[chiefalchemist]

> I think that's one weird thing about the software field, whereby we keep moving to these shiny new things that we think are better than the tools of yesteryear, yet in the end there is only a marginal gain in productivity.

Agreed. But I'd take it a step further and say:

...yet in the end no one is any happier. Not engineers. Not management. Not leadership. And most importantly not the users of the product.

We keep building and delivering more. But how often is that better? Either as an end to end experience or simply fewer bugs? Most of us - who are at some point users of products we didn't build - have resigned ourselves to that fact (read: it's been normalized) that an uncomfortable amount of friction is a given. That's sad.

[ip26]

There’s always problems and always friction. The new shiny doesn’t always help. But I do feel happier when I am able to move to the next level of problem. To spend my time wrestling with more meaningful challenges and less trivialities. Better tooling can help with that, although to make it a reality your org needs to see “increase quality” as the first step in “delivering more”

[chiefalchemist]

To restate my point with brevity: More efficient doesn't mean more effective.

FFS, look at GitHub. Shows your commits. They could be a high percentage of shite yet we drool over a saturated commit graph.

[astrobe_]

> Either as an end to end experience or simply fewer bugs?

I'd say we build bigger things with the same size/bug ratio. Therefore, "Small is beautiful".

[chiefalchemist]

Maybe. But user's have no sense of size. Nor do that care.

I am forever fielding questions / issue from my (retirement age+) parents. They are my benchmark for usability. From being able to open jars of food, to a website bug, to ambiguous UXs.

Until these questions are reduced - and they been steady for many year now - then I'll presume we, the makers, are failing.

[astrobe_]

> Nor do that care.

That's a misunderstanding about size. It is not about saving some kilobytes - indeed we have more than enough RAM/ROM/flash/mass storage in general, although it is a bit less true currently due to shortages - but it is a hint that the whole thing is better in other areas as well.

Except for the cases where a speed/size trade-off has been made of course. But even when it is a features/size trade-off, it is not always a bad deal, because software often has lots of features you don't care about, but could nevertheless introduce bugs in the features you do use.