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0 pointsplqbfbv8mo ago0 comments

> Software Engineers in Europe, in general, are pretty bad

> "German engineering" has not translated into software at all.

Anecdata: in my 10+ years experience, the worst UX, UI, code and SWEs I've seen, are all German. I'm not saying there's absolutely no good ones here and there, but in general it seems the love for a very complex written/spoken language (riddled with rules and exception) and bureaucracy has translated 100% into software. The interfaces, the code and coding style most of the times give me a 1980s vibe if I'm lucky, or just scare me off altogether in most cases. The code tends to be more complex, abstract, hard to read and comprehend, for no good reason.

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constantcrying8mo ago

Many of the things which work well for developing hardware or Mechatronics work terribly for Software. Hardware development is about rigorous processes, any change to a piece of hardware requires a very complex chain of people, as the impact often is hard to predict and will require changes to many other processes, e.g. manufacturing. I do not think this is the entire explanation though.

The US Software industry has succeeded because it is very open to rapid changes, which the nature of software allows, given the right environment.

>The code tends to be more complex, abstract, hard to read and comprehend, for no good reason.

That is exactly the incompetence I am talking about. This gets extremely bad if governments are developing software solutions, where they outsource to a variety of contractors, who all are somewhat incompetent, but together manage to create a real mess. A mess so bad that every user feels the jank.

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