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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?

#581

Post by linzhangrun »

tmoertel wrote: post #475
linzhangrun wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Fedora user, I can say very clearly that Fedora is also very buggy...

Counterpoint: I have been running Fedora Linux on multiple systems for about two decades, including on my daily drivers, and it's been pretty much solid.

Right at this moment, my mouse cursor cannot figure out what scale it should use across three monitors with different resolutions and scaling, and has become a blurry group of pixels.

GNOME has also frozen the whole system for several seconds multiple times recently. Codex says it is a problem with the time component. I am still dealing with another recent problem where the system sometimes takes forever to boot, but after a forced restart it enters the system normally within seconds. Grok 4.5 says this is also GNOME's component fault.

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

#583

Post by winterrdog »

Thlom wrote: post #309
ajmurmann wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Reddit I think it's on purpose. They want to drive users to the mobile app. Maybe they aren't introducing bugs on purpose but not addressing them isn't a accident.

X/Twitter is getting progressively worse for users not logged in. At this point you need to click away the cookie prompt and a prompt begging you to download the app. When that is done you can read the linked tweeet, but you can not play any videos embedded or click on any pictures or navigate up or down in the thread. In a couiple of months I guess they will only display the first 160 characters and nag you to login…

> X/Twitter is getting progressively worse for users not logged in.

Yes! But usually I just replace "x.com" with "xcancel.com" in the URL bar. it was a pain to use Twitter without logging in

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

#584

Post by dataAI »

diddid wrote: post #496

Coding has been solved in the same way that writing has been solved. Putting the sentences together is now easier, but having something interesting to say? That’s a lot harder. With the barrier to entry lower there is a lot of things that look good at the surface, but when you dig deeper, aren’t quite right. The nouns are in the right place and it has all the things school taught you a paragraph should have, but it’s…

This 100%. Same goes with music: because of yt/tiktok, today it's easier to learn to play an instrument. Or even faster to use music software or an AI tool, but it's still almost as impossible like ever to make a great song.

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

#585

Post by astafrig »

charcircuit wrote: post #473
Gigachad wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This goes for most games where glitches end up becoming protected features. Being fun is more important than being correct.

How do you measure fun? People will always rush to that excuse if it's not properly defined. And not everyone finds the same things fun. Especially if you are looking to try and 10x your audience.

If you’re trying to quantify fun, you’ve already well and truly missed the point.

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

#586

Post by wodenokoto »

greenlimetea wrote: post #453

As crazy as it sounds, code quality != software quality. It turns out that the lower the barrier to creating "high quality" code is, the worse the software is on average. Who remembers the Photoshop lens flare? It's not that the effect sucked - it did lens flare perfectly. But who used it sucked. Instagram and the Nashville filter - "we're all photographers now" Code quality not equaling software quality gets at the…

I think it’s an excellent observation!

Code quality is really about readability and organization of code.

The thinking is, if the humans reading, writing and editing the code can’t read and comprehend it, they can’t develop it in meaningful ways.

But it is not a requisite that great software stands on top of great code

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

#587

Post by chii »

madduci wrote: post #559
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 real.answer is that people stopped making things with care and genuine interest. Everything should be delivered in the fastest way possible, in the shortest time possible, on the tightest budget possible. This is a recipe for creating a mess, in which AI has now pushed the limits and we are seeing how failure is now per-default embedded and shipped to users, who are now beta-testing products continuously.

> Everything should be delivered in the fastest way possible, in the shortest time possible, on the tightest budget possible.

because companies that did this is rewarded with more users and more revenue (than a hypothetical competitor that didnt). Darwinian natural selection is about survival of the fittest, not survival of the "best looking" or "best performing". And the determination of fitness is by the actions of consumers, not what they state verbally.

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

#589

Post by daemin »

hamandcheese wrote: post #296
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…

> > 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. You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS. Proprietary software isn't built for users anymore. But (some) FOSS still is.

Ubuntu is still annoying with it's daily popups asking to update the system and then most times requiring a system restart. In some ways it is worse than Windows.

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

#590

Post by inigyou »

herbst wrote: post #544
inigyou wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Factorio or Minecraft change things every update.

I stopped with Microsoft buying minecraft. But before that they didn't change but add things. I can't remember a single time I was disappointed because something changed.

Microsoft purchase was during 1.8. large-scale terrain structure completely changed in 1.7. 1.5 completely changed the redstone meta. 1.4 completely changed the villager meta as you could now zombify and cure villagers and more changed meta because beacons existed. 1.3 added villager trading, making mining obsolete for some people. 1.3 also overhauled the internal structure of singleplayer so that you can have network latency in singleplayer. 1.2 increased the world height, making your max height builds no longer impressive. Beta 1.8 added hunger so you can't just exist indefinitely, and endermen who aggressively stole blocks in that version. Beta 1.6 fixed several fun glitches.
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