Insanity in the software industry

There is an unhealthy amount of insanity in the software industry. Below is presented some evidence for this theory.

Exhibit 1

world wide web and web browsers

(invented by a physics graduate)

over

hypercard, smalltalk/squeak, sgml, latex, corba

(created by computer scientists)

Result: Millions of man hours wasted on browser quirks, and more than a decade of time where there wasn't a fast language, security, and persistency on the client side of the most broadly used software platform (web browsers and the internet). Situation still has not been rectified for most users.

Exhibit 2

Wordprocessors and Spreadsheets

over

Markup languages, extensible text editors and relational databases

Result: Billions of wasted user hours dealing with bug-ridden, slow, inelegant, inflexible, crash-prone software. Thousands of the best programmers work for decades on uninnovative technology.

Exhibit 3

C++, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, Php, Erlang

over

C, Lisp, Prolog, Smalltalk, Haskell, Ocaml, Mozart/oz

Result: Billions of bugs, billions of wasted developer hours, slow running interpreted software wasting billions of hours of computer time.

Exhibit 4

ruby on rails

(Created by a business school graduate in his spare time. Language that it runs in is an -inefficient, poor immitation of common lisp)

over

sql

(invented and built by top computer scientists working at the biggest software companies in the world)

Result: Thousands of brittle unscalable websites. Frequent outtages at twitter until they left rails.

Exhibit 5

Millions of me-too shareware, games, social networks, shopping carts, and scraped made for adsense sites

over

Machine learning trained software to understand video, audio, text. Cheaper and better versions of SAP. Software that augments/replaces tha work of doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, welders, nurses, truck drivers, plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, sales workers, artists, and many more.

Result: SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and others pocket billions and billions for their shareholders. Hospital costs rise. Accountants and lawyers still exist. Plumbers charge a bundle. Software developers complain about outsourcing.