4 ms·

If I had known 20 years ago that software would be like it is today I would have ever chosen to be a programmer. Everything seems gargantuesque. Hardware and so

If I had known 20 years ago that software would be like it is today I would have ever chosen to be a programmer. Everything seems gargantuesque. Hardware and software hand in hand competing in an endless race. And things are not better, nor easier, nor simpler. What a disappointment.

foobarian 3y ago
I wish we could do what Linus did and start a lean walled garden ruled with an iron fist. How nice would everything be if it was written like Apollo mission software but ran on today's hardware! Sigh
- liendolucas 3y ago
  I was actually thinking about the Apollo computers. We assisted man on landing the moon with a micro fraction of we have today. And flawlessly! It astonishes me so much that achievement when I compare it to where the industry is today that each day I'm more convinced that we have completely lost the skyline.
  - atq2119 3y ago
    Not flawlessly. There was a pretty scary bug with the radar(s?) during the moon landing of Apollo 11.
inversetelecine 3y ago
Showed a young kid (I think the machine was older than him) an old Gateway G6-300 machine from 1999. Pentium 2 300MHz, 128MB SDRAM, 5GB hdd, Win98 FE, with over 3.5 GB free. I'm more a hardware than software person so the main draw for me was the unknown (to me) Chromatic Research Mpact AGP onboard graphics. Anyway, his comment made me chuckle: "Wow, looks like everything runs pretty quick!" And he was right, everything loaded instantly. Even IE6, Netscape Communicator, Adobe Acrobat 5, etc
- omoikane 3y ago
  Related, there was this post from few months back about how everything was more responsive with an older OS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36446933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36446933 - Windows NT on 600MHz machine opens apps instantly. What happened? Follow up post by the original author: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36503983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36503983 - Fast machines, slow machines
  - Tommy430 3y ago
    Not only that, but even older website layouts were more responsive.
austin-cheney 3y ago
And the people you are working with are progressively more insecure, less confident, less capable, and less literate.

foobarian 3y ago

I wish we could do what Linus did and start a lean walled garden ruled with an iron fist. How nice would everything be if it was written like Apollo mission software but ran on today's hardware! Sigh

liendolucas 3y ago
I was actually thinking about the Apollo computers. We assisted man on landing the moon with a micro fraction of we have today. And flawlessly! It astonishes me so much that achievement when I compare it to where the industry is today that each day I'm more convinced that we have completely lost the skyline.
- atq2119 3y ago
  Not flawlessly. There was a pretty scary bug with the radar(s?) during the moon landing of Apollo 11.

inversetelecine 3y ago

Showed a young kid (I think the machine was older than him) an old Gateway G6-300 machine from 1999. Pentium 2 300MHz, 128MB SDRAM, 5GB hdd, Win98 FE, with over 3.5 GB free. I'm more a hardware than software person so the main draw for me was the unknown (to me) Chromatic Research Mpact AGP onboard graphics. Anyway, his comment made me chuckle: "Wow, looks like everything runs pretty quick!" And he was right, everything loaded instantly. Even IE6, Netscape Communicator, Adobe Acrobat 5, etc

omoikane 3y ago
Related, there was this post from few months back about how everything was more responsive with an older OS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36446933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36446933 - Windows NT on 600MHz machine opens apps instantly. What happened? Follow up post by the original author: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36503983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36503983 - Fast machines, slow machines
- Tommy430 3y ago
  Not only that, but even older website layouts were more responsive.

austin-cheney 3y ago

And the people you are working with are progressively more insecure, less confident, less capable, and less literate.