Post #1991784

2026-04-28 22:33 UTC

@arclight I remember reading an article from the ACM a while back that considered whether software should be a real peer engineering discipline with all it entails, and I recall being taken aback by that. They basically concluded “not at this time”. Now I’m thinking “hell yea”. Now I’m learning Spark, contracts, validation-driven development, formal methods… Not like I know how to shake anyone out of this mess.

Replies (1)

@syllopsium@peoplemaking.games 2026-04-28 22:58

@thankfulmachine @arclight It should, and one way out of this mess is to create properly designed systems that don't need hand holding. Problem is, the end users generally aren't prepared to pay for that, and designing such systems requires either greater expense, or not following the bleeding edge. There is so much evidence that not only is software engineering, sysadmin, and support not a real engineering discipline, but that it actively and continually works against being a proper discipline. Sure, there are many exceptions, but for instance I am ashamed that at work we don't support Unicode thirty fucking years after its introduction when I was young and saw it as the great new thing. A thing, in fact, that was actually properly designed. Work don't care. The end users don't care either. Should I rail against this professionally? Maybe. I have mentioned it is embarrassing to have architecture that would have been old in the 80s, but neither am I willing to be pure and slash my salary.

Open ##1991785