zlacker

> 90-99% of programming is a waste of time. Most apps today have less than a single spreadsheet page of actual business logic.

I would very much like to know the kind of app you’ve seen. It’s very hard to see something like mpv, calibre, abiword, cmus,… through that lens. Even web apps like forgejo, gonic, sr.ht, don’t fit into that view.

>>skydha+(OP)
Fair enough. I meant social network websites and social media apps like Facebook and TikTok that could have been made in a weekend using HyperCard, FileMaker, Microsoft Access, etc, if we had real reactive backends similar to Firebase, Airtable and Zapier, which come so close to almost working for normal people but miss the mark fundamentally somehow.

I know that programming has gone terribly wrong, but it's hard for me to articulate how, because it's all of it - the entire frontend web development ecosystem, mobile development languages and frameworks, steep learning curve languages like Rust that were supposed to make things easier but put the onus on the developer to get the busywork right, everything basically. It's like trying to explain screws to craftsmen only familiar with nails.

In the simplest terms, it's because corporations are driving the development of those tools and vacuuming up all profits on the backs of open sources maintainers working in their parents' basements, rather than universities working from first principles to solve hard problems and give solutions away to everyone for free for the good of society. We've moved from academia to slavery and call it progress.