[travisgriggs]

How depressing. Probably true. But depressing nevertheless. Bigger frameworks, more complicated libraries, deeper multi tiered tooling, all of these things that we call ecosystem, reduce access to general purpose programming and creativity. We've created a bureaucracy of execution so complicated that we need vast amounts of funding to keep us at the tiller doing the biddings of e-commerce apps. It's like the founding fathers of programming have been reborn as Sir Humphreys.

[Karrot_Kream]

This is how it is in every applied field. It's not as if 2x4s fall from trees and we use them in our construction. The 2x4 is a specific manufacturing output that's used as inputs for lots and lots of other things. It's the same way when it comes to software. Just like when doing cabinetry nothing is stopping you from processing wood yourself, likewise nothing is stopping you from rolling your own frameworks. But then you'll find you're closer to selling a Morton Chair [1] than regular furniture. (And FWIW that might be fine for your problem domain, especially if you're in the market of beautiful, high-value, handmade chairs with long lead times.)

[1]: https://www.mortonfurniture.com/

[travisgriggs]

Where this fails for me is that the 2x4 is a standard. And it's simple. And it's universally acceptable. I can send my wife and my kids alike to buy one from who knows where with little to zero instruction. They can work with it with ease. The "ecosystem" fades into the background. But modern software ecosystems are the exact opposite. You spend more time trying to learn/master/navigate the ecosystem than you do working with the metaphorical 2x4. To make matters worse, getting a 2x4 has been temporally stable for a long time. Not much has changed since my grandfather could send me to the store to buy a 2x4 on my own. But software ecosystems evolve and migrate weekly. Your argument demonstrates that all developed fields create ecosystems. But it does not address the issue that not all ecosystems are equal. Some are good. Some are bad. It's my opinion that modern software ecosystems look more like the British Civil Service than the ecosystem that produces 2x4s.

[kaba0]

Let me refer back to Brooks’s famous paper: there are no silver bullets. There has been no order of magnitude increase since the appearance of the first managed languages, which is multiple decades now. According to him, the only way we can somehow “cheat” are way into more productivity is through ecosystems, that is standing on the shoulder of giants.

Like, the only reason are computers are remotely working fine is that great deal of abstractions.

[Zababa]

If you're doing things on servers that you manage yourself and not using lots of saas, you can probably still do things in an obscure programming language.