Yes, exactly. AI isn't some magic dust that you can sprinkle into your workforce and get more productivity and better results. It is at best a force amplifier for what you already have. If you're making awful and broken products, you will make even more awful and even more broken products at a higher rate than before.
It's not a coincidence that every impressive result done using AI has come from someone with a track record of impressive results before AI. AI isn't magic. It doesn't make you good at stuff you're bad at.
Microsoft had a very specific niche of making completely awful software that wasn't actually broken - in fact, that was often the infuriating thing.
If it just shat the bed completely, you'd have an easy argument to replace it with something else; instead, it would be technically competent (Hi, Raymond!) but covered in stuff that made it infuriating to use (Hi, Redmond!), especially if you didn't live in it day in and day out.
I think it's more people are checked out (and AI is one part of it yes), made worse by orgs who don't know how to lead/manage/change effectively.
FWIW, some people used to (or still do) say similar things that software is significantly worse because people use "unserious" languages like PHP, Ruby, Python, JavaScript. It brought about so much cool shit that I don't think it's worth saying we should've stuck with only C and Java.
I don't know if it's just because I was young and bright eyed, but it seems like the "passionate nerd" is somewhat absent in modern tech orgs. Seems like, starting around 6 years ago, none of the new hires seem to give a fuck about anything anymore.
That's definitely great for work life balance, and I don't think any less of them for that, but passion seems to be gone.
I would be doing what I do for work if I was employed or not. That's how everyone I used to work with was. Now everyone seems to do the minimal, with the goal being more to direct blame than solving neat problems.
I'm still optimistic. I think the number hasn't gone down, just the ratio. Software still offers a relatively well paid and comfortable career, so you naturally get people who just want to do a good job and that's it. Nothing wrong with that.
Used to be nerds hanging out on IRC, distributing Slackware, hacking trialware, modding games, etc. that had the passion and problem solving determination to do software work, which used to be harder due to lack of access to information.
OTOH what a great time for a budding engineer. I'm in my mid 30s, and no longer have the same stamina and passion as in my teenage/20s, but in the last 5 years I've learnt so many things I could not have done so back in the day. I learnt and experimented way more around random topics like compilers, OS, electronics, databases because of ease of access to information, AI (:shrug:), even though I have way less free time.
Github is going around boasting how many PRs they generate a day with Copilot with very limited human input. Whether that's true or not, it might have effect.
When did every company become a feature factory? Was tech ever not like this, or is it just how it works? It seems like they all end up this way, and it's really dumb.
Hardware, I don't know. Possibly always was too, I think even non-tech hardware was pushing more features as an excuse for shorter product lives back around the Great Depression, give or take a decade.
Managers now try to "extract value" quickly, leaving ruins behind them and not caring about the future as the immediate payouts allow them to stick to the "F*k you, I got mine!" paradigm.
It's slop from both sides, they're pretty obviously slopping their move to Azure, and at the same time being slammed with a Cambrian explosion of slop repositories.
Too bad it's not reminiscent of the Hotmail purchase where they tried to move off the BSD servers and ended up with new accounts on the relatively unreliable Windows-based setup, and old accounts routed to the original BSDs.
I disagree. Microsoft had been doing just fine at making completely awful and broken products before AI coding was a thing.
Yes, exactly. AI isn't some magic dust that you can sprinkle into your workforce and get more productivity and better results. It is at best a force amplifier for what you already have. If you're making awful and broken products, you will make even more awful and even more broken products at a higher rate than before.
It's not a coincidence that every impressive result done using AI has come from someone with a track record of impressive results before AI. AI isn't magic. It doesn't make you good at stuff you're bad at.
Microsoft had a very specific niche of making completely awful software that wasn't actually broken - in fact, that was often the infuriating thing.
If it just shat the bed completely, you'd have an easy argument to replace it with something else; instead, it would be technically competent (Hi, Raymond!) but covered in stuff that made it infuriating to use (Hi, Redmond!), especially if you didn't live in it day in and day out.
The .NET team is a counter example, aside from the GUI situation.
I think it's more people are checked out (and AI is one part of it yes), made worse by orgs who don't know how to lead/manage/change effectively.
FWIW, some people used to (or still do) say similar things that software is significantly worse because people use "unserious" languages like PHP, Ruby, Python, JavaScript. It brought about so much cool shit that I don't think it's worth saying we should've stuck with only C and Java.
I don't know if it's just because I was young and bright eyed, but it seems like the "passionate nerd" is somewhat absent in modern tech orgs. Seems like, starting around 6 years ago, none of the new hires seem to give a fuck about anything anymore.
That's definitely great for work life balance, and I don't think any less of them for that, but passion seems to be gone.
I would be doing what I do for work if I was employed or not. That's how everyone I used to work with was. Now everyone seems to do the minimal, with the goal being more to direct blame than solving neat problems.
I'm still optimistic. I think the number hasn't gone down, just the ratio. Software still offers a relatively well paid and comfortable career, so you naturally get people who just want to do a good job and that's it. Nothing wrong with that.
Used to be nerds hanging out on IRC, distributing Slackware, hacking trialware, modding games, etc. that had the passion and problem solving determination to do software work, which used to be harder due to lack of access to information.
OTOH what a great time for a budding engineer. I'm in my mid 30s, and no longer have the same stamina and passion as in my teenage/20s, but in the last 5 years I've learnt so many things I could not have done so back in the day. I learnt and experimented way more around random topics like compilers, OS, electronics, databases because of ease of access to information, AI (:shrug:), even though I have way less free time.
Github is going around boasting how many PRs they generate a day with Copilot with very limited human input. Whether that's true or not, it might have effect.
Deeper than that, but likely also that.
CV-driven development, a treadmill of features nobody needs that hurts stability we do need.
When did every company become a feature factory? Was tech ever not like this, or is it just how it works? It seems like they all end up this way, and it's really dumb.
Software always was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law
Hardware, I don't know. Possibly always was too, I think even non-tech hardware was pushing more features as an excuse for shorter product lives back around the Great Depression, give or take a decade.
Managers now try to "extract value" quickly, leaving ruins behind them and not caring about the future as the immediate payouts allow them to stick to the "F*k you, I got mine!" paradigm.
It's slop from both sides, they're pretty obviously slopping their move to Azure, and at the same time being slammed with a Cambrian explosion of slop repositories.
Too bad it's not reminiscent of the Hotmail purchase where they tried to move off the BSD servers and ended up with new accounts on the relatively unreliable Windows-based setup, and old accounts routed to the original BSDs.
AI slop is downstream of enshittification