AI Didn't Simplify Software Engineering: It Just Made Bad Engineering Easier

https://robenglander.com/writing/ai-did-not-simplify/

#HackerNews #AI #Software #Engineering #BadEngineering #Technology #Innovation

Quotes that haven't aged well.

"All tests are good tests."
-- Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate

#BadEngineering
#StupidIrony

With #Qt5 the `QVariant(int typeId, const void *copy)` constructor would produce a `QVariant` with a default constructed value, if called with `copy = nullptr`.

With #Qt6 this constructor got replaced by a version that takes a QMetaType as first argument, and produces a null value of the given type.

Replacing the `int` is highly appreciated, but why this behavioral change?

Who approves such changes? How many projects do you want to break?

@qt

#Qt #CPlusPlus #BadEngineering

Who ever thought that

if (auto query = QSqlQuery{database}; !query.exec(u"SELECT ..."))

is so much better than the decades old

if (auto query = database.exec(u"SELECT ..."))

that it justifies millions of lines of Qt code getting changed...

@qt #qt #cplusplus #refactoring #deprecations #badengineering

This is not acceptable #errorhandling. Writing such sloopy code is #badengineering.

#jenkins #gitlab

Seen in a thrift store today. Some engineer, somewhere, on some machine, designed a bolt so inaccessible that it requires this abomination, a two-foot long 19mm socket with a hex drive.

#BadEngineering #tools #BadDesign #HowDidThisHappen #thrifting #why

Incompetent programming of the week award goes to Garmin watches. Imagine you are trail running and tired and trying to navigate complex terrain. You set the panel on the watch to “navigate”. Garmin decides, mostly at random, to switch to different screens! Ha ha, isn’t it great how we show you the things you have no need of and didn’t ask for?

Do engineers at Garmin dogfood their own product?

#trailrun #trailfail #badengineering

Did you know that the largest engineering failure wasn’t Russia’s Chernobyl, it was Russia and China’s 1975 Banqiao Dam failure?

Likely over 200,000 killed by Mao Zedong’s rush to invigorate China’s economy. Whistleblower ignored.

The accident was suppressed for two decades.

#BadEngineering
#Disasters
#ChairmanMao
#Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

Another #Tesla slammed into a firetruck, this time killing its operator (driver?) on a #California highway. "At least 14 Teslas have #crashed into emergency vehicles while using self-driving systems," AP reports. Shouldn't #lifesafety be a basic #engineering principle in #autopilot development? The #FAA would never allow this in air travel... why doesn't #Congress act to stop it on the #roads? https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1158367204/tesla-driver-killed-california-firetruck-nhtsa

#AI #BadEngineering #EngineeringEthics #SelfDriving #TeslaSuicide #MuskPurge