My OperaWhat is happening to programmers?
Saturday, May 3, 2008 12:54:23 PM
Hey you programmers, what are you doing lately?
I see software is getting worse and worse, bloated, full of bugs, you need 10 times the hardware than before to do the same things. This ranges from the Operating System (Windows Vista anyone?) to the utilities like Personal Firewalls and Antiviruses so poorly designed and coded that force computers on their knees adding more problems instead of solving some.
You "average users" out there: beware, more "cool" software you install and worse your computer will work, despite the promises of "better, faster, optimized, secure" and such bullshit they sell you.
I see software is getting worse and worse, bloated, full of bugs, you need 10 times the hardware than before to do the same things. This ranges from the Operating System (Windows Vista anyone?) to the utilities like Personal Firewalls and Antiviruses so poorly designed and coded that force computers on their knees adding more problems instead of solving some.
You "average users" out there: beware, more "cool" software you install and worse your computer will work, despite the promises of "better, faster, optimized, secure" and such bullshit they sell you.
Annenudelsieb # Sunday, May 4, 2008 5:27:18 PM
First, programmers today use a lot of frameworks which they build on since the feature set is so big that nobody could code all on his own (imagine only the graphical user interface - if that was not provided by the framework nobody could finish any program today). Now those frameworks have bugs themselves and the programmer often does not even realize them. Also the complexity of these feature-rich programs is so high that much effort must be taken to keep its errors at an acceptable level.
Second, since today market value and speed is most important and not quality, most companies don't give their programmers enough time for testing and debugging. Many think that the end user is the best test person.
I think this point is the most cruel because many good programmers are really stressed that way.
Third, there are programmers who just don't do much testing and debugging because they hate it (it's not the funniest work really, but it has to be done) - and others who don't comment their code for the same reason and make it difficult for the poor other programmer who then has to debug their code.
These are surely not the only reasons for the misery...
(I even haven't addressed the 'poor design' issue.)
Lorenzo CelsiLorenzoCelsi # Sunday, May 4, 2008 5:51:21 PM
Of course there is the general question about what the computers are really for and what the "average" user wants or is able to understand. Bringing computers to the masses means most people doesn't have any technical background and they buy whatever bullshit they are told. Plus, they probably don't really use the computer besides few basic tasks and they are attracted by gadgets. This couples with the IT management that probably isn't of technical background either and the loop completes.
I mean, I've been told I need an "anti-virus" so I buy one. I don't know what a virus is and then I can't understand what an anti-virus should do. What can I do? Buy the biggest and more famous and attractive one with a big list of features like "plutonic intelligent global termonuclear total recovery scanner". When that crap crashes my computer I ask a friend who claims to be a "computer expert" who tells me it is because of the magnetic field around Saturn and I have to "format". Then I struggle for a while with some technical support to get my computer "formatted", until one day I buy a new computer and another cycle starts.