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The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

techtrenches.dev

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Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#801

Post by bitwize »

latexr wrote: post #67
efitz wrote: post #38

I disagree with the premise - interesting but I interpret the same fact pattern differently. The history of technology is the replacement of manual processes with automated ones. Consider a very basic process: checkout of a restaurant. Writing the price of each item on a sheet of paper, manually adding them and writing the total was replaced with typing in the prices and eventually with just pushing the button for th…

Though I do believe you are making them in good faith, I find those comparisons do not hold. CAD still requires you know what to do, and without CAD you can still draw blueprints by hand because you know what the result should be. Checkout is basic arithmetic you can do on a paper or even your personal phone. In both cases it is clear what the process is and what the output should be, and it doesn’t replace knowledge…

My father, who was a mechanical engineer, has noted an instance of "brainrot" occurring with younger engineers: they are instructed in how to design parts, but not how to machine them, so they lack physical intuition about what kind of finish and tolerance is appropriate for a given part. This isn't really the fault of the young engineers, nor is it the fault of CAD which is still mainly a more efficient, more expensive draftsman's pencil, just a consequence of the fact that engineering curricula have largely optimized away the craftsmanship aspects of actually building things, leaving mechanical design work to be a mainly theoretical exercise.

With AI-assisted development we are at risk of something similar happening; the promise of LLM-based programming assistance is the ability to very rapidly knock together something according to a high-level specification without developing the craftsman's "feel" for how it actually runs. The scope of what's passed on in the discipline is narrowing, and people are forgetting essential skills they used to rely on in order to craft quality software.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#802

Post by justinclift »

rotis wrote: post #100
roenxi wrote: post #30

> Leadership qualities. Our last hiring round tells you how rare that is: 2,253 candidates, 2,069 disqualified, 4 hired. A 0.18% conversion rate. It's minor but this is just wrong. If you're going to hire 4 candidates, there could be 2,253 perfectly qualified candidates even if only 0.18% get hired. The conversion rate is meaningless; it just tells us how many jobs were on offer. There is no way that the skills this…

He writes 2,253 candidates and 2,069 were disqualified. 184 were qualified, so 1 in 12 was considered competent.

With that volume of candidates, I'd be curious as to what they used for screening (AI prob?) and whether it was filtering out good candidates due to dumb filters.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#803

Post by noisy_boy »

SlinkyOnStairs wrote: post #706
noisy_boy wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Open Source development quirks that created the shitshow of the 1999 is still here. Gnome is better but still suffers massively from mainstream features being declared stupid by the maintainers. (A power button that turns off the machine? Heretical.) Gnome have been chopping off their own limbs because it reduces weight. All in the name of simplicity. I think they are not the best example of Open Source develop…

> I think they are not the best example of Open Source development. They're not. I'm using them as an example of the "bad" in Open Source development. But it's also not so much the individual OS components that are a problem, their interactions are just as fragile and usually subject to neither party taking ownership of the problem.

I feel like open source is a forest, not a garden. Things grow and die and those who are strong enough and useful enough and can fit in the environment do survive. The linkages are there but they are not perfectly arranged by some curator because it is not a curated garden. It is not totally haphazard though because the ecology has rules and the better pieces are in harmony with the rest of the system.

We forget that it this organic nature that makes open source what it is. Nobody charges you entry fee, there are no hidden fees once you enter, nobody is trying to sell you crap but you need to learn how to survive yourself. Once you do that, you understand how to deal with shortcomings of a package or finding another solution to your needs. Sure it takes time, but when that becomes second nature and you stop fighting the nature of the ecology itself, there is no other system like it.

That's why comparing it with advantages of other systems is pointless. I didn't choose to walk into the forest because it was a perfectly tailored experience, I did because I wanted freedom. It required me to learn how to fit in and now that I have, I'm at peace with where I am.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#804

Post by pigeons »

WalterBright wrote: post #643
cowmix wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know who his wealth was transferred from, exactly. But I do know what he’s using it for now: as a gravitational force to unilaterally screw with public institutions and systems the rest of us depend on. Even if you agree with some of DOGE projects’s goals, the way it operated was wildly thoughtless about consequences beyond Musk’s personal wishes, and almost completely unaccountable. I’m honestly sick that my…

Musk's money came from creating a business that was worth a lot of money. I.e. he created his wealth. It was not transferred to him. The same goes for Bezos, Jobs, Gates, etc.

That business is currently worth a lot of money, but why? Its not making a lot of money.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#805

Post by WalterBright »

AngryData wrote: post #737
WalterBright wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Soviet Union. I don't recall ever seeing USSR products in stores, while plenty of manufactured goods from other countries were. (By products I meant manufactured products, not extracted resources like oil.)

