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Yup - and guess what, the only people hurt by this are the lowest level people. No manager or exec will feel any pain from this incompetence. Someone who isn't

Yup - and guess what, the only people hurt by this are the lowest level people. No manager or exec will feel any pain from this incompetence. Someone who isn't responsible but couldn't do their job effectively as a result is having a worse life now. This is one of the primary reasons why I am totally done with Tech The distance between users and builders is so excessively far apart now and the levels of abstraction for actually building things that are robust is just not even a consideration in software-centric design. Literally everything you have built after IDK 2000(?) will have exactly this issue. Just hope you're not at a scale that crushes people. Software is the language of alienation and increasingly becoming unethical, as these systems are becoming increasingly impactful on the most vulnerable with no buttresses or supports preventing this kind of malfeasance. It's not trivial. These are people's livelihoods at stake.

opamp 4y ago
> No manager or exec will feel any pain from this incompetence. Someone who isn't responsible but couldn't do their job effectively as a result is having a worse life now. > This is one of the primary reasons why I am totally done with Tech Is it that much better in other fields?
- sillyquiet 4y ago
  no, its not. Not in any white collar professions, not in any blue collar jobs, not in the military, not in academia. You are only safe when you don't have bosses and all responsibility and power rests on yourself.
  - AndrewKemendo 4y ago
    Almost...you find coworkers and share responsibility mutually. You don't need to put it all on your own back.
- AndrewKemendo 4y ago
  Yes. For example German workers have better than average protection from exploitation This is from 2018 and shows where you can actually have some rights as a worker. It's not hopeless: https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc-global-rights-index-2018-en-final-2.pdf https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc-global-rights-index-20...
  - tedunangst 4y ago
    German workers have protection from their company owned laptops being disabled?
  - opamp 4y ago
    I would imagine that this is also the case for German tech workers as well. My point was that tech probably isn't all that different from other professions where there are layers of management on top. The parent comment made it seem like "tech" was worse than "other," which I'm not sure is true.
Xeoncross 4y ago
As I sit here spending hours and hours importing packages, installing modules, downloading tools, finding libraries, patching scripts, following deployment guidelines and building gigabytes and gigabytes of artifacts ...for what amounts to a mobile app wrapper around HTML pages.
- api 4y ago
  The disease has a name: over engineering. https://www.smart-jokes.org/programmer-evolution.html https://www.smart-jokes.org/programmer-evolution.html Most working programmers are in the middle near “seasoned professional.” They spend all their time thinking about how to manage complexity when they should be thinking about how to avoid it.
  - AndrewKemendo 4y ago
    Oh my I hadn't seen this before and it is divine!
  - pas 4y ago
    The app epidemic is mostly thanks to one single dead dude. Of course it made (and continues to make) billions to Apple. Then naturally half the industry wanted in on the app store game. Eventually it might stop being such a cash cow - maybe thanks to endless numbers of teenagers hyping Fortnite.
  - layer8 4y ago
    To be fair, the tech stacks they have to work with often have staggering amounts of accidental complexity.
    - api 4y ago
      It’s seasoned professionals all the way down.
  - omnibrain 4y ago
    Only yesterday I encountered a fantastic example. I have to implement an API, there is a swagger/openAPI doc for it, but still, the real interaction and meaning of the calls can be a bit hard to grasp. But the developers provide an example application (in C#). I expected something basic that implements the login flow and some of the more important calls. Instead I found something that could be described as an C# architecture example application. If I wanted to learn C#, I think I could learn a lot about application patterns from it. MVVM, how to separate the concerns into separate "packages" for reusability and the likes. What I can't really learn from it (without already being a C# pro, I work in other environments) is how to use the API.
sneak 4y ago
I think this is a common refrain but no line-level worker is losing their livelihood because they were part of the 25% of the company whose machine just stopped working. If anything they are part of the 25% of the company who just got a few extra paid vacation days.
throwawaysleep 4y ago
1. The people to blame here are not the builders. 2. The people impacted are employees who now have a few days chilling. I would love to have this problem as an employee.
brazzy 4y ago
> Software is the language of alienation and increasingly becoming unethical, as these systems are becoming increasingly impactful on the most vulnerable with no buttresses or supports preventing this kind of malfeasance. This doesn't really have that much to do with software. As with many other things, software can make it easier to have this kind of crap, but it is not the cause and not a prerequisite. Case in point: Franz Kafka wrote The Trial 30 years before ENIAC.
spelunker 4y ago
IMO most reasonable managers would not blame the individual contributors for not being able to do their job because of a security and procurement issue that is out of their hands. I suppose it can happen, but if you're working at a place that has management like that perhaps it's time to look around.
- scns 4y ago
  Claiming responsibility or shifting the blame, what is better for your career?
LorenPechtel 4y ago
Management will suffer when this mess results in them underperforming.
MilStdJunkie 4y ago
Unfortunately not limited to tech industry. I watched a publications department sit on a blacklisted application stack for five years, as IT - with plenty of warning - kept screaming that it was going to get turned off. A complete absence of tool selection, migration, or any preparation whatsoever, because the new tool couldn't be funded from leadership, so the horrible ship kept belching forward. Until it was shut down. End result was seventeen people sitting on their thumbs for years.. and a totally fragged publication environment that never recovered, the product of which will - at best - be waived on future contracts at some incredible cost. At worst, it will be yet another barrier to the already marginal business.
mr_toad 4y ago
> Software is the language of alienation and increasingly becoming unethical, This was a management problem. They had a plan to retire obsolete devices, but no plan to replace them.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  > They had a plan to retire obsolete devices, but no plan to replace them. Cool and now I bet they have a new line on their procedures to ensure continuity of service (so that the next management can fumble this in new and creative ways)
michaelcampbell 4y ago
> This is one of the primary reasons why I am totally done with Tech I don't get the impression that this a tech-specific issue.

