One of his point is that software engineering techniques did not improve at all, and even regressed, but all of that is/was hidden by the fact that hardware got

One of his point is that software engineering techniques did not improve at all, and even regressed, but all of that is/was hidden by the fact that hardware got us a free ride for several decades. You can use terribly slow scripting and techniques and get something working, not because the tooling is genius, but because the hardware is so incredibly fast.