Current Software Engineers have no Deep Knowledge (Jonathan Blow)

[Darth Vader]

At one point, I worked for a company that was founded and had a long successful history with a Java based product. One day, they decided to start developing an equivalent product in C++. Some customers wanted that, I guess.
So, they started hiring C++ developers with the most generic "write a parser" and "what is this design pattern" interviews I can think of.

The thing is, they hired C++ developers to keep their team under "experienced Java-minded" scrum masters, architects and managers.

You can imagine what ensued. Toxic work environment, horrible verbose API, shit performance, unhappy frustrated employees, etc.

And I can also imagine that a lot of people blamed their colleagues and not the boss that made those decisions. It's the lay of the land nowadays, unfortunately.

It's even better when companies that offer on premise solutions decide to turn into a SaaS and instead of hiring specialised people, they decide to just have their existing engineers with sometimes limited to no cloud experience work on infra. It's just... Chefs kiss.

 

[ethomaz]

I agree.

I’m trying to teach some new software engineers and I keep asking myself if they are in the correct job

Of course sometimes you meet a real pearl and it is a joy to teach in this case.

 

[JAHGamer]

You don't need deep knowledge. The only people that require deep knowledge are people building game engines, which isn't most game devs.

 

[Polyh3dron]

Most game devs in 2024 don't need to know low level programming.

 

[Sircaw]

I agree.

I’m trying to teach some new software engineers and I keep asking myself if they are in the correct job

Of course sometimes you meet a real pearl and it is a joy to teach in this case.

I had the same sort of issue when I tried to fit that damn screw into my Ps5 base.

Thank god for youtube tutorials on how to use a screwdriver.

 

[Snes nes]

The real problem is that too much software became needlessly complex. And by this, I mean, over engineered. The rise of OOP and "high level" programming languages that force it onto everything like Java or C# is a large contributor.

Its kinda why I just wanted to learn c. Python's got its uses but it just seems so sluggish for larger tasks. I've heard its actually worse than basic in some manners lol.

 

[Nhomnhom]

You don't need deep knowledge. The only people that require deep knowledge are people building game engines, which isn't most game devs.

That is only true if you are a mediocre dev that isn't pushing any technology. Most Sony studios work on their own engines.

Even on more simple games, deep knowledge might be required for them to come up with interesting mechanics and a more polished game.

We have plenty of examples of games with huge technical flaws.

 

[anonpuffs]

You don't need deep knowledge. The only people that require deep knowledge are people building game engines, which isn't most game devs.

that's how you get shitty games
the only people who can afford to not have that kind of knowledge while building a game are indie devs who can just use unity

 

[Nomen_Nescio]

The fuck up on the recent FFVII Rebirth demo is a good example of how we got used to low quality software. How could a entire studio not realize that something was messed up and that performance mode was unjustifiably blurry? It's just a demo so far but I wouldn't be surprised if the issues makes it all the way to the released game.

I remember watching the demo being played on the PS Access YT channel and the pop in was very noticeable.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

You don't need deep knowledge. The only people that require deep knowledge are people building game engines, which isn't most game devs.

You always need deep knowledge, your game will at some point need optimization, or would benefit from it. Your artists don't need to code, but they need to understand the context their art is used in, same for all roles involved, so they can adapt their creations to the tech, or push its boundaries.