
Ask HN: Do you feel that the software industry is stagnating? - joddystreet
Looking back at the industry breakthroughs, that fundamentally changed the way software is developed, to me, is the Hadoop map-reduce and HDFS.<p>I don&#x27;t feel that some of the recent technologies - Docker, lambda, etc have contributed towards taking the CS, as a subject, or the Software, as an industry, forward.<p>Please share your opinion about the state of the software industry or the computer science subject, and where do you see&#x2F;feel&#x2F;think the field headed?
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pacificenigma
> Please share your opinion about the state of the software industry ....
> where do you see/feel/think the field headed?

A world where no consumer device works without the blue sky alignment of
internet availability, vendor goodwill and security uneventfulness.

This is based on trends I've observed on most (but not all) new consumer
devices I've purchased of late [1]:

* Requires internet for setup (always) and operation (usually)

* Only supports wifi (ethernet ports are rare, thus no easy VLAN option)

* Vendor mobile apps required (HTTP servers are crippled if available at all)

* Depends on MDNS / SSDP / proprietary multicast for discovery

* Requires a vendor user account (and rarely supports family access)

* Sends telemetry and updates firmware without any opt-in

* Service addresses are unconfigurable (eg NTP, DNS, MQTT)

* Documentation does not publish ingress or egress ports

The pendulum has swung too far toward plug and play (at the expense of
reliability, security and privacy). Perhaps someday there will be an "ethical
device" self-certification brand to promote those vendors trying to be more
balanced.

In the meantime I mitigate using different SSIDs, VLANs and email accounts per
vendor; relaying discovery protocols across IP subnets; logging traffic and
denying by default; rewriting destination IPs for certain ports like DNS and
NTP; local DNS to 127.0.0.1 attempts to call home; disabling options if given
etc.

[1] Solar inverters (Enphase), house batteries (Sonnen), irrigation
controllers (RainMachine), speech assistants (Amazon), amplifiers (Sony and
Sonos), alarm panel (Paradox), EV (Tesla), SIP ATA (Cisco), home automation
controller (Hubitat)

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unlinked_dll
Containerization and cloud services are applications of CS, not CS. They are
to CS today what typesetters were to CS of the 1970s - pretty boring to
consumers, but behind the scenes created an economy where things like Unix
weren't just toys or research but projects backed by capital investment.

If you take a step back and look at the technological developments that the
products you use every day are built upon, there is a lot of exciting things
going on.

Just off the top of my head, immutable data structures and functional
paradigms are becoming increasingly _useful_ to real products, and performant
implementation of them is an exciting area of development.

There's also a lot of exciting development in programming languages
themselves, and with the (hopeful) propagation of things like the Language
Server Protocol developing and using _new_ languages is getting easier,
distributing them is easier, and people are more receptive to using them.
There's a new language craze going on right now and it's fun to be a part of.

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bkq
I get the feeling that most consumer software is consolidating on a single
universal platform (the web). Whereby soon the web browser will essentially
the gateway through which most users do their computing.

Rob Pike wrote Systems Software Research is Irrelevant [1], which I recommend
you give a read based off the question.

[1] -
[http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.pdf](http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.pdf)

~~~
joddystreet
From the paper -Programmability􏰄, once the Big Idea in computing􏰄, has fallen
by the wayside.

Can you help me understand what’s this idea about?

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neuroticfish
>I don't feel that some of the recent technologies - Docker, lambda, etc have
contributed towards taking the CS, as a subject, or the Software, as an
industry, forward.

I wouldn't except consumer software like Docker or Lambda to have any
measurable impact on computer science. How much is the landscape of astronomy
shaped by advancements in home telescopes?

~~~
theli0nheart
> _How much is the landscape of astronomy shaped by advancements in home
> telescopes?_

I'm pretty sure that was the _only_ way that the study of astronomy moved
forward when it was a nascent field.

~~~
neuroticfish
Computer science isn't a nascent field, and comparing the discoveries of
individuals centuries ago to the collective academic pipeline of today is
silly.

~~~
theli0nheart
> _Computer science isn 't a nascent field_

That's like, just your opinion.

But, in all seriousness, do you really think CS is a mature field? We've
barely scratched the surface of what is possible with quantum computers, and
once that ball gets rolling, who knows what happens next. I would happily put
money on the fact that the majority of breakthroughs in computer science have
yet to come.

> _comparing the discoveries of individuals centuries ago to the collective
> academic pipeline of today is silly_

Why would you say that? In the 1500-1800s, _most_ serious and important
discoveries were generated by individuals (most who funded themselves).

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buboard
in the 90s, it was obvious that an app user interface was made by developers:
tons of options, hierarchical actions, keyboard shortcuts, ergonomics
optimized for speed. in 2019, it is obvious that apps are made from marketers:
total lack of options, repetitive designs, optimize for cuteness and wasting
time.

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ryacko
I think it is regressing, UI design is touchscreen first, the old text
interfaces were more information dense, default font size is 16 or 18 now.

But software? Compiler writers keep finding clever ways to improve software
performance. There are demos from the demoscene that have 3D graphics and run
on the Commodore 64.

