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I agree with (almost) everything you have written, but with one caveat - the tasks we are being asked to perform have also grown in complexity. Hence, in my opinion, despite the improvement in the tools, the overall job has remained at about the same difficulty, and I've been at this for 30 years now (and boy, am I tired  ).
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You and I have been at for about the same amount of time...
I find that more of my time is spent understanding the complexity of business rather than the complexity of coding, so I would have to agree with you. In my case, the change has been a welcome one.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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...because they just follow simple orders from "senior" and all they need is handy IDE. But for architects and seniors it's DOUBLE harder, because now they work with tons of problems which didn't exist before (or was not so important):
Security, robustness, easy integration, flexibility for extending/adopting new requirements/scalability, handy(and pretty) UI, large data, performance, etc etc.
If under DOS you could create simple screen with 10 text inputs and it was "document management", now it's 10 times bigger and harder task. My brains explode when I think how much I should assume before even drawing first scheme rectangle!
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Speaking as someone who was a coder before 1995, took a break and have now come back in the last two years, yes it is WAY harder. I agree with Thornik's statement, especially as the programs become more and more complex, and require more and more collaborative an effort. I personally find it hard to find people who have the same philosophical stance as myself, about making the coding tight and fast. Most of the tools out there are not designed for tight and fast, but rather provide far more features than I need at the expense of efficiency.
It is easier to make terrible code. I can go build myself something by linking libraries together without an understanding of how they work, but that's not really software development - although I can call it that, and provided my ethics and morals are that loose, everyone will agree.
But then again, a lot of customers don't seem to want fast and tight, either...
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Quote: a lot of customers don't seem to want fast and tight
...and I can tell you why: modern PC has more than enough capacity and for user doesn't matter operation finishes in 0.1 sec or 0.00001 sec - in both cases he see no difference due to human limits. But making program with 0.1sec performance is way faster - why not to use it? (and save time to implement more features)
Remember about "premature optimizations": you can waste a lot of time on things nobody even see! (like it happen in most GUI apps)
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Users, although savvy with sensual caresses for the screens of their hand-helds seem, over-all, to be getting stupider. Maybe because there are so many?
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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You could have asked the same question 10 years ago and received the same poll results, more or less.
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But 10 years ago many things wasn't "usual" and nobody paid 'em attention. Now you have to take into account hundreds of aspects and it's real headache!
Today I even won't touch the program if it doesn't support "docking" (where applicable). No "feedback" in "Help" menu? F*** off! No multithreading? Freezing UI? Same direction. No support for "facebook" authorization? Throw your shty program away.
THAT's what "modern programming" is - so many details for so caprice users, you have to be "god of IT" to make really good programs!
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Quote: No support for "facebook" authorization? Throw your shty program away.
I've never written software with facebook authorisation. And I probably never will.
If I ever see a banking app that uses it I'm moving my money.
If I ever see CRM system that uses it, I'm leaving the job.
etc, ad nauseum
Not all software development is internet or mobile based ... there are still commercial uses out there.
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I have learned programming before a lot of years with pascal and visual basic ,but back then it was really hard to create code and find errors in your code.Now all these great tools like Visual Studio ,libraries,frameworks ,ready templates,UI and so many other helpful tools have made coding really more fun and faster.After all I think it's all about efficiency,quality and speed when you deliver a program/project and those new tools have maximized that.
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Very very old projects | CommitStrip[^]
Our "World" is changing so fast and there are to many options to choose from. You spend your time learning new Frameworks instead of programming.
Before you had time to learn something. A new(old/stable) Language, the good old framework. Life was simpler.
Paulo Gomes
Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
—Bill Gates
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"fast changing world" is a good test who you are - boy with knowledge of PHP or real developer: you have to distinguish "bustle"(hype) from the real revolution. MS "invented" new way to interact with their goddamn server? It's hype. People start using ORM - it's revolution. Companies make "web apps" - it's hype. "Continuum" between PC/mobile - it's revolution.
Stay calm and watch how dead technologies float by you.
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This is not really a valid question. How hard it is to develop something is entirely down to the thing that needs to be developed.
Today the problem is that all the 'easy' stuff has been done. So we stuck with the more difficult and complex.
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Andy Belton wrote: Today the problem is that all the 'easy' stuff has been done. So we stuck with the more difficult and complex.
What is "hard"?
Is it detecting edges in grayscale 16 bit images in order to distinguish automatically between splinters of a glass jar and ok products, is it building a secure and usable e-commerce platform, or is it writing the software for automotive industry? Writing ERP, CRM or modules for them?
Different people will have different tresholds, mainly derived from their perspective and path.
From what I see most today problems are "easy" - they need no math skills, no algorithm creation, no optimizations, no real time - but they are astonishingly complex and chew up a lot of time. Also to complicate things there are pople who throw frameworks on the market like chamber-pots were emptied on the streets in the dark age...
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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Relatively speaking, it's easier to solve the same problem that we solved 10 years ago.
Trouble is, we are now trying to solve harder problems because we can.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
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They start with Framework and become an expert of nothing.
I do not fear of failure. I fear of giving up out of frustration.
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true as most Framework have sort function this lead most of us forget how to do sorting without Framework. Not only sort but others too
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I completely agree, in fact I was being able to pass a Java exam with 1 hour and half of study and 30 minutes of exercise, without never having use it before. And the exam itself wasn't dumb, much less than harder exams I passed - it actually had to pass 30 Unit Tests and the final product was somewhat rough but functional.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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I would say that for small software development teams, it become harder to make applications up to expectation because we have a lot more to do to have a great application now that it used to be say 20 years ago. Also there are so much possibilities now that a lot is required to have great applications.
But, if we want to make the same application now, it would be much easier to do as we have better tools.
This make me thing of the rule that software typically run slower now that it used to be but also does much more.
Philippe Mori
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I completely agree. All I would add is that there is an expectation now that every dev is a polygot (and generally we are) and that security has become a much more fundamental part of the work.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli
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It's not becoming easier or harder, it's just changing, at least at a higher level.
If you target business-centric applications, everyone is trying to find the "Lego style" path where everything should be kind of pluggable.
With this, the problem moves from the development to the integration side.
Currently, you find a lot more challenges on the integration side than on the implementation.
Also, still on the dev side of things, "Lego style" is good until you find a brick that doesn't fit anywhere.
Then you start hammering it in and eventually it will stay there. The problem is when you need to put other bricks on top of that one and you find yourself searching for a bigger hammer more often than not.
The main problem is that these solution designs look really well on paper, and said Sales people and said Architects easily sell these things in colored diagrams, ignoring the implementation risks and ambiguity.
Oh well, it's another day in paradise!
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only different!
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist!
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I agree. We have better tools and faster iron, but also have to deal with modern problems such as a multitude of form factors and service scale.
/ravi
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And I think that each generation builds on the last so although it may be harder kids already have more of a head start then we had.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist!
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For sure! The young 'uns keep me on my toes and force me to stay abreast of technology. Still lovin' the ride after 30 years.
/ravi
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