‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

The Normalization of Inexplicable Failures

277 points · 124 comments · pxx

  1. pmarreck · · focus · HN ↗
    I am big on reproducibility (nix aficionado) and determinism (flagging test failures are a red-alert, all-hands-on-deck situation in my world) and correctness.

    I am also big on testing (the correct things). And nine-nines (big on Elixir).

    And... I'm also big on agent-assisted dev. Which requires pretty much every check in the book to stay productive in. And that's fine to me. I've seen bugs that I wouldn't have made myself. And I've also seen my own bugs fixed. They've all gotten fixed in short order. I don't see why this is a problem.

    Raise your personal standards.

    Thing is, the unreliable-software situation was already untenable before agents (in poor hands) made it worse.

    1. majormajor · · focus · HN ↗
      > Thing is, the unreliable-software situation was already untenable before agents (in poor hands) made it worse.

      I have definitely seen more bafflingly-poor OSS software that just plain doesn't work frequently now than before.

      But it's mostly software that wouldn't have existed before because it's trying to do super-niche things. So on the "hobby" side of things, whatever.

      But from a "trying to develop software as a business that you want to be a going concern," quality from people who should know better is less tenable than it used to be.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.