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"If you think about it objectively, if it were efficient then most of us likely wouldn't have jobs." So programmers should write bad software to keep their job

"If you think about it objectively, if it were efficient then most of us likely wouldn't have jobs." So programmers should write bad software to keep their jobs? And civil engineers should build bad bridges to build them again a bit later? And doctors?

njarboe 8y ago
Drug companies look to discover/invent drugs that can treat a symptom forever, rather than curing people. Probably the main reason people hate drug companies. That and charging 100k for a treatment when they do find a cure (Hep C).
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
  Can you cite actual instances of this happening?
  - njarboe 8y ago
    It is what is not happening that is the problem. A bit harder to prove but not researching antibiotics is one case that is widely discussed. A google search on "why aren't drug companies researching antibiotic drugs" brings up lots of articles spanning decades. This Business Insider [1] article is quite recent. Here is a quote from that article: "The costs to develop a new antibiotic drug are no less expensive compared to development of drugs for other therapeutic areas, yet the commercial potential and return on investment for companies developing new antibiotics are significantly lower than drugs to treat chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease," said Gary Disbrow, deputy director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which sits within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. [1]https://www.businessinsider.com/major-pharmaceutical-companies-dropping-antibiotic-projects-superbugs-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/major-pharmaceutical-compani...
minitel 8y ago
Engineers and Doctors were smart enough to form professions/unions to protect themselves without having to resort to incompetence. Programmers haven't been wise enough to take this route so targeted incompetence (making things that only you can maintain) is our only existing avenue for job protection. (Before people start yelling about competence being its own form of protection: the top 1% of programmers will always be in demand, but the bottom 99% are not always going to have it so good whether that be from economic downturns or automation.)
dasil003 8y ago
Well planned obsolescence is definitely incentivized by the current economy, but in the grand scheme of things there's plenty of entropy to go around. Because digital bits are easily preserved, it was a tempting fantasy that we could build perfect software cathedrals immune to the ravages of time. Of course what we found is that in the physical world, matter decays, but the laws of physics remain constant. In the digital world, the matter stays the same, but the environment decays.
SomeCallMeTim 8y ago
I think it's more like the fact that my joystick cables always get tangled, no matter what I do The entropy of the creation and evolution of software gets tangled. We can do our utmost best, but unless we spend an equal (or sometimes greater) amount of time untangling (refactoring), and unless customers' needs suddenly become simple and static and uniform so we don't need to be adding features, we'll still have jobs.
jondubois 8y ago
>> And civil engineers should build bad bridges to build them again a bit later? And doctors? It's different because civil engineers and doctors will get sued if they mess up. Software engineers are generally not held responsible for their own work. Even big software consulting firms like IBM have had their share of multimillion dollar failed projects and the repercussions for them have been minimal - They still keep getting big contracts from governments around the world; they say that no one ever got fired from choosing IBM... Maybe they should be! There is a tendency to put all the responsibility on project managers who don't understand the code. Companies are terrified of giving their engineers any leverage so they will do everything in their power to avoid it; that means hiring more project managers, implementing more strict project management practices (e.g. rigidly adhering to all Agile/Scrum practices), using more advanced project management tools (e.g. Jira instead of Trello), using more rigid frameworks and platforms (e.g. TypeScript instead of JavaScript), more thorough testing (100% unit and integration test coverage), etc... Success in the tech industry is so centralized (winner-takes-it-all) that the efficiency of programming practices don't matter at all. Most top engineers at top companies are good at comming up with complex solutions which give them more leverage over their employers. When conducting job interviews, companies don't differentiate between engineers who love coding from those who love money. That's a big mistake. At least on a subconscious level, the engineer who prefers money is mentally hardwired to increase complexity while the other engineer is hardwired to reduce complexity.

njarboe 8y ago

Drug companies look to discover/invent drugs that can treat a symptom forever, rather than curing people. Probably the main reason people hate drug companies. That and charging 100k for a treatment when they do find a cure (Hep C).

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
Can you cite actual instances of this happening?
- njarboe 8y ago
  It is what is not happening that is the problem. A bit harder to prove but not researching antibiotics is one case that is widely discussed. A google search on "why aren't drug companies researching antibiotic drugs" brings up lots of articles spanning decades. This Business Insider [1] article is quite recent. Here is a quote from that article: "The costs to develop a new antibiotic drug are no less expensive compared to development of drugs for other therapeutic areas, yet the commercial potential and return on investment for companies developing new antibiotics are significantly lower than drugs to treat chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease," said Gary Disbrow, deputy director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which sits within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. [1]https://www.businessinsider.com/major-pharmaceutical-companies-dropping-antibiotic-projects-superbugs-2018-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/major-pharmaceutical-compani...

minitel 8y ago

Engineers and Doctors were smart enough to form professions/unions to protect themselves without having to resort to incompetence. Programmers haven't been wise enough to take this route so targeted incompetence (making things that only you can maintain) is our only existing avenue for job protection. (Before people start yelling about competence being its own form of protection: the top 1% of programmers will always be in demand, but the bottom 99% are not always going to have it so good whether that be from economic downturns or automation.)

dasil003 8y ago

Well planned obsolescence is definitely incentivized by the current economy, but in the grand scheme of things there's plenty of entropy to go around. Because digital bits are easily preserved, it was a tempting fantasy that we could build perfect software cathedrals immune to the ravages of time. Of course what we found is that in the physical world, matter decays, but the laws of physics remain constant. In the digital world, the matter stays the same, but the environment decays.

SomeCallMeTim 8y ago

I think it's more like the fact that my joystick cables always get tangled, no matter what I do The entropy of the creation and evolution of software gets tangled. We can do our utmost best, but unless we spend an equal (or sometimes greater) amount of time untangling (refactoring), and unless customers' needs suddenly become simple and static and uniform so we don't need to be adding features, we'll still have jobs.

jondubois 8y ago

>> And civil engineers should build bad bridges to build them again a bit later? And doctors? It's different because civil engineers and doctors will get sued if they mess up. Software engineers are generally not held responsible for their own work. Even big software consulting firms like IBM have had their share of multimillion dollar failed projects and the repercussions for them have been minimal - They still keep getting big contracts from governments around the world; they say that no one ever got fired from choosing IBM... Maybe they should be! There is a tendency to put all the responsibility on project managers who don't understand the code. Companies are terrified of giving their engineers any leverage so they will do everything in their power to avoid it; that means hiring more project managers, implementing more strict project management practices (e.g. rigidly adhering to all Agile/Scrum practices), using more advanced project management tools (e.g. Jira instead of Trello), using more rigid frameworks and platforms (e.g. TypeScript instead of JavaScript), more thorough testing (100% unit and integration test coverage), etc... Success in the tech industry is so centralized (winner-takes-it-all) that the efficiency of programming practices don't matter at all. Most top engineers at top companies are good at comming up with complex solutions which give them more leverage over their employers. When conducting job interviews, companies don't differentiate between engineers who love coding from those who love money. That's a big mistake. At least on a subconscious level, the engineer who prefers money is mentally hardwired to increase complexity while the other engineer is hardwired to reduce complexity.