4 ms·

Too much complexity, too many coders, too much code. Too little restraint.

by pbreit 9y ago

dkersten 9y ago
Not always, but often, brought about by unclear, underspecified, ambiguous, constantly changing requirements.
commandlinefan 9y ago
Hm - software costs a lot because programmers are hard to find, and it takes a long time even once you've found them. Even now, more than 30 years after it was pretty commonplace for an individual to have their own computer, programming continues to be difficult to learn and master - there's a whole cottage industry of people who insist that this is some form of "gatekeeping" on the part of the programmers and that programming is really easy, but programmers are conspiring to make it seem harder than it really is. Their attempts to "simplify" programming (usually with something along the lines of a drag-and-drop GUI flowchart builder) end up being unmaintainable, unworkable, hideously expensive, and extraordinarily popular with the people who believe that they stand to profit if programming can just be reduced to (as they're positive it really is) a minimum-wage burger-flipper type McJob. But even when they finally get around to swallowing the bitter pill that programming needs to be done by programmers if you want the programs to work, it continues to take a long time to produce because the same people who are absolutely convinced that programming computers is as simple as tying one's shoelaces make a career of putting up roadblocks in the name of "efficiency" that have the exact opposite effect, slowing down the whole process to a snail's pace as the individual programmers are expected to predict the future and state precisely what they're going to do and how long it's going to take, sometimes months in advance. The result is that nothing gets done _except_ for the stuff that's trivially predictable.
bg4 9y ago
> Too little restraint. 100% this. Always, always favoring the ease of the individual developer or meeting short term goals.

Too much complexity, too many coders, too much code. Too little restraint.

by pbreit 9y ago

Too much complexity, too many coders, too much code. Too little restraint.

dkersten 9y ago

Not always, but often, brought about by unclear, underspecified, ambiguous, constantly changing requirements.

commandlinefan 9y ago

Hm - software costs a lot because programmers are hard to find, and it takes a long time even once you've found them. Even now, more than 30 years after it was pretty commonplace for an individual to have their own computer, programming continues to be difficult to learn and master - there's a whole cottage industry of people who insist that this is some form of "gatekeeping" on the part of the programmers and that programming is really easy, but programmers are conspiring to make it seem harder than it really is. Their attempts to "simplify" programming (usually with something along the lines of a drag-and-drop GUI flowchart builder) end up being unmaintainable, unworkable, hideously expensive, and extraordinarily popular with the people who believe that they stand to profit if programming can just be reduced to (as they're positive it really is) a minimum-wage burger-flipper type McJob. But even when they finally get around to swallowing the bitter pill that programming needs to be done by programmers if you want the programs to work, it continues to take a long time to produce because the same people who are absolutely convinced that programming computers is as simple as tying one's shoelaces make a career of putting up roadblocks in the name of "efficiency" that have the exact opposite effect, slowing down the whole process to a snail's pace as the individual programmers are expected to predict the future and state precisely what they're going to do and how long it's going to take, sometimes months in advance. The result is that nothing gets done _except_ for the stuff that's trivially predictable.

bg4 9y ago

> Too little restraint. 100% this. Always, always favoring the ease of the individual developer or meeting short term goals.