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Software development is still young. 30 years ago it really wasn't an industry and 50 it was pretty much an academic venture. We have better procedures and too

by sqeaky 11y ago

Software development is still young. 30 years ago it really wasn't an industry and 50 it was pretty much an academic venture. We have better procedures and tools. The groups not using version control, unit tests, peer reviews and other common means to increase quality will be out-competed by those who do. Just write the best software you can, with the best group you can in the mean time and in the long run this will sort itself. Of if you think you can sort it out, try to. I don't know what "sorted out" looks like but I would not be surprised to see apprenticeships like plumbing and HVAC or certifications like medicine and law. Sorted out could look like just about anything, perhaps we will be drenched in shitty software until unit testing is taught to second graders along-side basic arithmetic.

outworlder 11y ago
> Software development is still young. 30 years ago it really wasn't an industry and 50 it was pretty much an academic venture. Pretty much that. We are still at paleolithic levels, even if progress has been fast.
TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
>30 years ago it really wasn't an industry 30 years ago it was definitely an industry. The commercial games market exploded with the arrival of cheap 8-bit micros in the early 80s. Mini and mainframe application development has been around for a lot longer. Commercial software development has been happening since the 1950s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) "Sorted out" means that software doesn't fail in stupid, avoidable ways. The current state of the industry is shockingly bad. But users have been trained to expect broken software, developers rarely have enough of quality ethic to care about those boring bug fixes, and management just wants more money. So here we are. Personally I blame Microsoft for gifting the industry with a tradition of bullshit EULAs that more or less said "We can ship any old bug-ridden crap we feel like, and we're not responsible if it blows up in your face and takes your business down. Besides, if something goes wrong it's clearly your fault for being too stupid and ignorant to use the software properly. Whatever - definitely not our fault, so don't even think about suing." After the Pavlovian conditioning and Stockholm syndrome set in, it became impossible to expect consumer pushback.
rmah 11y ago
30 years ago, when I started working as a professional software developer, I encountered people in their 40's who had been professional software developers for 20 years. So no, software development is NOT young. FORTRAN was released almost 60 years ago, in 1957. Cobol was released 55 years ago in 1960. It's been half a century since thousands of people have been programming professionally. How old is a 60 year old industry? It's the time it took to go from the first Write brothers airplane to jet airliners and rockets into orbit. It's less than the time from the discovery of DNA to full sequencing of the human genome. Between 1850 and 1910, steamships went from barely worthwhile to gigantic ocean-going liners (RMS Olympic) and battleships (HMS Dreadnought). The software industry is not young. The third generation of developers are entering the workforce. Some of them have grandparents who were professional software developers. The industry has completed (or failed at) 100's of thousands (if not millions) of major projects. IMO, far far too many people working in the industry simply refuse to learn from the past. But that's a rant for another day :-)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

by sqeaky 11y ago

outworlder 11y ago

> Software development is still young. 30 years ago it really wasn't an industry and 50 it was pretty much an academic venture. Pretty much that. We are still at paleolithic levels, even if progress has been fast.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago

>30 years ago it really wasn't an industry 30 years ago it was definitely an industry. The commercial games market exploded with the arrival of cheap 8-bit micros in the early 80s. Mini and mainframe application development has been around for a lot longer. Commercial software development has been happening since the 1950s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) "Sorted out" means that software doesn't fail in stupid, avoidable ways. The current state of the industry is shockingly bad. But users have been trained to expect broken software, developers rarely have enough of quality ethic to care about those boring bug fixes, and management just wants more money. So here we are. Personally I blame Microsoft for gifting the industry with a tradition of bullshit EULAs that more or less said "We can ship any old bug-ridden crap we feel like, and we're not responsible if it blows up in your face and takes your business down. Besides, if something goes wrong it's clearly your fault for being too stupid and ignorant to use the software properly. Whatever - definitely not our fault, so don't even think about suing." After the Pavlovian conditioning and Stockholm syndrome set in, it became impossible to expect consumer pushback.

rmah 11y ago

30 years ago, when I started working as a professional software developer, I encountered people in their 40's who had been professional software developers for 20 years. So no, software development is NOT young. FORTRAN was released almost 60 years ago, in 1957. Cobol was released 55 years ago in 1960. It's been half a century since thousands of people have been programming professionally. How old is a 60 year old industry? It's the time it took to go from the first Write brothers airplane to jet airliners and rockets into orbit. It's less than the time from the discovery of DNA to full sequencing of the human genome. Between 1850 and 1910, steamships went from barely worthwhile to gigantic ocean-going liners (RMS Olympic) and battleships (HMS Dreadnought). The software industry is not young. The third generation of developers are entering the workforce. Some of them have grandparents who were professional software developers. The industry has completed (or failed at) 100's of thousands (if not millions) of major projects. IMO, far far too many people working in the industry simply refuse to learn from the past. But that's a rant for another day :-)

deleted 11y ago

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