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Yes. Average code quality is objectively worse than it used to be, and there is an objective reason why. The barrier to entry is much lower. In 1995, getting
by abernard1 6y ago
Yes. Average code quality is objectively worse than it used to be, and there is an objective reason why.
The barrier to entry is much lower.
In 1995, getting a C++ program compiled, tested, shrink wrapped and shipped (in waterfall fashion) required a lot more work. The "survivor" software you bought on your floppy disk or CD-ROM at the store meant it was high enough quality to jump through all those hoops. Some of those hoops were the software developers needed to know more about computers. Some were that you couldn't fix an issue after it was shipped in the wild pre-internet. Some of it was that a lot of those people had an intrinsic passion for the craft in which they weren't paid as well. They also did the work even though they were considered geeks, unlike now where a lot of "engineers" are indistinguishable from marketers and considered popular.
- johnsutor 6y agoI think a lot of it has to do with higher education as well. Most courses focus solely on theory rather than teaching the best industry paradigms for writing clean code.
- rramadass 6y ago>The barrier to entry is much lower Very true and i blame it entirely on the rise of "Web Programming". When it started off with HTML/CSS, a whole lot of non-programmers jumped into the industry and thus a lot of frameworks/libraries added layers of abstractions to cater to them to make it "as simple as possible" to write a "Web App". But then things only got more complex with the need to recreate desktop app experience within a browser and the explosion of mobile devices. The non-programmers were now out of their depth but since the software market had expanded exponentially they "upgraded" their skills and continued churning out "code" with predictable results.