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I’m actually just cynical enough this morning to think this was written by a chat AI that was prompted with “write a few paragraphs of ragebait about software e

I’m actually just cynical enough this morning to think this was written by a chat AI that was prompted with “write a few paragraphs of ragebait about software erosion”. The article asserts software erosion is happening for a series of vague reasons like “dependency hell” and that developers are asked to add new features to codebases. Developers have been adding features to codebases for _decades_. It’s a demonstrably fine activity. The article doesn’t chain together “practice X causes bad effect Y”, it just says themed sentences one after the other that don’t follow a reasoned argument. There aren’t even any personal anecdotes. There’s so many people writing much better instructive content; it’s a little heartbreaking seeing nonsense like this elevated.

mistermann 2y ago
> Developers have been adding features to codebases for _decades_. It’s a demonstrably fine activity. See also science, industrialization, and the temperature of the planet.
- fuzzfactor 2y ago
  Before computers proliferated, it was supposed to be a promising future for one reason because it would be theoretically possible to write a single program which truly solved a problem (big or small), and that problem would remain solved forever. I guess you would have to qualify that, as long as no undesirable changes in underlying hardware or OS were to be contemplated. But why would you want that anyway if you were interested in long-term solutions? Plus if all you needed to do was one thing (big or small) with a PC, you would be fine with a PC that was only capable of running one program at a time. Think about the user experience back when you were anticipating PC's to one day become ubiquitous. Ideally you would be able to go up to any PC anywhere (or anywhere you have permission in secure environments) with your portable storage device, floppy, USB, whatever, and just run your executable to accomplish what you want without any other dependencies from a network or anywhere else. The more technical the user the more they realized this meant that a program should be truly finished before deployment, not subject to revision or updates, have no dependencies, and in no need of further maintenance. Why settle for less? Regardless of whether or not it could ever be done like that any more, I would still want my software to come from people who would be outstanding at this approach anyway. At the other end of the spectrum you have the "update enthusiasts". It's not bad as long as there are never any "breaking changes", only new features, but that is far too rare. What bothers me is deploying half-baked stuff to begin with, and then needing years of updates just because that's such a well established trend. Looks to me like complete superstition, and the foundation is becoming less firm all the time as a result. >See also science, industrialization, and the temperature of the planet. Good examples for better or worse. Sometimes "breaking changes" get out of hand and scale themselves, which is what people just aren't avoiding well enough any more in many ways. It takes concentrated effort not to do it.
Brian_K_White 2y ago
You haven't shown how practice X, adding features to codebases for decades, does not contribute to effect Y, overwhelming pile of fragile spaghetti.
- nradov 2y ago
  You haven't shown how it does.
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    I don't have to. I didn't try to make any claims. My point is that your own comment, which does make claims, is guilty of the exact same thing that it accuses the article of. If the article is invalid because of X (unsupported plain assertions), and your comment exhibits the same X, then either both are invalid or neither are, or or neither has any bearing on the other. In all 3 cases, the comment winds up having no value.

mistermann 2y ago

> Developers have been adding features to codebases for _decades_. It’s a demonstrably fine activity. See also science, industrialization, and the temperature of the planet.

fuzzfactor 2y ago
Before computers proliferated, it was supposed to be a promising future for one reason because it would be theoretically possible to write a single program which truly solved a problem (big or small), and that problem would remain solved forever. I guess you would have to qualify that, as long as no undesirable changes in underlying hardware or OS were to be contemplated. But why would you want that anyway if you were interested in long-term solutions? Plus if all you needed to do was one thing (big or small) with a PC, you would be fine with a PC that was only capable of running one program at a time. Think about the user experience back when you were anticipating PC's to one day become ubiquitous. Ideally you would be able to go up to any PC anywhere (or anywhere you have permission in secure environments) with your portable storage device, floppy, USB, whatever, and just run your executable to accomplish what you want without any other dependencies from a network or anywhere else. The more technical the user the more they realized this meant that a program should be truly finished before deployment, not subject to revision or updates, have no dependencies, and in no need of further maintenance. Why settle for less? Regardless of whether or not it could ever be done like that any more, I would still want my software to come from people who would be outstanding at this approach anyway. At the other end of the spectrum you have the "update enthusiasts". It's not bad as long as there are never any "breaking changes", only new features, but that is far too rare. What bothers me is deploying half-baked stuff to begin with, and then needing years of updates just because that's such a well established trend. Looks to me like complete superstition, and the foundation is becoming less firm all the time as a result. >See also science, industrialization, and the temperature of the planet. Good examples for better or worse. Sometimes "breaking changes" get out of hand and scale themselves, which is what people just aren't avoiding well enough any more in many ways. It takes concentrated effort not to do it.

Brian_K_White 2y ago

You haven't shown how practice X, adding features to codebases for decades, does not contribute to effect Y, overwhelming pile of fragile spaghetti.

nradov 2y ago
You haven't shown how it does.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  I don't have to. I didn't try to make any claims. My point is that your own comment, which does make claims, is guilty of the exact same thing that it accuses the article of. If the article is invalid because of X (unsupported plain assertions), and your comment exhibits the same X, then either both are invalid or neither are, or or neither has any bearing on the other. In all 3 cases, the comment winds up having no value.