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Is software bloated because that's the only way for everyone to justify promotions and salary increases? It's hard to get a promotion for slimming down your pr

Is software bloated because that's the only way for everyone to justify promotions and salary increases? It's hard to get a promotion for slimming down your program to a tiny size and it still works perfectly and is exactly what the user wants/needs. But that is exactly how promotions and bonuses should work.

namaria 3y ago
I think the huge influx of money into technology has been akin to pumping energy into a closed system. Entropy went through the roof.
- amelius 3y ago
  Since Eternal September it hasn't been a closed system.
  - namaria 3y ago
    Closed systems can communicate with other systems/their environment. Closed doesn't mean sealed here, it means well defined boundaries. edit: ok so for thermodynamics analogy purposes, the statement 'closed system' means no matter flows but energy obviously yes... furthermore, 'the tech system' being made of isolated computers and specialized professionals, or networks of computers and specialized professionals is immaterial for the analogy... lots of energy flowing in, in the form of huge amounts of cash, created a lot of entropy, in the form of accidental complexity.
chasd00 3y ago
i know in the consulting world you always want to maximize the number of logos on any given architecture diagram.
zem 3y ago
no, it's bloated because that's the path of least resistance. it's easier to write code that builds on frameworks which build on libraries which build on virtual machines etc, and that is arguably even a better use of the programmer's time than doing everything from scratch, but the tooling hasn't kept pace to let us produce a final artefact that strips out all the bloat and collapses the layers into a small binary. (this is theoretically possible with a "sufficiently smart compiler", tree shaking, and a host of related techniques, but is impossibly hard in practice, given the current state of the art)

namaria 3y ago

I think the huge influx of money into technology has been akin to pumping energy into a closed system. Entropy went through the roof.

amelius 3y ago
Since Eternal September it hasn't been a closed system.
- namaria 3y ago
  Closed systems can communicate with other systems/their environment. Closed doesn't mean sealed here, it means well defined boundaries. edit: ok so for thermodynamics analogy purposes, the statement 'closed system' means no matter flows but energy obviously yes... furthermore, 'the tech system' being made of isolated computers and specialized professionals, or networks of computers and specialized professionals is immaterial for the analogy... lots of energy flowing in, in the form of huge amounts of cash, created a lot of entropy, in the form of accidental complexity.

chasd00 3y ago

i know in the consulting world you always want to maximize the number of logos on any given architecture diagram.

zem 3y ago

no, it's bloated because that's the path of least resistance. it's easier to write code that builds on frameworks which build on libraries which build on virtual machines etc, and that is arguably even a better use of the programmer's time than doing everything from scratch, but the tooling hasn't kept pace to let us produce a final artefact that strips out all the bloat and collapses the layers into a small binary. (this is theoretically possible with a "sufficiently smart compiler", tree shaking, and a host of related techniques, but is impossibly hard in practice, given the current state of the art)