I got some Soviet Union produced wrenches and drill from my great grandfather and East Germany made drill bits from an auction despite nobody in my family living outside the US in 120 years. No it isn't common, but I wouldn't expect the Soviet Union's biggest rival to be importing many of their products to start with, so the fact I possess them at all is decent evidence of their significant production volume.

But no cars, washing machines, microwaves, electronics, furniture, apparel, and on and on. Kinda sad for the size of the country.

I bought some Soviet stuff after the fall of the USSR, because it was unique and interesting. One item was a telescope, one was a brand new rotary dial telephone manufactured in the 1950s, and one was a mechanical clock reputed to be from a submarine.

I'm only sad that I abandoned my phone line (as I only received spam calls on it) and so my Commie Phone is a nice, but useless, desk ornament.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#806

Post by WalterBright »

Yoric wrote: post #776
WalterBright wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outsourcing happens when it is cheaper to build something somewhere else. Tariffs can compensate for that. Where are the starving people in capitalist countries? The US health care system is pretty much run by the government. It is not a result of free markets. A large part of profit maximization (i.e. optimizing) usually means reducing the amount of material needed. Isn't that a good thing? The people who "rough it"…

> Outsourcing happens when it is cheaper to build something somewhere else. Tariffs can compensate for that. Is that free market? > Where are the starving people in capitalist countries? The first example from the top of my head is Argentina. > A large part of profit maximization (i.e. optimizing) usually means reducing the amount of material needed. Isn't that a good thing? This very much depends on the industry. In…

Is what a free market? outsourcing - yes. Tariffs - no.

Argentina is hardly a free market country - https://borgenproject.org/hunger-in-argentina/

> In software, for instance, it's exactly the opposite.

??

> No idea what you're talking about.

Watch "Alone". I think it's on Netflix. Compare it with the kit of Lewis and Clark.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#807

Post by WalterBright »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #777
WalterBright wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has ever succeeded adjusting the Law of Supply & Demand. Not even the die hard communists.

I’ll be sure to bring a posse of gunmen to my next negotiation. Every well functioning market has ground rules. We call that laws. And every well-functioning market has enforcer of said ground rules. We call that government. Believing that the market is unregulated is faith-driven nonsense, which flies in the face of evidence.

A free market requires laws that protect property rights and prevent people from using force and fraud against others.

"Your signature on the contract or your brains" is not a free market transaction.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#808

Post by WalterBright »

contingencies wrote: post #693
WalterBright wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's more accurate to say it is a process that has resulted in our high standard of living faster than other processes... so far. Nobody has found a better process. Not even close. > As a trivial example It's not an example, it's a generalization. If you have a specific example, let's have a look at it! Have you ever wondered why communist countries never exported products? Also, if you want better products…

Your line of reasoning misses the clear example that China pulled 1.4 billion people out of poverty creating mass-literacy before embracing capitalism.

The Chinese did not come out of poverty until after China switched to capitalism.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#809

Post by WalterBright »

lossyalgo wrote: post #705
WalterBright wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true. That's why there are laws against fraud. What do you think of the tricks that California pulled to have billions vanish with not a mile of track laid? Or all those hospices with no beds? Or this fun one: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/does-noth... Unfortunately, as a taxpayer, I am on the hook for those tricks. With a business, I can do some due diligence and then decide if I want to get…

> I suspect you and I are being fleeced far more by government waste and fraud than by businesses. And do you think that firing half of the employees at various gov't agencies has and/or will decrease the waste and fraud?

It depends on which half.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#810

Post by nobodyandproud »

WalterBright wrote: post #807
nobodyandproud wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll be sure to bring a posse of gunmen to my next negotiation. Every well functioning market has ground rules. We call that laws. And every well-functioning market has enforcer of said ground rules. We call that government. Believing that the market is unregulated is faith-driven nonsense, which flies in the face of evidence.

A free market requires laws that protect property rights and prevent people from using force and fraud against others. "Your signature on the contract or your brains" is not a free market transaction.

Why does it require it? To what aim does this serve the market?

A check against fraud and protection of property rights can be achieved through force and violence and the threat of violence, so that answer seems inadequate.

Likewise, supply and demand is definitely affected by government policies. The supply of labor, for example, by allowing or disallowing near shore or off-shore work with steep penalties. Or allowing/disallowing gambling.

So that also flies in the face of evidence.

It’s a self-serving, faith-based belief that that desires to put “market forces” beyond the reach of voters. It’s also a colossal delusion.

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