They were asking me to do technical content writing for their website.
I quickly realised that it's actually the threshold for calling something "perfect", that has lowered over time.

Clearly, I was not fit for that work, because instead of just plagiarising and paraphrasing stuff from other websites, I insisted on reading up on material from multiple sources, understanding it well and then writing it down myself. That makes it pretty slow.

That was a year before ChatGPT, or I would just have used that thingy.

[–] KindaABigDyl 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I agree. We've let the standards for what is good drop.

I think it's mainly because the "just works" mentality has become infectious among engineers. It's one thing when just starting out, but as you learn more and gain experience you should care more.

People do the designing and architecture and programming just because it all pays well, not because they have a love for the craft.

I think the second, slightly less strong reason is because many engineers do not know how to effectively communicate with management when something will result in terribly written software and just do it anyway. Another skill I see less and less amongst my brethren.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

People do the designing and architecture and programming just because it all pays well, not because they have a love for the craft.

True.
I like programming and tend to pride myself in making good code, but when I see other's attitude at work, it makes me reevaluate what I care about.

Perhaps this is the reason of the memetic difference between corporate code quality vs OSS code quality. When I contribute to Open Source (at least to other's projects), I see myself try to be as considerate as possible of multiple factors that I wouldn't even care of at work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

many engineers do not know how to effectively communicate with management when something will result in terribly written software and just do it anyway.

I imagine this is partly a result of bad and misinformed managers too though. There's a lot out there who have 0 clue wtf you do, just that you make computer do thing yet still act like they know your job better than you

spoiler

Not a programmer, but I see this all the time in other fields. And all it takes is someone in upper management only being focused on time or costs, or someone in middle management acting like they know better than everyone else.