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Yep — and I’ve already said too much. I get upset how secretive this industry is; I truly believe it’s at least 30 years behind the curve (and falling further)

Yep — and I’ve already said too much. I get upset how secretive this industry is; I truly believe it’s at least 30 years behind the curve (and falling further) compared to SW. I also firmly believe it is the EDA vendors who sell this mindset because $$$.

artemonster 7y ago
this industry is a Borland's wet dream - everyone uses crappy expensive software that reeks of 90s, the libraries are closed source with barely exposed interfaces, the language is a mess (SV), etc. Yes, you are right, as long as its making them huge money nothing will change. And nothing can change, since the field is a frickin mine field of patents, you cannot innovate. Also, why you've said too much? What have you said? :)
- naringas 7y ago
  sounds like it's well functioning capitalist market. lots of money is made by a small group of very smart people in an entrenched position.
  - dang 7y ago
    Please do not take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. It leads to generic flamewar hell. Regardless of ideological preference, none of us want to end up there. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - rsynnott 7y ago
    If the low quality of the software impedes productivity generally (and, being honest, it MUST) then that’s not well-functioning. It’s more a common depressing failure of a capitalist market (and a lot of software verticals suffer from it). It’s a space with a high barrier to entry, which is probably the biggest problem. Software engineering tools got good, and affordable, due to a combination of lowish barrier to entry and open source.
    - naringas 7y ago
      so it sub-optimizes? capitalism is at its best when optimizing industrial production (manufacturing materials) knowledge creation is not quite an industrial process. I would highlight the importance of open source as a key component for better tooling. But knowledge does not quite play well with capitalist markets. there must be a better way, but finding it requires revising several 'fundamental' assumptions about how this (market) society works.
sweden 7y ago
As a hardware designer (well, mostly a hardware verification engineer), I feel that this kind of comment is a pure misconception from software people that gets echoed time after time in HN. I generally see a lot of more effort and good quality tools in hardware verification than in software validation. The hardware design and verification industry is not really 30 years behind the curve compared to software development. Hardware and software are two very different problems with their own set of constraints. It's actually more often that you see software barely tested being deployed in the wild to millions of users rather than hardware. Hardware bugs tend to get more attention because you can't really deploy a patch to fix the issue.
- artemonster 7y ago
  > I feel that this kind of comment is a pure misconception from software people that gets echoed time after time in HN. but this is NOT a misconception. Show them actual tools that constantly crash and lag on you, that demand checking out licence for a runtime which costs 5-100k/Year, show them environment in which we have to write our code - they will laugh at you. This was exactly the state of the software industry 30 years ago and this industry is long past that stage.
  - sweden 7y ago
    Those are some very empty counter arguments but I will try to answer them anyway. EDA tools are expensive, yes. But you are not just paying for the tools, you are paying for all the engineering support being those tools. Bugs and problems happen in any development tool and those companies are ready to pick up the phone at any time of the day to help you with anything you might face, whether it is a problem with their tool or a problem with their setup, to the point that they can deploy a new version of their software on the spot just for you. And they have actual engineers on the other end of the line who know the product like the palm of their hand. While this might sound superficial, it is extremely important when you are racing towards a $100M dollar deadline for your project.
    - jdc 7y ago
Koshkin 7y ago
> 30 years Well, microcircuits are also subject to physical constraints that have been around for almost 14 billion years...
- sudosysgen 7y ago
  So are algorithms and software, except the rules might be even older
- rowanG077 7y ago
  Ah yes. Because software is not subject to physical constraints.
  - Koshkin 7y ago
    Judging by today’s software, looks like no, it’s not.
    - rowanG077 7y ago
      I haven't seen a program solving the halting problem. Because you know physical constraints exist.
Lramseyer 7y ago
Not only that, but the sheer complacency of people within the industry when it comes to better tools blows my mind! Our VDI development environment runs an OS from 2 decades ago. It's ugly and the latency is mildly infuriating. And yet, my co-workers are totally OK with it all.

artemonster 7y ago

this industry is a Borland's wet dream - everyone uses crappy expensive software that reeks of 90s, the libraries are closed source with barely exposed interfaces, the language is a mess (SV), etc. Yes, you are right, as long as its making them huge money nothing will change. And nothing can change, since the field is a frickin mine field of patents, you cannot innovate. Also, why you've said too much? What have you said? :)

naringas 7y ago
sounds like it's well functioning capitalist market. lots of money is made by a small group of very smart people in an entrenched position.
- dang 7y ago
  Please do not take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. It leads to generic flamewar hell. Regardless of ideological preference, none of us want to end up there. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- rsynnott 7y ago
  If the low quality of the software impedes productivity generally (and, being honest, it MUST) then that’s not well-functioning. It’s more a common depressing failure of a capitalist market (and a lot of software verticals suffer from it). It’s a space with a high barrier to entry, which is probably the biggest problem. Software engineering tools got good, and affordable, due to a combination of lowish barrier to entry and open source.
  - naringas 7y ago
    so it sub-optimizes? capitalism is at its best when optimizing industrial production (manufacturing materials) knowledge creation is not quite an industrial process. I would highlight the importance of open source as a key component for better tooling. But knowledge does not quite play well with capitalist markets. there must be a better way, but finding it requires revising several 'fundamental' assumptions about how this (market) society works.

sweden 7y ago

As a hardware designer (well, mostly a hardware verification engineer), I feel that this kind of comment is a pure misconception from software people that gets echoed time after time in HN. I generally see a lot of more effort and good quality tools in hardware verification than in software validation. The hardware design and verification industry is not really 30 years behind the curve compared to software development. Hardware and software are two very different problems with their own set of constraints. It's actually more often that you see software barely tested being deployed in the wild to millions of users rather than hardware. Hardware bugs tend to get more attention because you can't really deploy a patch to fix the issue.

artemonster 7y ago
> I feel that this kind of comment is a pure misconception from software people that gets echoed time after time in HN. but this is NOT a misconception. Show them actual tools that constantly crash and lag on you, that demand checking out licence for a runtime which costs 5-100k/Year, show them environment in which we have to write our code - they will laugh at you. This was exactly the state of the software industry 30 years ago and this industry is long past that stage.
- sweden 7y ago
  Those are some very empty counter arguments but I will try to answer them anyway. EDA tools are expensive, yes. But you are not just paying for the tools, you are paying for all the engineering support being those tools. Bugs and problems happen in any development tool and those companies are ready to pick up the phone at any time of the day to help you with anything you might face, whether it is a problem with their tool or a problem with their setup, to the point that they can deploy a new version of their software on the spot just for you. And they have actual engineers on the other end of the line who know the product like the palm of their hand. While this might sound superficial, it is extremely important when you are racing towards a $100M dollar deadline for your project.
  - jdc 7y ago

Koshkin 7y ago

> 30 years Well, microcircuits are also subject to physical constraints that have been around for almost 14 billion years...

sudosysgen 7y ago
So are algorithms and software, except the rules might be even older
rowanG077 7y ago
Ah yes. Because software is not subject to physical constraints.
- Koshkin 7y ago
  Judging by today’s software, looks like no, it’s not.
  - rowanG077 7y ago
    I haven't seen a program solving the halting problem. Because you know physical constraints exist.

Lramseyer 7y ago

Not only that, but the sheer complacency of people within the industry when it comes to better tools blows my mind! Our VDI development environment runs an OS from 2 decades ago. It's ugly and the latency is mildly infuriating. And yet, my co-workers are totally OK with it all.