came up with the conditions in the first place

Thank goodness you'll never be allowed anywhere near software anyone uses.

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

#233

Post by cosmic_cheese »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #88
frameset wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you’re right - macOS changed this behavior at some point.

I’m not sure that macOS changed as much as developer practices did.

Dock icons bouncing are usually the result of the app opening a modal alert window. Those can’t foreground the host app and they used to be what devs reached for 9 times out of 10.

These days though everybody and their dog has a menubar item or daemon running in the background (whether such a thing is actually necessary or not) and the only way windows spawned by apps like that (which have no Dock icon) can get the user’s attention and not have the windows they spawn get lost in the shuffle is for the app to call the foregrounding API, and so that’s exactly what they do.

Contrast this to years ago when almost no apps had menu items or daemons and were standalone.

There’s also been a staggering loss of decorum when it comes to these things. Companies have become shameless about pestering the user’s attention, and so there’s probably some regular Dock-icon-having apps that call the foregrounding API when they shouldn’t be too.

In my opinion menubar items, daemons, and foregrounding are all being abused by devs and Apple needs to get them under control. Apps shouldn’t be able to add menu items or daemons without the user’s explicit permission and foregrounding should he treated similarly to push permissions.

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

#234

Post by BoxOfRain »

pixard wrote: post #165
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually had to backpedal on my gaming PC from Kubuntu recently, I'm sad to say. The support for the RTX 5080 is just too rough. Every game install was chased by an hour of debugging with Claude to figure out which version of proton to use, which launch arguments to use, which between-system-and-gpu shim profile to use. I grant: The process is much more enjoyable than doing similar things on Windows. Kubuntu treats…

Hey may I suggest CachyOS + KDE? It’s very gaming oriented and you have a lot of great built in features. Everything just works. So far in 6 months I ran into a single issue: On day 1 of the new Subnautica early access I had to do some debugging and downgrade nvidia drivers to a previous release. But this was fixed after about a week. No other game gave any issue what so ever. I run everything on the cachy proton ver…

Another vote of confidence for CachyOS + KDE! This is my setup and literally the only issue I've had which presented a problem to me is that OpenRGB doesn't like my mobo at all, it's stuck in 'unicorn vomit' mode when I wanted tasteful accent lighting. Games work with minimal farting about, the desktop is great out of the box and customisable in plenty of ways, and it generally treats you like an adult.

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

#235

Post by 2b3a51 »

klez wrote: post #216
alexjplant wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kubuntu treats you like an adult and will tell you what's going on This means so much to me in the modern era. Contrast with the SaaS approach that's also been leaking into Electron apps, etc: - "Something went wrong" - "It's not you - it's us :-(" - "An error occurred" - "Uh-oh..." - "Too many penguins are in the defrobulator" [or whatever "lol so random" 2010 corporate mascot in-joke is applicable] People used to…

> The days of people being intimidated by computers have been over for a while now so I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. Oh, I wish... We have a couple of applications where we used to show useful error messages that users could copy-paste to us when they opened a ticket. We had to remove them because they scared some users. Now, per our customer's request, we sometimes only show "ERROR". Yeah, that's…

Perhaps 'Error' in tasteful smoked glass overlay, but with a QR code that encodes an error number?

(Spent some time last year supporting students online - noone was going to take a screen shot of their laptop so we ended up with them emailing photos off their phones)

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

#236

Post by dwedge »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #231
Brian_K_White wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My house never burned down once in 40 years.

According to the comment I was responding to, he got 3 bad experiences out of 3 orders, so 100% rate of issues. What's the expected rate of house fires? Both you and the other commenter about his grandma's smoking habit are making nonsensical comparisons about things that are extremely rare, to support something that is supposedly extremely common, if you were to believe the parent's comment (or other stories you rea…

Why do you assume it was 3 out of 3 orders?

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

#237

Post by purpleflashing »

Yokohiii wrote: post #229
purpleflashing wrote: post #65

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 HM…

I think the UX and stability related quality will drop at such a bottom low, that some crazy companies will revive the arcane practice of UX and even study it with users. I am not super optimistic that it happens fast, but we will end up in a situation that everything becomes tedious, annoying and broken. Companies who will do it right will inspire the whole ecosystem. It will be satirical to see the full circle happ…

I am adjacent to UX as a field, and, IMO, it’s in deep crisis itself. I don’t know when or how “ergonomics” in tech became “how to sit in front of a computer” and “design” became “creating visual assets” but even people who work in the field often reduce their jobs to simplified and corporate-optimized simulacras. I am less confident about what’s happening in academia but based on my casual browsing, it’s not better.

You need good experts to do proper research, and those haven’t been able to learn, practice, or improve their craft in any serious manner for a while.

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

#238

Post by pif »

> Nothing works

It depends on whose perspective you consider the problem. An enterprise produces software for one reason only: make money out of it. And it works great!

if you are a paying customer, and if you can choose among a few different solutions, then you will get the good stuff. But for the rest...

1. Free apps? They just need to take ads in front of your eyes.

2. Software embedded in cars? You choose the car based on other merits, the software just needs to not by horrible.

3. Automated customare support? When was the last time you choose a fridge over another because of the quality of its customer support?

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

#239

Post by iLoveOncall »

dwedge wrote: post #236
iLoveOncall wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the comment I was responding to, he got 3 bad experiences out of 3 orders, so 100% rate of issues. What's the expected rate of house fires? Both you and the other commenter about his grandma's smoking habit are making nonsensical comparisons about things that are extremely rare, to support something that is supposedly extremely common, if you were to believe the parent's comment (or other stories you rea…

Why do you assume it was 3 out of 3 orders?

Assuming would be to say that it was probably on more than 3 orders when you didn't talk about any other order.

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

#240

Post by ssttoo »

schneems wrote: post #175

Reddit on iOS safari has been getting incrementally, nearly unusable worse. It had some sharp edges before but it seems they are moving faster now with the same or greater defect rate and shit is getting bad: - URLs commonly auto-link to the things behind them, even including spaces and words. - Pinch to zoom on the homepage causes the page to reload. Forcing you to lose your place/content. - I sometimes cannot click…

And, I noticed yesterday, old.reddit.com now requires login. Which renders a blank page on my phone. Check and mate.
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