> We're a clown industry. We only made it this far because, usually, buggy code doesn't kill people and we can iterate and patch things quickly

I think you have things backwards. Devs aren't clowns who make it this far. But in industries where buggy code doesn't kill people, devs are expected to ship fast and iterate, because they can and more importantly, it serves the business.

Personally, I'm all about good software engineering principles, unfortunately I don't think you can last long in most companies if you're too opinionated about this and can't compromise (and it's getting even worse with AI, reading the code is no longer a requirement, go explain your teammate that there's an abstraction leak in their code...).

Yes... there are statisticians on my team, for example. They're capable, thoughtful individuals however have little exposure to the oblique and (outwardly) contradictory ways in which production software fails.

But explaining that openly, as is your duty, means surfacing something which could be read as 'bad work' by a non-technical manager unable to grasp the complexity. So in low-trust teams it very quickly becomes a game of brinkmanship, or a prisoner's dilemma for technical diligence

Thank you! I entered the industry a lot more meticulous, test driven development, integration tests, end-to-end.

But shipping faster was pushed at almost every company until, if it's not revenue generating, stop putting resources into it. Not all are like this but it's not all or nothing, it's always a sliding scale how much you can put into making the software correct.

"Forgive yourself for not knowing earlier what only Time could teach" This quote holds for both individuals and groups alike.

Shipping bad software does not serve the business indefinitely. Application/product security was expensive relative to its perceived value, so it was underfunded nearly everywhere.

2026 is saying "here is the consequence."

If only it were that simple!

Look at the solo projects from professional devs with nobody overseeing them. Look at what so many of your colleagues submit despite the frustration of your thoughtful team lead and manager. Look at what your so many of your team leads asks for even when they've been granted full discretion. Some select few are great, but most are disturbing if you have any sense of quality or preparedness yourself.

Even for decades before AI, there was lazy naive misguided slop everywhere. During the social coding era of the last 15 years this even amplified itself, streamers and influencers and conference presenters -- professional developers themselves -- would share horrid practices to wide applause. Moving fast and breaking things was what developers were excited about. Rigor was dead. Correctness was a problem for later. Code was presumed best written by a rando on github who'd accumulated a lot of stars rather than by a known responsible hand. Security was a copy and paste job from Stack Overflow, not something to be comprehended and considered.

If only it were a top down problem from outsiders!

But the truth is that the call has been coming from inside the house all along, and the outsiders giving direction have had no problem finding celebrated industry "experts" and "thought leaders" affirming and encouraging all the clowning they could imagine.

Developers could always move fast and do things right but most just didn't have any interest in learning how, and many of those who might have just gave up on bothering.

This - 100%.

Just take a look at some of the opensource academic, infrastructure or "passion-projects", where there is no management pressures to "move fast & break-things" and ship-ship-ship. They tend to be very stable, very predictable - and very high quality.

you mean industries where software can kill people like pacemakers?

https://ijcionline.com/paper/13/13224ijci12.pdf

Wow, it’s almost like it’s really hard to get everything perfectly right and this is endemic to software, particularly when the language accepts incorrect code.

The only two things we know mitigate this are proofs (eg rust borrow checker, lean, etc) and DST which is basically the equivalent of accelerated time testing which is done in other industries too. Most people don’t even bother with property testing

> Devs aren't clowns who make it this far.

simias referred to the industry and you took it personally.

Why is it whenever someone mentions the shortcomings of software industry, there is always a comment saying "no no no, developers were just following orders!"

He spoke of a clown industry. That means the industry as a whole. That includes, but by far isn't limited to, the devs. Which of course have to operate in an environment, most of them set by their employers. And of course, responsibility scales with the position in the hierarchy. So yes, to a large part it is the management setting deadlines, budgets, staffing and planning allowing for technical soundness and of course safety and security.

But also every developer has a responsibility. At least not to promote any technology which is part of the problem.