Developer inequality and the technical debt crisis • Hacker News Board

Re: Developer inequality and the technical debt crisis

#101

Post by emilyxocantrell » Wed, Jul 09, 2014, 6:59 PM UTC

narag wrote: post #53

cafard wrote: post #9

"Our goal was to allow regular people without extensive training to easily and quickly build useful software. This was the spirit of languages like COBOL, Visual Basic, and HyperCard." I think that this slightly overstates the matter. Having peered into the guts of some payroll code, I question whether it was easily built. Could we say "To allow application developers to concentrate on the complexities of the problem…

Nice phrasing. Programmers swarm to tools that cut to the chase, even if they're quirky. We want instant gratification :-) The right thing is simple and consistent.

The research methods used in this Twin case include a cross-sectional research. They performed IQ test, life history, psychiatric, and sexual life interviews. The participants also took a questioner independently, under constant supervision. The data that was collected showed us that 70% or 2/3 of the findings in IQ could be traced back to genetic variations. Adult monozygotic twins are equally similar in physiology and psychological traits. The findings were very surprising, being raised by the same parents or in different homes doesn’t have anything to do with making siblings grow up to be alike. Like as said with Nature vs Nurture individuals choose how they react in situations, as for their thoughts, emotions, and actions. Nature and Nurture both are very influential to what makes us who we are and we need both nature and nurture equally.

Re: Developer inequality and the technical debt crisis

#102

Post by chansen77 » Wed, Jul 09, 2014, 8:42 PM UTC

I agree 99% with the point of the author. I would like to add my two cents how complexity and diversity of tools & ways costs software developpers :

Yesterday I attended a conference by a young but experienced Phd Java engineer about his experience in a research project using NodeJS (server side web programming in javascript).

Basically he explained he needed 6 months of project time to get up to speed with the language and the ways of the platform (asynchronous callbacks...) and that is with mentoring of a more experienced dev in JS. For me this learning curve and the mentoring time is a lot of $$$$ and opportunities for suboptimal work.

The profile of this dev, and is ability to perform a fine talk makes me thing his capabilities are not subpar. Do we really expect doctors, architects others high profile professions to work during many months suboptimally, requiring special mentoring, just to use new tools ? It seems to me that their initial training is supposed to be all what they need for a decade or more.

What would you think if your surgeon needed to work 6 months with a tutor because his hospital bought some new chirgurgical tool ? Basically were are shooting ourselves in both feets by using tools evolving too fast for us to master in any sensible way.

Turing told us all languages can do the work. Yet we are still inventing new ones. Maybe we should focus our attention on something else to improve our output.

Re: Developer inequality and the technical debt crisis

#103

Post by jeffdavis » Fri, Jul 11, 2014, 8:49 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #93

jeffdavis wrote: post #76

The author is kind of all over the place, and it's hard to read it without thinking of counterexamples to a lot of his points. If his general point is to bring computing to more people, I think a modern, web-based version of MS Access would be a huge step. Everyone needs databases. Everyone needs forms to access them in a way that makes sense for their business. Right now you have to actually program to make that hap…

> If his general point is to bring computing to more people, I think a modern, web-based version of MS Access would be a huge step. Everyone needs databases. Everyone needs forms to access them in a way that makes sense for their business. Right now you have to actually program to make that happen. Most real world MS Access databases needed all of tables, forms, and behavior that required code. Online graphical tools…

Well, sure, they needed some code. But you could add it in small bits, like Excel, and gradually improve.

That's why accountants, etc., were able to use it. They aren't unable to code, they are unwilling to spend the time necessary to start from scratch each time.

Re: Developer inequality and the technical debt crisis

#104

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Jul 12, 2014, 7:43 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #94

PaulHoule wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the language of failure. Technical debt strangles many products before they even get to market. The status quo of software development is that management won't face the facts of what software will cost so they chronically underestimate what an efficient software development effort would cost by a factor of two or three. Instead of laying out a realistic plan that will succeed, they embark on a hopeful plan tha…

Could we admit some nuance here? When we want to stigmatize people who plan too heavily for the future, we call it "overengineering." When we want to stigmatize people who plan not enough for the future, we do whatever you're doing above. The line between those two failure modes is relatively narrow and not at all obvious. There aren't simple heuristics that will infallibly put us onto the line, and acting like this…

Even "line" is probably an oversimplification. Some projects probably have a large region, some a narrow line, and some might non-obviously have no such path.

Re: Developer inequality and the technical debt crisis

#105

Post by srgpqt » Sun, Jul 13, 2014, 2:43 AM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #76

The author is kind of all over the place, and it's hard to read it without thinking of counterexamples to a lot of his points. If his general point is to bring computing to more people, I think a modern, web-based version of MS Access would be a huge step. Everyone needs databases. Everyone needs forms to access them in a way that makes sense for their business. Right now you have to actually program to make that hap…

Web based version of Access? From what I've seen of it, SalesForce seems like it could fit the bill.

Didn't strike me as particularly well done though.