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> I tell myself that the problem is that the old, experienced programmers are leaving, and inexperienced young programmers are too busy adding new features (it

> I tell myself that the problem is that the old, experienced programmers are leaving, and inexperienced young programmers are too busy adding new features (it works! good enough!) to make sure anything actually works well. You joke, but this is a real issue. It's hard to find any other explanation for why the quality of commonly-used software has taken such a massive nosedive in the latest 15 years, outside the FLOSS world (CADT syndrome notwithstanding!) even as software was supposed to be "eating the world" by now! Windows Vista, anyone? (Or, as some folks in Microsoft marketing used to call it rather presciently, Windows "Mojave"?) I guess it just goes to show that, yes, systems programming still matters, as do projects that attempt to open it up to a far broader audience while keeping and even strengthening its focus on rigor, performance and correctness.

ilikehurdles 8y ago
People are attracted to shiny so companies prioritize making everything shiny as often as possible. The average used had to look for subtle clues to find out whether their machine was windows 95, 98/SE, 2000, ME, or XP with a classic skin. Now, the average user has to totally relearn every few years how to do less of the things they could do before. There’s an obsession with reinventing the wheel that takes precedence to stability.
nl 8y ago
I’ve been a professional software developer for over 20 years. Commercial software is generally much better than it was 15 years ago. Yes, Vista was bad but Win7 was good. You should have seen Win3 or 95 though. You’d expect to have the computer crash multiple times a day.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  Of course, anything was good when compared with vista. Win 3 and Win 95 are not directly comparable, as they were running on severely underpowered hardware (and they could not pursue the sort of simplification that made OSs on other low-end, "home computer" machines of the day more workable overall); Vista does not have that excuse given the growth in system requirements wrt. its predecessor. (Even Microsoft had to give up not only on Vista but on Windows 7 itself for "low-end platforms" - they ultimately promoted a "Starter" version of the latter that was specifically built to never even try to launch more than three apps at the same time! I won't bother to attempt even the most cursory comparison with what a proper, FLOSS alternative can still achieve on the same hardware, even today...that would be tedious and ultimately beside the point.)

ilikehurdles 8y ago

People are attracted to shiny so companies prioritize making everything shiny as often as possible. The average used had to look for subtle clues to find out whether their machine was windows 95, 98/SE, 2000, ME, or XP with a classic skin. Now, the average user has to totally relearn every few years how to do less of the things they could do before. There’s an obsession with reinventing the wheel that takes precedence to stability.

nl 8y ago

I’ve been a professional software developer for over 20 years. Commercial software is generally much better than it was 15 years ago. Yes, Vista was bad but Win7 was good. You should have seen Win3 or 95 though. You’d expect to have the computer crash multiple times a day.

zozbot123 8y ago
Of course, anything was good when compared with vista. Win 3 and Win 95 are not directly comparable, as they were running on severely underpowered hardware (and they could not pursue the sort of simplification that made OSs on other low-end, "home computer" machines of the day more workable overall); Vista does not have that excuse given the growth in system requirements wrt. its predecessor. (Even Microsoft had to give up not only on Vista but on Windows 7 itself for "low-end platforms" - they ultimately promoted a "Starter" version of the latter that was specifically built to never even try to launch more than three apps at the same time! I won't bother to attempt even the most cursory comparison with what a proper, FLOSS alternative can still achieve on the same hardware, even today...that would be tedious and ultimately beside the point.)