If his primary criteria for "suckage" is non-reliability through unnecessary complexity, he has some decent points.
But such lists are a slippery slope from insightful reflection to axe grinding. It's one thing to debate simplicity and the qualities that emerge in simple software solutions. That is valuable. It is quite another to say that all software sucks and "features" are useless. That's in the eye of the beholder.
Perfectionists tend to be frustrated by the observation that if you want to get paid to build software (as opposed to coding for artistic purposes), the market really doesn't care about internal simplicity, they care about features and qualities. Even more frustrating, the market doesn't value reliability over all other qualities: people have, can, and will pay for something that only works some of the time. Otherwise we wouldn't have had much of an automobile or early PC market.
I am saddened to hear the author is no longer with us, due to suicide. I would have enjoyed him debating his claims on HN.
But such lists are a slippery slope from insightful reflection to axe grinding. It's one thing to debate simplicity and the qualities that emerge in simple software solutions. That is valuable. It is quite another to say that all software sucks and "features" are useless. That's in the eye of the beholder.
Perfectionists tend to be frustrated by the observation that if you want to get paid to build software (as opposed to coding for artistic purposes), the market really doesn't care about internal simplicity, they care about features and qualities. Even more frustrating, the market doesn't value reliability over all other qualities: people have, can, and will pay for something that only works some of the time. Otherwise we wouldn't have had much of an automobile or early PC market.
I am saddened to hear the author is no longer with us, due to suicide. I would have enjoyed him debating his claims on HN.