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> The real source of problem is that now we have maybe x100000 more software than we had in 70s. It's that many more programmers, so not just the 1% smartest gr

by imiric 7y ago

> The real source of problem is that now we have maybe x100000 more software than we had in 70s. It's that many more programmers, so not just the 1% smartest greybeards as before. The greybeards from the 70s weren't much smarter than today's programmers. They were the same curious hackers from today, with the advantage of being born in the right place at the right time, when the technology was still developing, so they were forced to build their own tools and operating systems. > We need more abstractions, and yes, they will run slower and have their issues. I disagree, and side with Jon Blow on this: abstractions (if done well) create the illusion of simplicity and more often that not hide the apparent complexity of lower levels. Sometimes this complexity is indeed too difficult to work with, but often it's the problem itself that needs to be simplified instead of creating an abstraction layer on top. I think as an industry we've failed to make meaningful abstractions while educating new programmers on the lower level functionality. A lot of today's programmers learned on Python, PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, etc., which are incredibly complex tools by themselves. And only a minority of those will end up going back and really learning the fundamentals in the same way hackers in the 60s and 70s did. > IMO the way out is open source. Open platforms, open standards, open policies. Agreed. But education and simplification are also crucial.

jmiskovic 7y ago
The argument wasn't that people were smarter back in 70s. Instead, computers were rare, only the most motivated individuals could reach them. They were curious hackers as you say, and today's curious hackers are just as good. They form maybe 1% of programmer population. Regarding abstractions, I feel you are talking about leaky abstractions - systems that offer a simplified interface but still manage to burden you with all the implementation details. It's hard to identify such poorly engineered building blocks until it's too late. Thus layers get built on top of them and it becomes too costly to go back and rework the stack. This is a problem with development processes favoring new features over paying the accumulated tech debt. Still, good building blocks can exist. You can (and often must) have complexity if it's properly isolated and does not leak. I'd say JVM is great example of abstraction that is slower and internally more complex than SW done native, but brings much to the table as a platform to build on. Other examples: BeamVM, ZeroMQ, Lua (leaky, but at least very simple). Browsers unfortunately are too burdened with legacy and security issues. I feel my formal education has failed to teach me how to design proper interfaces between systems. Instead we are taught pointer arithmetic and mainstream OOP ("cat IS an animal").

by imiric 7y ago

jmiskovic 7y ago

The argument wasn't that people were smarter back in 70s. Instead, computers were rare, only the most motivated individuals could reach them. They were curious hackers as you say, and today's curious hackers are just as good. They form maybe 1% of programmer population. Regarding abstractions, I feel you are talking about leaky abstractions - systems that offer a simplified interface but still manage to burden you with all the implementation details. It's hard to identify such poorly engineered building blocks until it's too late. Thus layers get built on top of them and it becomes too costly to go back and rework the stack. This is a problem with development processes favoring new features over paying the accumulated tech debt. Still, good building blocks can exist. You can (and often must) have complexity if it's properly isolated and does not leak. I'd say JVM is great example of abstraction that is slower and internally more complex than SW done native, but brings much to the table as a platform to build on. Other examples: BeamVM, ZeroMQ, Lua (leaky, but at least very simple). Browsers unfortunately are too burdened with legacy and security issues. I feel my formal education has failed to teach me how to design proper interfaces between systems. Instead we are taught pointer arithmetic and mainstream OOP ("cat IS an animal").