The Generation Ship Model of Software Development (2014)
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It's easy to overestimate how hard open source has won, and how little influence "Not invented here complex" has on most systems. Most software now comes in a stack, and other companies use the same stack with some light add ons. The most common experience of software development wasn't like that as late as 2010. The New York times used to maintain it's own programming language whose only application was the NYT website. Trello did too, and there are many companies that did that without hitting the conference circuit about it.
The big shift that made the world we're in now is the idea of domain specific languages largely going away and the idea of software being an integrative practice replacing them. The big cultural marker might be MIT switching their intro course from scheme to python in the late 00s.
IME NIH syndrome is alive and well. Not that this article would be entirely off base even if it wasnt.
Actually it seems to me to be a 'natural law' of software development - no matter the discipline/industry/inkling - that on certain event horizons, one must decide whether to build something, or buy it.
For many people, the act itself is all that matters.
For some, its the users who decide.
C#, Swift and to a lesser degree Hack are still very much alive. But the two former are public by design. There's no advantages anymore to having a custom DSL.
> The big cultural marker might be MIT switching their intro course from scheme to python in the late 00s.
The target audience of the course also changed quite a bit. Now it's taken by undergrads of all majors while it used to be taught to a mostly CS audience.
With that in mind, it makes sense to teach Python, since it's nearly universal and has nice data-analysis libraries that are well documented.
A chef who painstakingly concerned himself with where he sourced his ingredients may or may not be a good chef. But the chef who concerned herself deeply with the taste of the meal would probably be a good one.
Yet, when we talk about software development, 90% of what we talk about is stack, and 10% is what we built. I’m not super successful or anything, but I imagine the founders who focus on the 10% are the better ones.
Reminds me of the "programmer-archaeologists" from A Fire Upon The Deep.
and the aliens (no spoilers) in it were very cool
I wonder what you could do with the film-rights to that story.
Kino is traveling by motorcycle along a railroad line, and encounters the first man, who is clearing away the grass and rust. He has worked for the company for fifty years. He had a wife and child when he left, but unfortunately, has never returned home since his first departure, he is unsure of their current well being. They exchange pleasantries and Kino continues her journey.
Kino the meets a second man working on the railroad the next day. This one is removing the tracks, as ordered by his employer. He he left home support his five younger brothers at home, and had never returned for the past fifty years. They comment on how well maintained the tracks are, but do not question on why.
She meets a third man on the third day as she follows the trail. He is setting down new tracks as requested by the railroad company. He reveals that he took the job to support his ill parents, but as it has been fifty years, they have most likely already passed away.
And, if I had the context outside of my field, I wouldn't be surprised that it described a wide variety of other industries.
I would have said Brian W. Aldiss 'Non-Stop' or Ben Bova 'The Exiles' or Harlan Ellison 'The Starlost', but only because they just happen to be some of the examples I happen to have encountered and found particularly memorable. I've probably read and forgotten 20 others.
You can presume to correct the blog author while in fact being in error yourself, yet you can not tolerate being corrected. Got it.
1. Ignorance is not error.
2. There was no correction. I simply suggested it would have been somewhat polite to point people in the direction of their original sources, considering the very literary post.