My view is fairly simple - demand for technology is always increasing at a rate which far outstrips supply of _good_ engineers (by a significant factor). The lure of a well paid career tempts many to the world of software engineering even if they're not very good at it.
Look at the construction industry. Many buildings on this planet were built hundreds, sometimes a thousand or more years ago. They still stand today as the quality of their build quality was excellent.
A house built today of cheap materials (i.e poor quality software engineers) as quickly as possible (i.e urgent business timelines) will fall apart in 30 years while older properties will continue to stand tall long after the "modern" house has crumbled.
These days software is often about being first to market with quality (and cough security) being a distant second priority.
However occasionally software does emerge as high quality and becomes a foundation for further software. Take Linux, FreeBSD and curl as examples of this. Their quality control is very high priority and time has proven this to be beneficial - for every user.
Completely agree, software’s “materials” haven’t improved, only the scaffolding around them.
We’ve industrialized the process without industrializing the discipline. The result is mass-produced code built on shaky abstractions, fast to assemble, and faster to decay.
Linux and curl weren’t built on sprints or OKRs. They were built on ownership, long time horizons, and the idea that stability is innovation when everyone else is optimizing for speed.
> Look at the construction industry. Many buildings on this planet were built hundreds, sometimes a thousand or more years ago. They still stand today as the quality of their build quality was excellent.
True. And yet, far more buildings built then are not standing. We just don't notice them, because they aren't still here for us to notice.
So don't think that things were built better then. A few were; most weren't.
Look at the construction industry. Many buildings on this planet were built hundreds, sometimes a thousand or more years ago. They still stand today as the quality of their build quality was excellent.
A house built today of cheap materials (i.e poor quality software engineers) as quickly as possible (i.e urgent business timelines) will fall apart in 30 years while older properties will continue to stand tall long after the "modern" house has crumbled.
These days software is often about being first to market with quality (and cough security) being a distant second priority.
However occasionally software does emerge as high quality and becomes a foundation for further software. Take Linux, FreeBSD and curl as examples of this. Their quality control is very high priority and time has proven this to be beneficial - for every user.