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Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

taylor.gl

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Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#171

Post by freedomben »

surgical_fire wrote: post #147
freedomben wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but I think you need to account for the state of hardware and operating systems too. Unless you're on Linux, the hackability and control over your own computing environment has never been worse (aside from when those things weren't accessible at all). Yes I can build almost anything nowadays, but actually using it is a different story, even just for personal use (ask people with iPhones and increasingly…

> Unless you're on Linux Why would anyone interested in programming use anything else? I am forced to use a Mac at work, but I digress.

> Why would anyone interested in programming use anything else?

I totally agree, but most people I know (myself included) initially got started on different systems (Windows in my case). If I'd had to learn Linux at the same time, it may have been too steep a learning curve

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#172

Post by ahf8Aithaex7Nai »

tickettotranai wrote: post #50
ecb_penguin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, all those things could be "corporate greed". Opposite actions in different environments don't change the intent. > Aside from all the claims with no sources/references whatsoever It's an opinion piece about many of our shared experiences. > blaming "corporate greed" for hiring employees? They explained their argument. > Isn't it also "corporate greed" to lay people off? It depends. A struggling company that nee…

If your framing is unfalsifiable, I question its utility.

How is this framing unfalsifiable? It is up to you to demonstrate that. Otherwise, I question whether you even understand what falsifiability means and why it is relevant.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#173

Post by bsoles »

lokar wrote: post #19
rkozik1989 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's only been a golden age because of high salaries for relatively low effort. Money is how you define a Golden Age of Programming? I consider the late 1990s and early 2000s more of a Golden Age, and my reasons for it have nothing to do with making money. The time was of Golden Age because that's when programming became more accessible to the masses. Yes it wasn't without its fault, namely with regards to cyber sec…

I remember when people paid (a lot of) money for a good compiler / tooling setup.

I was genuinely excited as a 16 year old, poor kid when I first bought my Borland Turbo C suite/compiler. That was my golden age of programming.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#174

Post by tickettotranai »

ahf8Aithaex7Nai wrote: post #172
tickettotranai wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your framing is unfalsifiable, I question its utility.

How is this framing unfalsifiable? It is up to you to demonstrate that. Otherwise, I question whether you even understand what falsifiability means and why it is relevant.

Something can be falsifiable without being false. F=ma is falsifiable but not false. With humanities stuff it's less clear cut, but I'm inclined to be skeptical of ideas that explain too many things.

Falsifiability is relevant because I'm not saying the framing is wrong (I'm not even convinced it can possibly be proven wrong), I'm saying it's not very useful. In practice this has the same effect as me saying that "corporate greed" is axiomatic, so blaming it for things is like blaming water for flowing downhill.

It would be much more productive to frame this as an example, say, of market failure. Or a discussion of short-term thinking, or lacking negative feedback. All would be interesting.

PS: the author has now stated his post was AI slop written to make the front page of HN. I feel extremely validated.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#175

Post by tickettotranai »

ffsm8 wrote: post #79
tickettotranai wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your framing is unfalsifiable, I question its utility.

Ultimately, all actions multinational companies take are rooted in greed. Questioning that feels a lil naive? Are you honestly of the opinion that big tech isn't primarily motivated by money and is instead being run like a family business with an upstanding owner that has the well-being of their employees at heart?

If anything, I take corporate greed as axiomatic. Saying something happened because of it is stupid. There's no information in it.

And hey, look, turns out the article was AI slop generated to make the front page of HN.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#176

Post by thelaxiankey2 »

antonvs wrote: post #170
afthonos wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what would be impossible to explain in a world where “corporate greed” is indeed what causes all these things? The answer can’t be “nothing”—or “corporate greed” doesn’t mean anything. I can say, for example, that under gravity, an object will not accelerate upwards when entering else stays down; if you show me that happening, I either have to say gravity didn’t cause it, or that gravity is not what we thought it…

Any corporate behavior that doesn’t lead fairly directly to increased share price, profit, revenues, or market share would qualify. But in the American corporate model, corporations almost by definition don’t do muck of that, because there’s an entrenched belief that increasing shareholder value is their primary mission. Positions to the contrary, like https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v... ,…

The argument your link suggests is legal, not empirical. Legally speaking, there is no mandate, and acting like there is is almost surely bad for society. So I don't disagree there.

And as to the existence of exceptions, that is what makes humanities hard. Unlike physics, it is never all, it's always most, it's always shades and never direct. I use absolutist words in these discussions because it makes the points stick better, but I obviously do not mean them totally.

I think corporations maximizing profit is the default, and so writing an op-ed about how corporate greed caused something to happen seems pretty dumb to me.

Re: Big Tech Killed the Golden Age of Programming

#178

Post by wnc3141 »

hbn wrote: post #151
zwnow wrote: post #3

It also caused the "Golden Age of Programming". It's only been a golden age because of high salaries for relatively low effort. So if their needs change, obviously the industry changes. This article has nothing to say really.

Yeah I'm trying to figure out what exactly the author thinks is the "Golden Age of Programming" if even he recognizes it was just a bunch of high salary workers getting nothing done. Shouldn't this have been written during that time? It sucks that a lot of people in tech got the impression we'd be endlessly hireable, able to hop between 6 figure jobs and raises for our entire career before early retirement. But it se…

Decreasing earning power with career progression, while quite possible, is sort of a huge violation of the social contract.
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