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Comment by revelio | Hacker News Reader

It's not just the auto industry. A lot of industries struggle with managing software projects. If you think about it, it's the reason we have such a vaguely named thing as the "tech industry" to begin with. Tech firms are basically just normal firms that are good at managing software projects, and this skill is sufficiently rare/unique that it comes to define them.

As for why that is, well, you have to work in a non-tech company for a while to really see the problems. Suffice it to say that the gap between programmers and non-programmers in how they think and understand the process of developing software is enormous, and too large to bridge. You can't explain even things that would seem obvious and basic on this forum to non-tech people, because they just immediately reject it.

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In a lot of "traditional" industries, because you "can't touch" or put it into inventory software is not seen as important "it is just there at the end". Furthermore there is a huge disconnect, because they don't understand software... everything "can later be fixed in software", the procurement department is incentivized to buy the cheapest hardware/chips they can get and you as a software developer are never asked if the requirements can be implemented on the hardware they procure leading to delays because you have to fit all the promised features into a shitty 5cent cheaper hardware and if it fails it's the software departments fault (looks like this is a bit the case in CARIAD when reading some german forums/articles).

The car industry reminds me of the construction industry. It's rife with decades-old institutions that are indifferent to quick changes in an ever software-dominated environment.

The thinking is, "if it ain't broken, then it ain't worth fixing." Unfortunately, recent advances by autonomous vehicle companies and EV makers have shifted the paradigm from a hardware-focus to a software one. I think construction is also headed the same path as stick-built buildings are increasingly on the way out and more modular preassembled manufacturing is coming in.

It's good news for software companies and bad news for traditional construction and traditional auto.

It's also bad news for product longevity, reliability and repairability.

I'm hanging onto a 2005 Jeep Wrangler despite several mechanical issues I'd rather not deal with, because I have zero confidence that I can keep a modern car running for decades.

Even 2005 sounds new to me. I drive cars from the 1980s.

I'd love to be able to buy a new car without any software. My phone does anything I would want to be able to do in a car. But it's not possible, due to a combination of regulations and what the mass market wants.

2006 Mazda here. The thing's bulletproof.

Hopefully the shift is rather a pendulum and the auto industry will strike a reasonable balance between hardware and software.

Because really the reliability of software is much lesser than that of hardware (exceptions may apply).

I think an analogy is "enterprise software". You always get the worst software when it's designed and approved by a committee that doesn't get hard user feedback (feedback in the sense that people just won't use it if it's bad). So things are released with shit usability. Add on the cost overruns and scope problems that come from people that don't really know software dictating top down what they think it should do, and you get what happens in most industries.

Yes, but they struggle with consumer software too (car software being consumer software, but also finance stuff is often terrible even when targeted as the mass market).

>Suffice it to say that the gap between programmers and non-programmers in how they think and understand the process of developing software is enormous, and too large to bridge.

Programmers speak programming languages. Common men speak human languages.

Incidentally, this is also why "AI" became such a big hit with the masses in such a short period of time: For the first time ever, common men can communicate with computers using human languages instead of programming languages.

> Programmers speak programming languages. Common men speak human languages.

Thats just a stereotype.

Lawyers speak legalese, managers speak managerial, electricians speak electrical, designers speak design languages, and politicians speak bullshit. And all of those languages can be employed/"translated" by "AI", there is no difference.

Or to put it another way, it all depends on the context. If you don't want to be understood by others you'll just come out as an asshole, and rightly so, whatever your profession.

If you aren't aware, the word "jargon" is the term for industry-specific language. It will organically evolve in any industry for a reason but it can be used intentionally or unintentionally to condescend to others outside that industry.

That is kind of tangential to software architecture, user interface and product development, the activities that define what the software will do. Speaking “human language” (aka user-centered design) is the utmost focus at this level.

Reducing such issues to “normal people can’t understand programmers” would be best left as a trope from the early 2000s.

> For the first time ever, common men can communicate with computers using human languages instead of programming languages.

Was the same phrase used when compilers appeared? Or SQL?

Common men are not communicating using AI, but AI is generating plausible-sounding corporate-speak faster and better than common men.

Let me put it this way then: "AI" allows common men to ask a computer questions using human languages, instead of using a string of esoteric keywords and symbols arranged in a way a computer understands (aka programming languages).

If you don't see or understand the true value behind that, well, I suppose you're a programmer.

I don't see any common men programming with AI. I see AI doing all the common man office jobs. It's great at generating emails, slide decks and spreadsheets.

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