4 ms·

These statements are false: > "Software does not exist to please us as programmers and let us write beautiful code. Neither it exists to create jobs for people

These statements are false: > "Software does not exist to please us as programmers and let us write beautiful code. Neither it exists to create jobs for people in the tech industry. Actually, it exists to kill as many jobs as possible, including ours" Software exists for whatever reason we want it to exist. I started programming when I was 12 and that was 23 years ago. I sure as hell didn't start programming to solve business needs or to kill jobs. In fact this mentality is what I find most upsetting about the industry. Tell a software developer to pick a problem and solve it and he'll almost always look at automating existing workflows. There's this saying that most business software is about automating an Excel spreadsheet shared by email and it's true. But it doesn't have to be that way. Software could also empower people to do things they wouldn't have dreamed of doing before. Just like with musical instruments, which are empowering people that don't have a voice to produce music. And we don't have to look far for such examples. Just the other day I was reading about a nice app by Microsoft helping the blind to see. Software's purpose, if it has any, is to be an extension of our minds. As for the fatigue, that happens because it's 2017 and we are forced to use tools that can be worse than those available in 1980. Of course, such tools wouldn't be successful if many of us weren't guilty of anti-intellectualism. Just look at how many six figures professionals bitch and moan about having to understand what a Monoid is, even though it's part of standard high-school curriculum in some countries, like Romania.

verinus 9y ago
I heartily agree with your points and want to add: programmers want to automate tedious, repetitive, manual work so that we can spend our time in a more pleasant way solving more interesting puzzles. @tools: just in the WebDev world. I am still battling to start developing web apps, coming from a java/C# now mostly F# world where we can actually debug effortlessly, use static typing (or the superior type inference in the case of F#) and so on
- davidjnelson 9y ago
  Webpack, sourcemaps, chrome developer tools, flow, and webstorm could meet your needs for these things.
crimsonalucard 9y ago
He meant Software jobs, not software.
crimsonalucard 9y ago
Also are you kidding about Monoids? No way category is part of any General Education curriculum.
- MichaelBurge 9y ago
  There's a story about a carpenter who walked into a library, picked up a copy of Serge Lang's book "Algebra", skimmed through the first page where he proves uniqueness of the identity in a monoid, was surprised at how ironclad the argument was, and became a mathematician to study it more. I forget his name, or where I heard it.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Why is it so unbelievable to you that some countries have more extensive high school math curricula? I don't know this particular case, but it's well known that countries from the ex-USSR teach math at much more intensive level. I personally know multiple parents who have immigrated to my Western European country and who complain that their child is being taught concepts they've learned years ago, so much that the parents end up having to home teach them after school.
- golergka 9y ago
  Went to math-oriented high school in Russia, curriculum had some of category theory in it. Also, I'm constantly amazed at how basic high school math education in states seems to be.
- nostromo123 9y ago
  Sure is, I can confirm for Romania. We studied it as part of 12th grade algebra (last year of highschool, in Romania). If you don't believe my personal anecdote, here: http://www.meditatiionline.ro/44100-122-411-0-0-Formule_Matematica_Grupuri_Structuri_algebrice_Monoizi.html http://www.meditatiionline.ro/44100-122-411-0-0-Formule_Mate... (site is -- obviously :-) -- in Romanian, but it's pretty clear) It's material specifically targeted at 12th grade students, in normal highschools.
edem 9y ago
Well you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Don't expect quality js tools to emerge from an ecosystem which is rotting at its core.
- remline 9y ago
  Es6 has some nice moderate changes that can trickle up.. An infinite number of bad tools and frameworks doesn't really stop a good one from coming along anymore than all the low quality OSes and environs that had a libc and compiler stopped C.
  - pluma 9y ago
    Honestly this entire argument sounds like "Linux is terrible because there are so many useless and terrible distros". Just use Ubuntu because that's what everybody uses. Or spend some effort looking into it and see if you end up with Debian or maybe CentOS or Arch.
- pluma 9y ago
  What did I miss? How is "the JS ecosystem" rotting at its core? Unless you're arguing _all_ programming language ecosystems are rotting (or too young and niche to have an actual ecosystem), I have no idea how you're arriving at that conclusion. EcmaScript, HTML and CSS are standards that are continuously being developed and seeing updates. Browsers are now evergreen or quickly becoming irrelevant (even old IE will eventually be replaced by the evergreen Edge). My build tools are mostly Webpack and Babel, two actively maintained projects with highly active communities. My applications are mostly built around React, which is also in active development and has the full weight of numerous major companies behind it (not to mention it's being sponsored by Facebook). So I ask you, how is "the ecosystem" rotting at "its core"? Are you talking about jQuery which today can mostly be replaced by native browser APIs but is still getting updates? Are you talking about Backbone, which everyone has been moving away from for years? Are you talking about Grunt and Gulp and all the other task runners which merrily chug along on myriads of development machines? The JS ecosystem isn't rotting at its core. The JS ecosystem has no core. And it's not rot, it's compost, obsolete refuse disintegrating to give way to new development, feeding the ecosystem by releasing developers who would otherwise be stuck maintaining outdated technology.
lloeki 9y ago
> Software's purpose, if it has any, is to be an extension of our minds. Someone said: "A computer is like a bicycle for the mind." - There is a variety of bicycles at various price points, quality, styles and for varying terrains. If at all possible choose the one you like as much as the one that fits your problem. - You can enjoy a bicycle by itself and not just for moving your body from point A to B - I believe fatigue (in general) comes from everyone and their dog reinventing a variety of bicycles, each one a million times, and most of them are half-assed enough they can only roll around a circus pit, if at all, and abandoned the next day they're published (spoiler: maintaining is hard!). Even the high profile ones get through the let's do this again, only different, and we promise, we got it wrong the first time but now it's ok! But it's not helpful for the mind to endlessly learn a new way to ride for the umpteenth time only to pedal in circle. And I believe JS fatigue because of its tyrannic omnipresence in browsers as well as the limitations of the platform lends itself to (almost coerces people into) solving the same problems again and again.
ionwake 9y ago
This is a beautiful post
Clubber 9y ago
>Software exists for whatever reason we want it to exist. Yes, the author stated this from a very narrow point of view. Software exists for whatever reason we want it to, but business pays people to build it to solve their problems. >almost always look at automating existing workflows. I've always justified it in my mind as making existing workers more productive. As long as the company I was working for was constantly hiring, growing and in a competitive market, it was ok. The paragraph about no one cares what language you use, etc is obviously false. Write a PHP app in a C# shop is an easy way to disprove that theory. Also, what the author fails to take into account is scalability. As the business grows, the software needs to grow with it, or all those marketing dollars they threw in to grow the company will be wasted and growth will be halted. That's where the business would need to defer technical decisions to technical people. An acquaintance of mine currently works for a company who is about to hit a hard wall where they will no longer be able to take any more orders due to scalability of the software they chose. They aren't doing much about it, not realizing that by the time this happens, it will be too late. The CEO probably read an article just like this. But I will agree with the author that JS, and web front end in general, is way more complicated than it needs to be.
kirkules 9y ago
*Monad?

