Software is just a tool, not a solution

I am primarily an engineer so software to me is as intuitive as any other method of implementing a logical machine. Its easy. Except that if you take me out of context, into, say, an applications environment my productivity flounders. What's the problem?

The answer is simple. Programming is just an expression of problem solving. The real money is knowing how to solve the problem, not how to crank out code. Non-programmers and even some less enlightened programmers don't understand this, they like their applications templates because they can make things work with them, but all they're doing is driving the car that someone else designed for them. If the need to step outside the boundaries of their tool they're, not too put too fine a point on it, screwed.

Business people like to reduce creative processes to rote because it allows interchangeability ("flexibility") of staff. Large companies spend a lot of time and effort on processes, they're supposedly to increase quality but it all boils down to trying to de-skill skilled workers. (Skilled workers have power, they don't like that because it makes them uncomfortable.)

I avoid the bloatware. I have my own problems. Its amazing how easy it is to run off the edge of your knowledge or capabilities once you start messing around inside a computer -- sometimes really simple tasks are impossible, intuitive algorithms don't scale, really Mickey Mouse stuff is just off the scale difficult. Its what makes life worth living.

Purple Prose... HyperRadioActive Pros

"Simonyi was quick to point out his friend is leaving behind his day-to-day duties at the company to focus on the Gates Foundation, solving bigger problems than software development"

How very bizarre that he doesn't realise that they are both inextricably linked.

A most definite case of "Not seeing the wood for the trees".

""Software programming for multicore is hot, and some of you have the opportunity to be the next Microsoft if you can solve these multicore issues," Agarwal said."..... and aint that the gospel truth.

Who would bet against it being developed Virtually Online, Registering ITs Prior Art Patent credentials in Simple Text Shared?

And I wonder when El Reg will realise what is going on and what is be floated, intentionally, out of the Bletchley Archives, Turing Module?

Simonyi's race has already been run and won. IT is now just a case of collecting the Danegeld reward which reveals the code which will automatically, by selfish Third Party Proxy Default, completely destroy Systems in Markets..... and just so as not to be ambiguous, that does mean any System in any Market.

AIMagic Spell from Blithe Blighty Boffins? Or a Rampant, Rutting Stag of AIdDriver Program? And is there any difference?

Another layer to add some bloat - just what is needed...

...not.

Except by the sellers of bigger and better hardware who can sell us boxes that will just about let the code limp along.

I actually wanted a smart car so I bought a BMW and configured it so that it looks and runs like a smart car.