> Compared to what? C? I'm not talking about C, but about any modern language.
The domain they tackle is personal computing, which means Kernel, Windowing system, remote communication (web/mail), multimedia… So, yeah: mostly C and C++, by the look of currently popular programs.
That said, much of the (apparently) needlessly complex stuff I have seen was written in C++, and it did look like they didn't have the real-time requirements or resources constraints that would justify the use of such a monster of a language.
> Or, at least, everybody (including me when I first saw them) says "this cannot possibly be this complicated", and after understanding them, everybody says, "oh, OK".
I have yet to reach the second stage. And on one occasion, I did reach a reasonable understanding of the whole system. It definitely had to be very complex to match the specification, but the specifications themselves didn't match the end user's needs.
> (or that, alternatively, waste is unavoidable)
That's the alternative I'm most scared of. I cannot comprehend unavoidable waste, but I can't rule it out either.
Alternatively, I've came across the idea of not solving some problems¹, because the return on investment is just crap. Okay, when safety is involved, you probably cannot do that. Still, the idea that the 80/20 rule is sometimes more like 99.9/0.1 is enticing. Sometimes, full automation is not best. For instance last I checked, the best Chess player ever is a human-computer team, not a computer.
> I've came across the idea of not solving some problems
That, too, cannot be solved by a programming language :)
But much of complex software deals with things that could not possibly have been solved more efficiently (or even efficiently enough) by humans (like sensor fusion, package tracking, manufacturing control etc.). Also, we're pretty far from full automation. Nobody trusts computers to make the decisions in air-traffic control systems, power plant control software, or even in ERP systems.
The reason we keep building large software is that -- in spite of many problems -- they really do work (in the sense of achieving their goal of higher-throughput; whether or not a higher throughput of flights or of business deals is good or bad for humanity is an entirely separate question).
The domain they tackle is personal computing, which means Kernel, Windowing system, remote communication (web/mail), multimedia… So, yeah: mostly C and C++, by the look of currently popular programs.
That said, much of the (apparently) needlessly complex stuff I have seen was written in C++, and it did look like they didn't have the real-time requirements or resources constraints that would justify the use of such a monster of a language.
> Or, at least, everybody (including me when I first saw them) says "this cannot possibly be this complicated", and after understanding them, everybody says, "oh, OK".
I have yet to reach the second stage. And on one occasion, I did reach a reasonable understanding of the whole system. It definitely had to be very complex to match the specification, but the specifications themselves didn't match the end user's needs.
> (or that, alternatively, waste is unavoidable)
That's the alternative I'm most scared of. I cannot comprehend unavoidable waste, but I can't rule it out either.
Alternatively, I've came across the idea of not solving some problems¹, because the return on investment is just crap. Okay, when safety is involved, you probably cannot do that. Still, the idea that the 80/20 rule is sometimes more like 99.9/0.1 is enticing. Sometimes, full automation is not best. For instance last I checked, the best Chess player ever is a human-computer team, not a computer.
[1] Stop Over-Engineering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRr4xeMn1uU