4 ms·

Of course applications 30 years ago had login screens and were accessed remotely, they just didn't do that using HTTP and HTML, which set us back in terms of so

by pron 6y ago

Of course applications 30 years ago had login screens and were accessed remotely, they just didn't do that using HTTP and HTML, which set us back in terms of some capabilities for a while. What you're saying about requirements outpacing ability might be true, but it is not Brooks's point, which is also true, and that business requirements change has little to do with his point: For most given requirements, it is not 10x easier to do something from scratch today than it was 30 years ago. We've certainly accumulated many software components over the past 30 years and made them freely available, and that has helped productivity a lot -- as Brooks wrote it might. But, as he predicted, we haven't developed any new programming paradigm or technique that has increased our ability by much.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
I was so productive writing VB apps. I miss those days. Everything in one application, no browser -> server communication delay. You just assumed a minimum screen size of 640x480 and made sure it fit into that. No mobile responsive bullshit, no CSS malarky to deal with. What you drew in Visual Studio is exactly what the user got. But there was also a lot of boilerplate involved. No handy-dandy open-source libraries sitting around on the internet that could just be pulled in to deal with a task. You could buy a COM object or a commercial visual control, but it was rare and expensive. If you were doing tricky things you had to work it out yourself the hard way, and make mistakes doing it. Now... most programmers I know are plumbers wiring up different ready-made product APIs using a script language. Yeah, I think jasode is right - we're 10x as productive now, and I think that's because of the popularity of Open Source and Stack Overflow rather than IDE's (if anything modern IDE's are less productive than 1990's era Visual Studio). However the business tasks have got 10x more complex. And I don't think that's unconnected - things that were previously too complex/difficult/expensive are now routine, and we're now expected to do more.
- pron 6y ago
  > we're 10x as productive now, and I think that's because of the popularity of Open Source and Stack Overflow So you agree Brooks was right.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    yeah, basically - there's an amount of complexity which is acceptable to business. Less than this and the business will add features until it's met. More than this and the features are not commercially viable. The amount of complexity that the programmer needs to cope with is about the same, regardless.

by pron 6y ago

marcus_holmes 6y ago

I was so productive writing VB apps. I miss those days. Everything in one application, no browser -> server communication delay. You just assumed a minimum screen size of 640x480 and made sure it fit into that. No mobile responsive bullshit, no CSS malarky to deal with. What you drew in Visual Studio is exactly what the user got. But there was also a lot of boilerplate involved. No handy-dandy open-source libraries sitting around on the internet that could just be pulled in to deal with a task. You could buy a COM object or a commercial visual control, but it was rare and expensive. If you were doing tricky things you had to work it out yourself the hard way, and make mistakes doing it. Now... most programmers I know are plumbers wiring up different ready-made product APIs using a script language. Yeah, I think jasode is right - we're 10x as productive now, and I think that's because of the popularity of Open Source and Stack Overflow rather than IDE's (if anything modern IDE's are less productive than 1990's era Visual Studio). However the business tasks have got 10x more complex. And I don't think that's unconnected - things that were previously too complex/difficult/expensive are now routine, and we're now expected to do more.

pron 6y ago
> we're 10x as productive now, and I think that's because of the popularity of Open Source and Stack Overflow So you agree Brooks was right.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  yeah, basically - there's an amount of complexity which is acceptable to business. Less than this and the business will add features until it's met. More than this and the features are not commercially viable. The amount of complexity that the programmer needs to cope with is about the same, regardless.