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Comment by ryandvm | Hacker News Reader

The longer I develop software, the more I realize just how awful most software engineering it.

maybe this is what blindsides most developers into disregarding the threat of AI to their jobs. We work off some idealised version of what the industry actually is which we presume AI will fail at, instead of the reality.

I remain surprised at how long people can flog horses I figured would be dead decades earlier in enterprise. Too scared to fix fundamental issues and still running off the fumes of vendor lock-in with exasperated end users.

Converse is also possible ?

Even with all the best practices, patterns and reviews in place software products often turns out to be held up by hacks and patches.

Add AI and inexperienced developers into the mix, the risk of fragile software increases ?

I worry that software and the industry is more resistent then we might imagine. Consider the insanity of Elon Musk's arbitrary cuts to twitter and the resilience of that platform in the years that followed.

It might simply be the case that buying more tokens and kicking the code enough times might give a "good enough" result for the industry to continue. I don't want to believe this but the discussion of how awful the openssl code base is seems to suggest that might be the case. You just need to automate the process of caution we have around it. We should all be hoping that Gastown fails but I feel like it might succeed.

This case study makes me even think that AI will turn out to be a net positive for overall code quality.

> Consider the insanity of Elon Musk's arbitrary cuts to twitter and the resilience of that platform in the years that followed.

Given the resilience, how can the cuts have been "insanity"?

The insanity is how he enacted them. Like the idea that everyone should come to his office with print outs of the code they've written, or that everyone has to come into HQ to do some all-nighters. Just an absurd hunger-games attitude to his workforce, full of horrific coginative biases and discrimination against some of the workforce (e.g. against those with young children or those with disabilities who might be less able to commit to all-nighters).

“…just think, Wally, everything that makes this thing go was supplied by the lowest bidder.”

- astronaut

There was an article on here 15ish years ago to the effect of "everything's broken all the time. Everyone who writes software knows it, yet we all tolerate it."

I'd love to find that sometime. Maybe it's time to ask Gemini once again to look for me.

Is this what you are looking for?

https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks

Google guessed this one:

https://medium.com/message/everything-is-broken-81e5f33a24e1

With yours as candidate #2. It's too late here now for me to read them both, but I'll try to go back and check when I have time.

Referencing the classic https://xkcd.com/2030

"I don't quite know how to put this, but our entire field is bad at what we do, and if you rely on us everyone will die"

"They say they've fixed it with something called <del>blockchain</del> AI"

"Bury it in the desert. Wear gloves"

Honestly, this is absurdly funny, but it makes me wonder whether we'll ever see Computer Science and Computer Engineering as seriously as other branches of STEM. I've been debating recently whether I should keep working in this field, after years of repeatedly seeing incompetence and complacency create disastrous effects in the real world.

Oftentimes, I wonder if the world wouldn't be a bit better without the last 10 or 15 years of computer technology.

> makes me wonder whether we'll ever see Computer Science and Computer Engineering as seriously as other branches of STEM

It's about as serious as a heart attack at this point...

This is really something that’s making me quite fed up with industry. I’m looking towards embedded and firmware in hopes that the lower in the stack I go the more people care about these type of things out of business necessity. But even then I’m unsure I’ll find the rigor I’m looking for

I’ve been thinking the same thing lately. It’s hard to tell if I’m just old and want everyone off my lawn, but I really feel like IT is a dead end lately. “Vintage” electronics are often nicer to use than modern equivalents. Like dials and buttons vs touch screens. Most of my electronics that have LCDs feel snappy and you sort of forget that you’re using them and just do what you were trying to do. I’m not necessarily a Luddite. I know tech _could_ be better theoretically but it’s distressing to know that it’s also not possible for things to be different for some other reasons. Economically, culturally? I don’t know.

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