Comment by cuillevel3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cuillevel3 | Hacker News Reader

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According to the author programming sucks for the following reasons:

* costs and time, difficult to maintain

* difficult to hire developers, difficult to learn

* no diversity in industry

* users have no influence on product

Well, yes. Software is a labour intensive task. But given the number of jobs digitization has destroyed and the immense gains it provides, I don't think it so bad. Despite the authors criticism it's still an improvement.

I find his argument hard to follow, the author wants to solve 'the problem', but I don't quite get it. The all purpose machine was a good idea, having an evolving eco system, competition, forks, etc. is a good thing.

Programming is not designed to solve those things - they're not problems created by programming, but by:

  * Incompetent management
  * Lack of communication
  * Rush to market, rather than integrity of solution
  * No solid requirements

The unfortunate irony here is that the startup mentality promotes the above problems because it's generally not trying to solve a problem, but make money.

Wow, I am not in a startup but a well-established company, yet your list of issues is exactly the issues I am currently facing!

Sad really.

Unfortunately, well-established companies have to (or certainly feel they have to) compete with startups.

Many reports show how time-to-market is more and more important, and 'agile' is the only way.

Even companies well-versed in proper engineering practices move towards the modern 'best practices' and acquire all of the best problems at the same time.

There's no agility here. There is lack of communication and no specifications, however.

No agile development, just a horrible, horrible mess.

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