There's Never Been a Better Time to Study Computer Science • Hacker News Board

Re: There's Never Been a Better Time to Study Computer Science

#21

Post by rramadass » Tue, May 26, 2026, 4:09 AM UTC

RaftPeople wrote: post #20

somethingsome wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the message, I don't agree on the tools. It's very difficult to define a specification that works as intended, even with tools. Most waterfall software methodologies failed for a reason. And tools of the past are really not usable with AI. We need tools where it is way easier to adapt the specification iteratively, and even better, to have a bidirectional conversion. You define the spec, the LLM ge…

> It's very difficult to define a specification that works as intended, even with tools. Agree, we are in the stone age in software design and dev. We have not figured out a good way to communicate the design of complex systems in a way the business can understand.

Nope; this is just a silly trope which gets repeated without thought. The fact that it is hard to do does not mean we don't know how to do it.

Everything exists and was known from 1960s/1970s. People are just not studying, adapting and using the well-known standards/techniques. Standard Engineering is built on them and Software Engineering adapts/extends those for its own needs.

Specification (technical standard) (general)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specification_(technical_stand...

Software Requirements Specification - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_requirements_specific...

Software Design Specification - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_description

Formal Specification - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_specification

System Requirements Specification - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_requirements_specificat...

All have been collected in a Software Engineering Body of Knowledge book - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Engineering_Body_of_K...

Re: There's Never Been a Better Time to Study Computer Science

#22

Post by hansmayer » Wed, May 27, 2026, 6:27 AM UTC

hyperhello wrote: post #11

qsxfthnkp2322 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Ai has placed the writing on the wall. killed this as a profession. I wish it wasn’t true. I have 15 years experience in the industry. Do not learn computer science these days. We all are f*** And I’m a guy who solidly believes in understanding the fundamentals.

AI coding wouldn't even be an idea if you engineers hadn't turned everything into a peyote nightmare of distributed nodes. Stable, reliable, well-thought-out, debugged libraries are what we need. Write them!

> if you engineers

What are people like you who were bad at maths in school doing in engineering companies anyway?

Re: There's Never Been a Better Time to Study Computer Science

#23

Post by RaftPeople » Sun, May 31, 2026, 6:26 PM UTC

rramadass wrote: post #21

RaftPeople wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very difficult to define a specification that works as intended, even with tools. Agree, we are in the stone age in software design and dev. We have not figured out a good way to communicate the design of complex systems in a way the business can understand.

Nope; this is just a silly trope which gets repeated without thought. The fact that it is hard to do does not mean we don't know how to do it. Everything exists and was known from 1960s/1970s. People are just not studying, adapting and using the well-known standards/techniques. Standard Engineering is built on them and Software Engineering adapts/extends those for its own needs. Specification (technical standard) (ge…

Those example are exactly the problem that has not been solved yet. They are the best we can do so far but are pretty inadequate to communicate complex designs in a way that a person can easily absorb all of that info and then reason about whether the resulting system is adequate.

As complexity grows, the value of those artifacts reaches significant limits that are typically dealt with through brute-force mental effort of the people involved.

Re: There's Never Been a Better Time to Study Computer Science

#24

Post by rramadass » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:49 AM UTC

RaftPeople wrote: post #23

rramadass wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope; this is just a silly trope which gets repeated without thought. The fact that it is hard to do does not mean we don't know how to do it. Everything exists and was known from 1960s/1970s. People are just not studying, adapting and using the well-known standards/techniques. Standard Engineering is built on them and Software Engineering adapts/extends those for its own needs. Specification (technical standard) (ge…

Those example are exactly the problem that has not been solved yet. They are the best we can do so far but are pretty inadequate to communicate complex designs in a way that a person can easily absorb all of that info and then reason about whether the resulting system is adequate. As complexity grows, the value of those artifacts reaches significant limits that are typically dealt with through brute-force mental effo…

The above resources are not examples but methodology/process using various techniques to produce various artifacts which specify the requirements unambiguously. It is up to the practitioner to choose his techniques and use the methodologies (tweaking as needed) in a systematic manner to convey the requirements to stakeholders for approval.

Lots of complex systems have been built and understood using the above. As system complexity grows, doing the above is even more important even though it be hard.

Some references;

1) A Rational Design Process: How and Why to Fake It by David Parnas and Paul Clements (pdf) - https://users.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/education/SE-Intro/fakei...

2) How Designers Work by Henrik Gedenryd - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352065