3 ms·

TFA seems to have hit a nerve.

• palata 3y ago
  If it's about ranting at classes of people, I can do it too: most software is shit, that's true. But somehow users like shit, and it makes profit so software engineers get paid to write it. They get valued by writing a lot of shit, not by writing little good code. Also most software engineers are juniors; junior civil engineers would not be allowed to build a bridge, junior software engineers can do all the crap they want. But let's be fair: most scientists do bad research. Have you ever read papers in a field you know? 99% is bullshit. Not "non-conclusive good research", no. Downright useless, non-reproducible bullshit (or paraphrasing something that already exists, often making it worse). Just like software engineers, most scientists are juniors (we call them "PhD candidates") who get valued by publishing papers (any paper) in "recognized" journals (with some definition of "recognized"), by journals who make profit by accepting papers (any paper). Again not totally their fault: they have to produce recognized stuff in the time they are given, they don't have to produce good research. I don't have a solution to those problems, of course: that's how the system works ("make profit"). I wish we tried to solve actual problems in a good way, but we don't. I don't think scientists are better than software engineers, though: we are all part of the problem. Less of all of us would make the world a better place (or would have prevented us from spoiling it, at least). I just don't think my rant is worth publishing on HN.