[wcummings]

>IMO, this is why our software is riddled with bugs, slow and generally low quality. Seriously, use the latest Facebook app on the latest iPhone 6s device over a gigabit wifi connection and watch how it lags and bugs out in multiple tiny ways. Software engineering has forgotten the engineering part. Our software should be as solid as the golden gate bridge, sturdy and solid for a 100 years. I believe it's the rigid 9 to 5 discipline that brings that sort of reliability, instead of treating devs like art college students.

Sounds like a lot of BS to justify your existence. People built bridges before they had the knowledge of physics to understand why they didn't fall over. Software hasn't even existed 100 years. Get over yourself.

[erroneousfunk]

They built bridges, sure, but they were usually over-engineered stone behemoths over relatively small rivers that didn't exactly require a structural engineer to calculate loads on. Pile on some rocks, arrange them in non-stupid way that won't fall apart under stress, throw some mud in the cracks between the rocks -- it's a bridge!

Anyone can build a bridge that stands. The trick is in building a bridge that barely stands, or suspension bridge that spans over a mile on strands of steel, with known tolerances to earthquakes and storms. You can't build the Golden Gate bridge without physics.

Anyone can throw together some software, put it on the Internet, and keep throwing more AWS money at it as needed. But software engineering is about constantly finding better ways, running simulations to model loads, using clever properties of math and information theory to reduce required resources and building code to do what's required of it as efficiently as possible.

[dingo_bat]

I fail to understand how you turned my comment into commentary on me. I work in the similar free/flexible timing, beer in the open-plan office type of environment. And I am sick of it and the low-quality crap that everyone in the industry is seemingly producing.

Just because software hasn't existed for 100 years doesn't mean we will make stuff that falls apart after a month.

>People built bridges before they had the knowledge of physics to understand why they didn't fall over.

Yeah, and they did not say "I'm sick of trying to learn physics. Instead let's continue making rickety bridges that fall down after a gust of wind."