[thehotdon]

Software really is sort of a special case though. Most of the problems you mentioned are at least partially caused by the constraints and resources of our physical environment. However, the complexity of software is almost entirely generated by human ineptitude. The one exception might be complexity caused by necessary optimization for hardware limitations, which would in fact explain some of problems cited in the blog post.

[Goladus]

Most of the problems I mention aren't objective. Sometimes I like washing dishes, it's relaxing. I certainly like eating from dishes. Some people like cars and like driving. It certainly saves people time. Peeling grapefruit is very satisfying and makes the room smell nice. Central air is so much nicer than setting up a fan by my window and hoping that blowing the 75 degree air from outside will cool down the 85 degree ambient temperature inside.

Blaming "human ineptitude" is pessimistic. Sure, the fact that humans can't all manipulate computational machines directly and require layers of abstraction to effectively model problems can, technically, be called ineptitude, but really-- why be so down about it? That's the way things are and there's a lot of good that comes from software if you think about it for more than 30 seconds.

[munificent]

> However, the complexity of software is almost entirely generated by human ineptitude.

Human ineptitude is a part of our physical environment. We're just animals. Clever ones, but not perfect.

[aidenn0]

Unix (for example) was most certainly designed around the constraints of hardware at the time.

Furthermore it is a physical limitation for how much software you can write (and have it work) if you can get something that "mostly works" by building on top of yesterday's cruft then you do it, since the alternative is starting over from scratch and not being able to finish.

[JVirissimo]

Time is a constraint and mental effort is a resource of our physical environment.

[polynomial]

> mental effort is a resource of our physical environment.

One of the more intriguing comments I've seen on HN. Care to elucidate?