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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?

#521

Post by chii »

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…

> bundle all changes in "required security updates."

And that is why i have setup a managed organization setting in windows to stop automatic updates (which includes security updates). I manually vet each individual security update, and download and apply them myself. I don't let windows update on its own.

Similarly to android. I don't let it update, unless i know i need the update. And i'd like to do the same with apps too, but companies have put in things to prevent people like me - deprecating old versions and forcing users to use newer versions (things like whatsapp, or youtube are prime examples).

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

#522

Post by vouaobrasil »

pixl97 wrote: post #376
solaire_oa wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree that software has been getting worse, and AI isn't the cause, necessarily, but certainly is accelerating the decay. Maybe a corollary to the growth of programmers is that pride/artisanship in the work decreases. Bugs happen more when the engineers dgaf, or aren't as dedicated to the craft. Software was pretty solid when I was a teenager (I'm thinking Windows, MSN Messenger, Flash, CDs, general web u…

As an old greybeard now, you're romanticizing the past. Past software was just as horrible, we just tended to use it for less things and incorporated its failures into our lives transparently. We'd reboot Windows every day so problems wouldnt stack up. We'd use less of the features, and use far less multimedia components like video and sound in the software. Flash was always a giant insecure piece of crap, it may hav…

I'd argue that past software was horrible in a different kind of way, that it got better at some point, and now it's getting worse in a different kind of way. Yes, flash and Windows 98 was crap, but now vibe-coded apps are also crap.

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

#523

Post by chii »

lokar wrote: post #511
xingped wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this 100%. When I see a "pending update" notification or icon somewhere, the first thing I think is "I don't want to update, they're just going to break something new". I _hate_ updates now. Doesn't matter what software it is, with the small exception of video games. (Except Dead By Daylight. Behavior, the devs, are the most hilariously incompetent devs on the planet, but at least their incompetence is confined…

I remember when OS vendors shipped à la carte patches. You could pick the ones you wanted (to some extent).

you can still do it: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=windo...

hopefully it doesn't get removed.

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

#524

Post by bluegatty »

Part of that is bad systems design, not really software, and part of that is social organization and bureaucracy.

Part of it is incumbancy - much of the Mac OS level stuff is 30 years old and is not going to change.

But the real concern is that even new-builds are not particularly great - and its because we dont have the abstractions in place to help us scale complexity

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

#525

Post by AtlasBarfed »

There were a lot of amoral programmers. I'm not saying programmers as a whole are morally untouchable.

But I would say the engineering barrier and the nerd barrier did provide some amount of sociopathic resistance in the world.

Llms are going to enable the absolutely immoral business people to do whatever they want. And that's going to mean enshittification on a massive scale

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

#526

Post by froggit »

skydhash wrote: post #161
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…

May not be applicable to most, but this can be solved by multiple devices. I have three laptops (my work mbp, my personal mba and my daily driver which runs OpenBSD) and two mini computers (one is a server for file and misc. stuff and the other also runs OpenBSD). I just switch devices depending on context and needs. If it were me, I'd just use the gaming PC as a console.

> May not be applicable to most, but this can be solved by multiple devices.

It cannot. You've seemingly misunderstood the problem.

> If it were me, I'd just use the gaming PC as a console.

That doesn't actually address their issue that nvidia currently has poor support for gaming on Linux with RTX 5000 series cards.

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

#528

Post by Seattle3503 »

RGamma wrote: post #254
ssttoo wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've read this on here previously but still can't reproduce it, neither from home nor mobile IP (this is in Germany). Are they slowly rolling this out? Did you connect via VPN? I suppose they might finally feel ready to close the doors...

It was announced here https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1ujtebf/logging_in...

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

#529

Post by froggit »

cmiller1 wrote: post #143
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…

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…

If anything, they've already gone above and beyond by allowing users to even make inputs while an app is launching.

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

#530

Post by bee_rider »

zrobotics wrote: post #380
xingped wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this 100%. When I see a "pending update" notification or icon somewhere, the first thing I think is "I don't want to update, they're just going to break something new". I _hate_ updates now. Doesn't matter what software it is, with the small exception of video games. (Except Dead By Daylight. Behavior, the devs, are the most hilariously incompetent devs on the planet, but at least their incompetence is confined…

The only software I've been excited about an update for in years has been games, that seems like the only category where devs actually add features people are excited about. For example, the latest KCD2 patch added a fun but brief new quest [0]. Not universal though. Besides your example, even for single player games patches can be basically malicious. I've had Fallout 4 locked on updates for like 3 years at this poi…

I think games are the exception because they are

* relatively small purchases

* paid for directly by the user

* expected to be enjoyable

Most other software fails at least one of those tests, reducing the ability to shop around and make an informed decision.

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