is software getting better?
Also posted to Bluesky.
26 replies
zach
I’ll take that as a *shhhhh* 😅
@zachleat that's going to have to be a "no" from me boss
Absolutely. Sturgeons Law still prevails however
*eyes narrow in statistics*
10% good sure is a smol number when the total pie has grown by several orders of magnitude. Bet we could find correlation in the good vs bad based on how big node_modules is.
I appreciate this ray of sunshine! 🙌
I remain irrationally optimistic despite...well yeah
@zachleat hard no
@zachleat Have you been hacked?
Proof you're the real Zach by answering whether the docs link should be:
- bigger
- smaller
- same size@kleinfreund always bigger
@zachleat Overall? Worse. Faster to ship, cheaper to build, less care. Reused patterns everywhere, rushed delivery, and UX—especially on mobile—has become hostile by default.
-
…is this how I learn about Caves of Qud
...mine is.
On the other hand it's now been... 15 years (oh god) since my operating system was actually smart.
*stares at Apple, iPhone ringing on macOS, still blaring Apple Music*
hell yeah
@zachleat it's certainly getting bigger!
@eeeps software is like a lifted pickup truck, in this essay I will…
@zachleat absolutely yes. It's just that there's so much more of it that working software is unnoticeable, so we can only think of the times it fails us.
The barrier to entry is also much lower, so there are plenty of developers who are learning in production, and didn't benefit from the slow methodical practice of writing software back when hours were cheap and hardware was expensive.
We expect modern software engineers to do more with much less and it mostly works which is amazing.
@zachleat The software I write is getting better, but everything else is getting worse.
@jitterted I… 😅