[choeger]

Thing is: Industrialization is about repeating manufacturing steps. You don't need to repeat anything for software. Software can be copied arbitrarily for no practical cost.

The idea of automation creating a massive amount of software sounds ridiculous. Why would we need that? More Games? Can only be consumed at the pace of the player. Agents? Can be reused once they fulfill a task sufficently.

We're probably going to see a huge amount of customization where existing software is adapted to a specific use case or user via LLMs, but why would anyone waste energy to re-create the same algorithms over and over again.

[willtemperley]

People re-create the same algorithms all the time for different languages or because of license incompatibility.

I'm personally doing just that because I want an algorithm written in C++ in a LGPL library working in another language

[nuancebydefault]

In fact this is a counter argument to the point of the article. You're not making 'just more throwaway software' but instead building usable software while standing on the shoulders of existing algo's and libraries.

[willtemperley]

Well yes. To me industrial software is hardened algorithms, not throwaway slop like the author is arguing. LLMs are very good at porting existing algorithms and as you say it’s about standing on the shoulders of giants. I couldn’t write these from scratch but I can port and harden an algo with basic engineering practices.

I like the article except the premise is wrong - industrial software will be high value and low cost as it will outlive the slop.

[alexjurkiewicz]

The "industrialisation" concept is an analogy to emphasize how the costs of production are plummeting. Don't get hung up pointing out how one aspect of software doesn't match the analogy.

[mgh95]

> The "industrialisation" concept is an analogy to emphasize how the costs of production are plummeting. Don't get hung up pointing out how one aspect of software doesn't match the analogy.

Are they, though? I am not aware of any indicators that software costs are precipitously declining. At least as far as I know, we aren't seeing complements of software developers (PMs, sales, other adjacent roles) growing rapidly indicating a corresponding supply increase. We aren't seeing companies like mcirosoft or salesforce or atlassian or any major software company reduce prices due to supply glut.

So what are the indicators (beyond blog posts) this is having a macro effect?

[choeger]

It's the central point of the metaphor. Software is not constrained by the speed of implementation, it's constrained by the cost of maintenance and adaptation to changing requirements.

If that wasn't the case, every piece of software could already be developed arbitrarily quickly by hiring an arbitrary amount of freelancers.

[bwest87]

But focusing on production cost is silly. The cost to consumers is what matters. Software is already free or dirt cheap because it can be served at zero marginal cost. There was only a market for cheap industrial clothes because tailor made clothes were expensive. This is not the case in software and that's why this whole industrialization analogy falls apart upon inspection

[pyrale]

> You don't need to repeat anything for software. Software can be copied arbitrarily for no practical cost.

...Or so think devs.

People responsible for operating software, as well as people responsible for maintaining it, may have different opinions.

Bugs must be fixed, underlying software/hardware changes and vulnerabilities get discovered, and so versions must be bumped. The surrounding ecosystem changes, and so, even if your particular stack doesn't require new features, it must be adapted (a simple example: your react front breaks because the nginx proxy changed is subdirectory).

[choeger]

You're describing maintenance of existing software or even existing deployments that's a completely different beast.

I am certain cost can go down there, but that will only compete against SaaS where the marginal cost of adding another customer is already zero.

[pyrale]

> You're describing maintenance of existing software or even existing deployments that's a completely different beast.

Yeah, that's a part of software that's often overlooked by software developers.