Re:The Browser Monopoly
by TeMPOraL on Wednesday August 21, 2019 @11:32AM
(#20758174)
> The idea that computing can and should be fundamentally reinvented has been the most exciting discovery of my life.
This was one of the more depressing discoveries of mine.
"Reinvention" works by the main stream of this industry having knowledge half-life on the order of decade or less. Instead of building on top of prior work, we keep reinventing the old stuff; sometimes better, but usually very poorly - I attribute this to bad incentives. In the 70s they had time to think about what they're actually doing. In 2010s we have constant race to the market, and "move fast and break things" culture, which leads to layers of crappy abstractions that keeps relative performance of our software on the level of 1980s while delivering little usability on top.
This was one of the more depressing discoveries of mine.
"Reinvention" works by the main stream of this industry having knowledge half-life on the order of decade or less. Instead of building on top of prior work, we keep reinventing the old stuff; sometimes better, but usually very poorly - I attribute this to bad incentives. In the 70s they had time to think about what they're actually doing. In 2010s we have constant race to the market, and "move fast and break things" culture, which leads to layers of crappy abstractions that keeps relative performance of our software on the level of 1980s while delivering little usability on top.