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0 pointswhatever12mo ago0 comments

I don’t know, but the evidence shows that software engineering is not that deep of an art.

People come and go at rates that would not be sustainable in any manufacturing business.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

wg02mo ago· 1 in thread

Interesting take. We are not going to talk about Office, Windows, Adobe or Autodesk products here. Neither Linux kernel.

Just classified ads or e-commerce platforms such as gumroad and shopify are complex enough that a single person cannot master them end to end. The domain is huge to master and takes a lots of time to master.

whatever1OP2mo ago

Have you ever seen a tech company calling a 65y.o. retired wizard to debug a system failure? I doubt it.

In manufacturing it so regular, that typically senior technical people retire as soon as possible to form their consulting firms and charge much higher rates, just by selling their multi-decade expertise back to their company.

In oil & gas, there are consulting firms that their role is to just store and provide domain knowledge to companies who lost their experts.

In tech, consulting firms provide cheap labor.

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heisenbit2mo ago

Yes, businesses tend to believe that.

No, every time people switch knowledge gets lost and code quality degrades.

In part I blame accounting rules justifying investments is easier than maintenance.

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