The software industry is the ultimate recreation of Sisyphus' curse. uriel
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 8:49 AM, Daniel Lyons<fus...@storytotell.org> wrote: > > On Aug 12, 2009, at 9:56 PM, erik quanstrom wrote: > >> if we're going back there, just take me out back and shoot me now. >> i want to remember some progress in computer science. > > > The principal joy I derive from using Plan 9 (and I am quite new) is that it > is so well architected. By day I am a web developer (when I'm employed) and > I am just thoroughly sickened by the industry. It seems to me that at some > point, the cool guys that beat me up in middle school somehow insinuated > their way into technology and have hijacked everything. Currently they seem > to be proceeding to reinvent the same things over and over again, on top of > their own reinventions, for no particular gain except to make new jargon and > get their name on the latest version. It's hard to even maintain a portfolio > of work one's done when the lifespan of a website is dwindling to one year > or six months. And that certainly reduces the incentive to give it > everything you've got and make something really good. > > I was curious about ICE, because it seemed like they actually took CORBA and > said, what would this look like if it were implemented by engineers rather > than a committee? But I don't think the problem facing the world is "how do > I integrate all these languages, possibly over the network?" but rather "how > do I minimize all of this fucking complexity and still get things done?" > XML-RPC and SOAP are answers to stupid questions, which is why we have REST, > but the joke is that none of the technologies that it relies on are even > implemented enough by their own specifications such that it can really be > used. It strikes me as ludicrous that you can go make a new Rails app and > have to write by hand (or find someone's plugin) to create a login system > for you, which won't even happen on the HTTP level (which supports it), or > the RDBMS level (which also supports it), or the OS level (which again > supports it.) How many times do we have to write username/password logins > before we're done and we can fucking can move on? It's not like anything is > really different at any of these levels, just the way the bytes get handed > around. Then you have to be sure to use a database abstraction layer, > because everyone seems to have forgotten that the database *is* an > abstraction layer—this fact got lost in the shuffle as it became too complex > for anyone to really understand completely. Yet nobody seems to be worried > that the same thing might happen to their little project as they pile code > upon code and it slowly swells up just like everything that came before or > that it depends on. Before long, they need an abstraction layer for their > abstraction layer! Then the schmucks come along and complain about > performance and demand to be taught every dirty trick to take their barely > useful code and remove all the clarity from it in the name of a performance. > Software is cancer. > > I don't know how long you've been a programmer, Erik, but I'm sure it's far > longer than I. From my perspective, no, there is no progress in computer > science, we're spending all our time trying to climb out of the same muddy > hole we've been in since Dijkstra was a newlywed and Knuth was writing for > MAD Magazine. CS has such advanced amnesia that it can't remember what > prompted the last question it was asked and so it just repeats the question > to itself over and over, never really aware that it isn't an answer. We dig > and dig but the problem only gets worse because digging doesn't get you out > of a muddy hole. > > The things that keep me going are the pleasure I get from knowing a lot of > obscure stuff, talking to intelligent, knowledgeable people such as comprise > this mailing list, and (oddly) writing SQL. I wouldn't say I have much hope > for the industry in general unless there's some sort of major restructuring. > I try not to make that my problem and instead share the things I know about > with people I think might benefit. So consider this the opposite of being > flamed. I feel exactly the same way you do. I hope that in some time I will > be doing as much for the good as you and others on this list that carry the > Plan 9 torch and endure my stupid questions (and now my rants.) > > — > Daniel Lyons > > >