opamp 4y ago

> No manager or exec will feel any pain from this incompetence. Someone who isn't responsible but couldn't do their job effectively as a result is having a worse life now. > This is one of the primary reasons why I am totally done with Tech Is it that much better in other fields?

sillyquiet 4y ago
no, its not. Not in any white collar professions, not in any blue collar jobs, not in the military, not in academia. You are only safe when you don't have bosses and all responsibility and power rests on yourself.
- AndrewKemendo 4y ago
  Almost...you find coworkers and share responsibility mutually. You don't need to put it all on your own back.
AndrewKemendo 4y ago
Yes. For example German workers have better than average protection from exploitation This is from 2018 and shows where you can actually have some rights as a worker. It's not hopeless: https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc-global-rights-index-2018-en-final-2.pdf https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc-global-rights-index-20...
- tedunangst 4y ago
  German workers have protection from their company owned laptops being disabled?
- opamp 4y ago
  I would imagine that this is also the case for German tech workers as well. My point was that tech probably isn't all that different from other professions where there are layers of management on top. The parent comment made it seem like "tech" was worse than "other," which I'm not sure is true.

Xeoncross 4y ago

As I sit here spending hours and hours importing packages, installing modules, downloading tools, finding libraries, patching scripts, following deployment guidelines and building gigabytes and gigabytes of artifacts ...for what amounts to a mobile app wrapper around HTML pages.

api 4y ago
The disease has a name: over engineering. https://www.smart-jokes.org/programmer-evolution.html https://www.smart-jokes.org/programmer-evolution.html Most working programmers are in the middle near “seasoned professional.” They spend all their time thinking about how to manage complexity when they should be thinking about how to avoid it.
- AndrewKemendo 4y ago
  Oh my I hadn't seen this before and it is divine!
- pas 4y ago
  The app epidemic is mostly thanks to one single dead dude. Of course it made (and continues to make) billions to Apple. Then naturally half the industry wanted in on the app store game. Eventually it might stop being such a cash cow - maybe thanks to endless numbers of teenagers hyping Fortnite.
- layer8 4y ago
  To be fair, the tech stacks they have to work with often have staggering amounts of accidental complexity.
  - api 4y ago
    It’s seasoned professionals all the way down.
- omnibrain 4y ago
  Only yesterday I encountered a fantastic example. I have to implement an API, there is a swagger/openAPI doc for it, but still, the real interaction and meaning of the calls can be a bit hard to grasp. But the developers provide an example application (in C#). I expected something basic that implements the login flow and some of the more important calls. Instead I found something that could be described as an C# architecture example application. If I wanted to learn C#, I think I could learn a lot about application patterns from it. MVVM, how to separate the concerns into separate "packages" for reusability and the likes. What I can't really learn from it (without already being a C# pro, I work in other environments) is how to use the API.

sneak 4y ago

I think this is a common refrain but no line-level worker is losing their livelihood because they were part of the 25% of the company whose machine just stopped working. If anything they are part of the 25% of the company who just got a few extra paid vacation days.

throwawaysleep 4y ago

1. The people to blame here are not the builders. 2. The people impacted are employees who now have a few days chilling. I would love to have this problem as an employee.

brazzy 4y ago

> Software is the language of alienation and increasingly becoming unethical, as these systems are becoming increasingly impactful on the most vulnerable with no buttresses or supports preventing this kind of malfeasance. This doesn't really have that much to do with software. As with many other things, software can make it easier to have this kind of crap, but it is not the cause and not a prerequisite. Case in point: Franz Kafka wrote The Trial 30 years before ENIAC.

spelunker 4y ago

IMO most reasonable managers would not blame the individual contributors for not being able to do their job because of a security and procurement issue that is out of their hands. I suppose it can happen, but if you're working at a place that has management like that perhaps it's time to look around.

scns 4y ago
Claiming responsibility or shifting the blame, what is better for your career?

LorenPechtel 4y ago

Management will suffer when this mess results in them underperforming.

MilStdJunkie 4y ago

Unfortunately not limited to tech industry. I watched a publications department sit on a blacklisted application stack for five years, as IT - with plenty of warning - kept screaming that it was going to get turned off. A complete absence of tool selection, migration, or any preparation whatsoever, because the new tool couldn't be funded from leadership, so the horrible ship kept belching forward. Until it was shut down. End result was seventeen people sitting on their thumbs for years.. and a totally fragged publication environment that never recovered, the product of which will - at best - be waived on future contracts at some incredible cost. At worst, it will be yet another barrier to the already marginal business.

mr_toad 4y ago

> Software is the language of alienation and increasingly becoming unethical, This was a management problem. They had a plan to retire obsolete devices, but no plan to replace them.

raverbashing 4y ago
> They had a plan to retire obsolete devices, but no plan to replace them. Cool and now I bet they have a new line on their procedures to ensure continuity of service (so that the next management can fumble this in new and creative ways)

michaelcampbell 4y ago

> This is one of the primary reasons why I am totally done with Tech I don't get the impression that this a tech-specific issue.