verinus 9y ago

I heartily agree with your points and want to add: programmers want to automate tedious, repetitive, manual work so that we can spend our time in a more pleasant way solving more interesting puzzles. @tools: just in the WebDev world. I am still battling to start developing web apps, coming from a java/C# now mostly F# world where we can actually debug effortlessly, use static typing (or the superior type inference in the case of F#) and so on

davidjnelson 9y ago
Webpack, sourcemaps, chrome developer tools, flow, and webstorm could meet your needs for these things.

crimsonalucard 9y ago

He meant Software jobs, not software.

crimsonalucard 9y ago

Also are you kidding about Monoids? No way category is part of any General Education curriculum.

MichaelBurge 9y ago
There's a story about a carpenter who walked into a library, picked up a copy of Serge Lang's book "Algebra", skimmed through the first page where he proves uniqueness of the identity in a monoid, was surprised at how ironclad the argument was, and became a mathematician to study it more. I forget his name, or where I heard it.
icebraining 9y ago
Why is it so unbelievable to you that some countries have more extensive high school math curricula? I don't know this particular case, but it's well known that countries from the ex-USSR teach math at much more intensive level. I personally know multiple parents who have immigrated to my Western European country and who complain that their child is being taught concepts they've learned years ago, so much that the parents end up having to home teach them after school.
golergka 9y ago
Went to math-oriented high school in Russia, curriculum had some of category theory in it. Also, I'm constantly amazed at how basic high school math education in states seems to be.
nostromo123 9y ago
Sure is, I can confirm for Romania. We studied it as part of 12th grade algebra (last year of highschool, in Romania). If you don't believe my personal anecdote, here: http://www.meditatiionline.ro/44100-122-411-0-0-Formule_Matematica_Grupuri_Structuri_algebrice_Monoizi.html http://www.meditatiionline.ro/44100-122-411-0-0-Formule_Mate... (site is -- obviously :-) -- in Romanian, but it's pretty clear) It's material specifically targeted at 12th grade students, in normal highschools.

