3 ms·

Fair points. But: - The software industry is more than just twenty-something males writing dating and social media applications. - The software industry will

by dghf 11y ago

Fair points. But: - The software industry is more than just twenty-something males writing dating and social media applications. - The software industry will produce what it thinks it can make a profit on, which is an imperfect proxy for what people (and governments) want, which in turn is an imperfect proxy for what society needs. But, absent a centrally planned economy or other non-market mechanism, two imperfect proxies are the best we've got. - Much software is general purpose, and can be applied equally to frivolous and worthy matters: operating systems, databases, networking, web browsers & servers, office tools, etc. - If one is going to complain that the software industry is not addressing society's problems, it would help if one would specify what those problems are.

icebraining 11y ago
- Sure the software industry is more than that, but that still doesn't mean it reflects the needs of society. - As for it producing what it thinks it can make a profit on, that only explains why it doesn't reflect the needs of society, it doesn't refute that the claim. - Is it really "much"? How many production-quality web servers do we have, really? How many operating systems? They are certainly extremely important, but represent little of the actual effort and investment expended. - I don't think complain is the correct term for what she's doing, and besides she didn't exactly write the article herself, so it wasn't her decision to specify anything.
- dghf 11y ago
  Do you agree with the proposition that "the software industry doesn’t reflect the needs of society as a whole"? If so, in what way does it not reflect those needs? What are those needs? How could the industry reflect them?
  - icebraining 11y ago
    If you're interested, wouldn't you be better off reading up on what Linda Liukas has to say on it? She has certainly giving it much more thought than I have.

by dghf 11y ago

icebraining 11y ago

- Sure the software industry is more than that, but that still doesn't mean it reflects the needs of society. - As for it producing what it thinks it can make a profit on, that only explains why it doesn't reflect the needs of society, it doesn't refute that the claim. - Is it really "much"? How many production-quality web servers do we have, really? How many operating systems? They are certainly extremely important, but represent little of the actual effort and investment expended. - I don't think complain is the correct term for what she's doing, and besides she didn't exactly write the article herself, so it wasn't her decision to specify anything.

dghf 11y ago
Do you agree with the proposition that "the software industry doesn’t reflect the needs of society as a whole"? If so, in what way does it not reflect those needs? What are those needs? How could the industry reflect them?
- icebraining 11y ago
  If you're interested, wouldn't you be better off reading up on what Linda Liukas has to say on it? She has certainly giving it much more thought than I have.