Hot Takes about Software Engineering

• 1 min read

Inspired by Wesley Aptekar-Cassels’ post (which was inspired by this), here are some of my hot takes on software engineering.

  • The crux of software engineering is minimizing complexity
  • Luck has a more significant role in conventional success than many of us think
  • A system that depends on infallible humans is anything but
  • As a whole, the industry is too tolerant of bugs and inefficiencies
  • Considerably more software is mission-critical than we realize
  • The industry heavily incentivizes local maxima
  • We don’t expect nearly enough from our tools
  • Dynamic typing hurts developer velocity on day one
  • The machine learning industry’s dependence on Python holds it back and ultimately makes us less safe
  • Taylor Swift is the optimal ambient music for coding