Comment by shevy-java

4 days ago

I think the article misses a bit the main focus. For instance:

> My LG fridge started making weird sounds, so I tried to file a warranty claim, through a multi-step form with countless fields. It failed with a submission error at the very end. And I only found out because I looked at the JavaScript console.

Has that JavaScript code been written by AI? It may be more likely that it was written by humans. Well, the design of JavaScript really sucks, the language is both successful and horrible to use, in my opinion. And we have that issue across the board. Most programming languages really suck. C, for instance - that language is an abomination. But it is even more successful than JavaScript. Today I ran into the issue that I can not compile libpng; I keep on bailing out at it unable to find setjmp. About two months ago compiling it worked fine. I most likely did screw something up on my local system but ... the compiler is an idiot. It really does not tell me WHY it can not compile it anymore. Yes, it shows on the commandline that it assumes setjmp to exist but it can not find it. The error messages are pure and bogus. And the whole design of C cascades this horrible crap downwards. The languages that supposedly try to replace C also suck. Go? Yikes. Rust? Even more verbose. C++? Trying to replace C since decades. There is a ton of inertia.

The whole stack is utter gutter trash really. Everything is build up atop layers of complexity that in turn are not really well designed at all. Meanwhile more and more software is added. Now I need python due to meson, and meson is better than what came before. But it adds complexity. And has its own problems too. AI does not really fix anything here, it just AI slop spams on top of this. We kind of lost big at engineering. People are in general also not critical anymore. The design of most programming language shows that - including ruby, but ruby is barely used, so really the issue is mostly about C. The fact that C is so successful makes this even worse, since nothing replaces it. We just keep on adding more and more. Or we go the C++ way - and make it about 50x as complex. Or Rust - that syntax is even worse than C syntax which is also horrible. Of course even with great syntax and a great language, horrible software will be written. Companies want to offer a billion useless features. Many years ago I thought it was cool if my fridge tells me what I should order. Since the day of companies spying on people, I go back to simplicity at all times.

Heh, the support form failing want a bug, more like a feature. Look how much money they are saving not providing support. Also, the product is better than ever, nobody is returning them or needing them fixed!