edem 9y ago

Well you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Don't expect quality js tools to emerge from an ecosystem which is rotting at its core.

remline 9y ago
Es6 has some nice moderate changes that can trickle up.. An infinite number of bad tools and frameworks doesn't really stop a good one from coming along anymore than all the low quality OSes and environs that had a libc and compiler stopped C.
- pluma 9y ago
  Honestly this entire argument sounds like "Linux is terrible because there are so many useless and terrible distros". Just use Ubuntu because that's what everybody uses. Or spend some effort looking into it and see if you end up with Debian or maybe CentOS or Arch.
pluma 9y ago
What did I miss? How is "the JS ecosystem" rotting at its core? Unless you're arguing _all_ programming language ecosystems are rotting (or too young and niche to have an actual ecosystem), I have no idea how you're arriving at that conclusion. EcmaScript, HTML and CSS are standards that are continuously being developed and seeing updates. Browsers are now evergreen or quickly becoming irrelevant (even old IE will eventually be replaced by the evergreen Edge). My build tools are mostly Webpack and Babel, two actively maintained projects with highly active communities. My applications are mostly built around React, which is also in active development and has the full weight of numerous major companies behind it (not to mention it's being sponsored by Facebook). So I ask you, how is "the ecosystem" rotting at "its core"? Are you talking about jQuery which today can mostly be replaced by native browser APIs but is still getting updates? Are you talking about Backbone, which everyone has been moving away from for years? Are you talking about Grunt and Gulp and all the other task runners which merrily chug along on myriads of development machines? The JS ecosystem isn't rotting at its core. The JS ecosystem has no core. And it's not rot, it's compost, obsolete refuse disintegrating to give way to new development, feeding the ecosystem by releasing developers who would otherwise be stuck maintaining outdated technology.

lloeki 9y ago

> Software's purpose, if it has any, is to be an extension of our minds. Someone said: "A computer is like a bicycle for the mind." - There is a variety of bicycles at various price points, quality, styles and for varying terrains. If at all possible choose the one you like as much as the one that fits your problem. - You can enjoy a bicycle by itself and not just for moving your body from point A to B - I believe fatigue (in general) comes from everyone and their dog reinventing a variety of bicycles, each one a million times, and most of them are half-assed enough they can only roll around a circus pit, if at all, and abandoned the next day they're published (spoiler: maintaining is hard!). Even the high profile ones get through the let's do this again, only different, and we promise, we got it wrong the first time but now it's ok! But it's not helpful for the mind to endlessly learn a new way to ride for the umpteenth time only to pedal in circle. And I believe JS fatigue because of its tyrannic omnipresence in browsers as well as the limitations of the platform lends itself to (almost coerces people into) solving the same problems again and again.

ionwake 9y ago

This is a beautiful post

Clubber 9y ago

>Software exists for whatever reason we want it to exist. Yes, the author stated this from a very narrow point of view. Software exists for whatever reason we want it to, but business pays people to build it to solve their problems. >almost always look at automating existing workflows. I've always justified it in my mind as making existing workers more productive. As long as the company I was working for was constantly hiring, growing and in a competitive market, it was ok. The paragraph about no one cares what language you use, etc is obviously false. Write a PHP app in a C# shop is an easy way to disprove that theory. Also, what the author fails to take into account is scalability. As the business grows, the software needs to grow with it, or all those marketing dollars they threw in to grow the company will be wasted and growth will be halted. That's where the business would need to defer technical decisions to technical people. An acquaintance of mine currently works for a company who is about to hit a hard wall where they will no longer be able to take any more orders due to scalability of the software they chose. They aren't doing much about it, not realizing that by the time this happens, it will be too late. The CEO probably read an article just like this. But I will agree with the author that JS, and web front end in general, is way more complicated than it needs to be.

kirkules 9y ago

*Monad?