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Zoom and Facetime are pretty decent, but you are completely right. The fundamental problem is we have a huge stack of technologies that just barely work. It r

Zoom and Facetime are pretty decent, but you are completely right. The fundamental problem is we have a huge stack of technologies that just barely work. It runs from USB to video drivers, to operating systems, to videoconferencing software to Wi-Fi to home/office routers to cable modems to cable infrastructure to TCP/IP to backbone network capacity, and back. Everything is pushed to the limit. It's basically the Richard Gabriel worse is better problem, compounded. Everyone gets their part to something like 99% reliability. If you're depending on 20 things, each having 99% reliability, the system has 82% reliability. Roughly speaking, that's what's happening. There is no silver bullet to fix this. Bringing one layer from 99% to 100% brings the system from 82% to 83%.

ColanR 7y ago
Seems like we would do well to find a way to implement some kind of certification process, like we do with engineers. [1] If you lose your certification if you write low-quality code, then (hopefully, if the certifiers have the processes in place) you'd not write the code. In that way, we could finally compare the importance of quality in writing a device driver to the importance of quality in designing a bridge. [1] https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe
- closeparen 7y ago
  An engineer's job is to meet the customer's specification. Wasting its money to deliver something far in excess of the requirements is also a path to no longer working as an engineer. You've no right to be angry at the engineer because you wish to drive a semi truck down what you commissioned and budgeted as a footbridge.
- pjc50 7y ago
  The public have consistently chosen the cheaper but slightly worse option for decades of technology. This, more so than engineer skill, puts an upper constraint on reliability.

ColanR 7y ago

Seems like we would do well to find a way to implement some kind of certification process, like we do with engineers. [1] If you lose your certification if you write low-quality code, then (hopefully, if the certifiers have the processes in place) you'd not write the code. In that way, we could finally compare the importance of quality in writing a device driver to the importance of quality in designing a bridge. [1] https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe

closeparen 7y ago
An engineer's job is to meet the customer's specification. Wasting its money to deliver something far in excess of the requirements is also a path to no longer working as an engineer. You've no right to be angry at the engineer because you wish to drive a semi truck down what you commissioned and budgeted as a footbridge.
pjc50 7y ago
The public have consistently chosen the cheaper but slightly worse option for decades of technology. This, more so than engineer skill, puts an upper constraint on reliability.