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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?

#481

Post by spike021 »

ghusto wrote: post #164
cmiller1 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is less a "macOS lacks the feature to prevent focus stealing" and more they never even imagined the scenario where it takes time for the app to open. Instead of even considering that a user may add inputs while waiting for launch, potentially signaling that they are no longer requesting focus from the program they clicked on, they simply designed for the optimistic case where there never IS time for the…

As always, Apple has designed for the happy flow, and nothing else. Mac apps have never opened instantly, this is nothing new.

same with iphones and switching between cellular and wifi connections. I'll be walking away from or toward my home or my office and there's just barely a wifi connection, but hardly enough for any requests or responses to even make it through, yet Apple never allows the phone to fall back toward the cellular connection.

I can't believe in all these years they haven't implemented a dual setup where they connect the wifi and do some kind of test connection or request to confirm it's a stable signal before entirely switching away from cellular data.

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

#482

Post by endorphine »

mancerayder wrote: post #277

> We’ve reached a point where an update to macOS — or to any app I rely on, really — is a source of dread rather than excitement. I now expect the new version to be worse. I actually relate to that. It used to be cool and exciting to update to see what new things are coming for free. I was just looking up what Fedora Workstation 45 might bring. Updates on phones, TV's, cars and non-Linux operating systems on PC's/lap…

I never had this dread after switching to Debian.

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

#483

Post by thewebguyd »

jason_oster wrote: post #399
alphazard wrote: post #388

The answer, of course, is that the taste-making apparatus inside the typical tech company is now entirely imposters (non-technical, non-power-users), who continue to LARP as visionaries. The people who notice broken or degraded behavior (devs and power users) and conceive of good designs are not in charge of what goes into the product. So you shouldn't expect it to get better, only to continuously change so that the…

> The solution is to gut your product org, replace management with leading engineers, and hire some of your most fanatic users. They don't need to do anything other than give their opinions, and use the product every day. Put them in a room with your top engineers, and the software will mysteriously get better. I feel like there's this one random comment on HN that should be adopted on its merits alone, but everyone…

> replace management with leading engineers

Wasn't this the whole point of agile and self organizing teams?

Then managers with 10 different PM* acronyms in their email signature got hired in, with no engineering experience, to lead product and software teams?

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

#484

Post by sublinear »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #476

Commercial software has been getting worse for at least a decade now, and the reasons are multifaceted and difficult to solve. They include the switch to subscription pricing, misaligned incentives at companies that make most revenue from "services" or, even worse, ads, the constant need to reinvent solutions to problems that were solved twenty years ago in order to show "progress", companies that build elaborate man…

Commercial services have always been a thinly-veiled bureaucracy long before we even had computers. The move to the web just made them more powerful.

From that perspective, LLMs are a weapon meant to disrupt their power and shake out the businesses that are too weak to resist or too dumb to see the threat. It's not about "solving" code, but weakening the competition enough that they sell out or go away. The code is still as valuable as any other proprietary information, operations, plans, etc.

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

#485

Post by Grombobulous »

mancerayder wrote: post #277

> We’ve reached a point where an update to macOS — or to any app I rely on, really — is a source of dread rather than excitement. I now expect the new version to be worse. I actually relate to that. It used to be cool and exciting to update to see what new things are coming for free. I was just looking up what Fedora Workstation 45 might bring. Updates on phones, TV's, cars and non-Linux operating systems on PC's/lap…

The funny thing is that there’s a relatively high amount of hype this year around iOS and macOS being a stability and performance release with very few features, on purpose.

Look up some beta impressions or try the public beta yourself. Apps launch faster and a whole bunch of random stuff is fixed and smoothed out.

So not only are we getting a really great performance and stability release in the height of the AI era, disproving this “AI isn’t making software better” claim, but we now can make a pretty solid connection to the DRAM shortages being one of the biggest performance and efficiency motivators of the last few decades.

Why do you think Apple cares to make apps launch 40% faster? It’s because they don’t want to be selling iPhones that are losing money because they’re packed with expensive RAM and storage.

I just can’t agree with you that this software is anywhere near the kind of misery you’re describing.

To head this off at the pass, I’m not even a macOS user…I switched off to Linux last year. I also didn’t like Liquid Glass and oddly I got tired of the notch more than anything. I also just needed more storage in my computer and didn’t want to pay Apple 3x more than street pricing for 2TB.

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

#487

Post by unsungNovelty »

bhaak wrote: post #361
behnamoh wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS. As someone who's been burnt several times with CachyOS (Arch) updates, I don't think this is true.

Arch is bleeding edge. Breakage is expected there. It breaks so others can be stable. Thank you for your service.

Arch is not "bleeding edge" . It's latest stable version of packages/software.

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

#488

Post by lofaszvanitt »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #305
lofaszvanitt wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is here, time to create something new and shiny.

> AI is here, time to create something new and shiny. The AI we have in 2026 cannot do that or it'd have already been done. I use AI daily: it saves some time. But it produces an infinite amount of insecure, unnecessary, sloppy-pasta. And that sloppy-pasta doesn't make software any better.

That's why you, the human, are in the loop. Sloppy pasta can be avoided with careful prompting.

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

#489

Post by voakbasda »

behnamoh wrote: post #479
Gigachad wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many Linux user problems are self inflicted. It’s almost a demonstration why proprietary platforms limit your options so much when users choose to shove a stick in their bike spokes and complain it let them do that.

Nope, we're talking about updates to the OS, not users messing around and shoving a stick in their bike spokes.

Choose a niche distro, deal with niche update issues.
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