45 karma · joined November 18, 2018
This scares me. Are you proposing it as something that is necessary, or something that is necessary as part of the parent poster's suggestion to use HTTPS + PUT? If the former, how does this scale across the multiple platforms I use? Ugh. Scary.
See also: eclipses and human sacrifices; planetary orbits and the radii regular polyhedra; even Graham crackers and masturbation.
I've been programming for 30+ years. When I sit down to code, most of the time I've thought through it before even typing and am ~99% confident I won't hit a roadblock. I've spent half my life mastering my programming skills.
BUT: I'm a high-level technical lead / product lead, so I only get to write code a few times a month and it is more for stress-release because I've mastered it (and because I am a mentor to / lead 30+ programmers and this gives me a chance to interact with them).
If I wrote code 100% of the time I'd being winging it 1% of the time. So in this regard you are correct.
However, because of how corporations work, once you've demonstrated proficiency at "junior level work" you move up to the next big challenge. Yes, that sounds pejorative, but coding is not hard compared to the next levels of competency: programming is junior level, software architecture is senior level, product roadmap is staff level, corporate direction is above that. Sorry if that hurts your butt, but knowing the latest JS framework or how to optimize your C++ is trench-work compared to convincing the CTO where your division should invest its R&D budget for the next 5 years.
Because there is no "school" for learning how to plan your company roadmap, you really do have to wing it and learn from experience. And since shit is changing so fast... well, sure there are basic principles studied is business (that sometimes are useless for strategy but are good for tactics)... but in tech, it very much is "wtf is going to happen next and is this the right choice." Sure there is an executive board, and vice presidents gunning for your role, but you REALLY are winging it at C-level unless you are in your 70's and have helmed multiple large companies.
So from a top's down view from higher-importance positions, winging it is simply part of the job.
Let's pick a particular UI/UX combo, the GUI: how have GUIs evolved over 3 decades, what has their complexity curve been like?
Microsoft:
MSDOS->WIN3->WIN3.1->WFW311->WinNT->Win95->Win2000->WinXP->Win7->Win8->Win10
Having used all of them, I'd say there was a huge drop in UI/UX from MSDOS to Win3, but then steady improvement which peaked around Win2000, cratered, and is crawling back.
The complexity ramped significantly: MSDOS6.22 was simple, solid (yes) and predictable, and Win3 destroyed that for a loooong time. WinNT was a solid rebuild, and merging it with Win3x led to Win2000, IMHO the peak. Now Win10 can't decide if it is a mobile OS or desktop OS, or an advertising platform, and it feels that way when I try to use it. Tiles and old-time Dialogs are in constant contention, the look in feel is at war with itself. I don't even know how to help people with problems anymore because I've lost track of the Win10 control panel after WinXP when I stopped developing.
Microsoft has seen what Google is experiencing, but I do not think MS is out of the woods yet. They appear to be trying to make it simpler...
Apple Mac
Classic MacOS up to v9 -> MacOSX -> all the mountains
I did zero Mac development until OSX, but I spent a lot of time using Adobe products and eVision/Max audio tools. The controls remained largely consistent: from one OS to the next for over 15 years the paradigms were the same. That's the longest stretch of stability. OSX has been exploding with features, specifically cloud based things that I don't want.
I think Apple is on the "oh shit this is a mess" peak. They too are trying to figure out the macos+iOS strategy and it smells like convergence, but I bet they have 5-10 more years in this feature-rich mess.
iOS
Do we all yearn for the simpler days of iOS when the control panel was more compact and there were fewer confusing gestures? Yes. iOS is exploding in complexity.
Android - I don't use it. /shrug/
Linux Desktops - I've been using MWM since 1992. The entire KDE / Gnome debate was a giant clusterfuck IMHO. I've tried using fancy Linux desktops that were supposed to be Windows-killers and its like wearing your shoes on the opposite feet. I can't say this has hit peak complexity because it hasn't really gotten attention from serious UI/UX talent.
Amiga, OS/2, NeXT ... I don't know enough about these, or they didn't last long enough to experience the complexity curve.
TL;DR
I think it is safe to say that Microsoft has the most experience trying to wrangle failed UI/UX experiments at scale. Mac & Google are just learning this. I think it will be at least a decade before the latter two are able to conceptually shrink the UX footprint of the O/S. My guess: everything converges to tile-based mobile-like UIs on desktop, laptop and mobile. Mobile OSes are just fine for desktops. IMO.
Meditation as competition.
Meditation as vehicle to sell products.
Yup, meditation has come to America full-force.