Engineer Denis Stetskov has raised alarms about the state of software quality, citing Apple’s Calculator app leaking 32GB of RAM as a stark example. This incident, which would have warranted an emergency response a decade ago, is now a minor bug report. Stetskov suggests that the problem lies in the layers of abstractions in contemporary software development, resulting in substantial overhead and inefficiencies. The piece warns that this crisis is not merely a technical issue but a fundamental challenge in the sustainability of modern computing systems.
Stetskov argues that the software quality crisis predates the rise of AI, with AI merely exacerbating existing issues. The article posits that modern software development is built on a tower of abstractions, each adding incremental overhead. This includes technologies like React, Electron, Chromium, Docker, Kubernetes, VMs, managed databases, and API gateways. Each layer adds ‘only 20-30%,’ but when combined, they result in a 2-6x overhead for the same functionality. This cumulative effect is how a basic calculator app ends up leaking 32GB of RAM, a problem not due to intentional design but due to unchecked inefficiencies.
The article calls attention to the unsustainable nature of the current software quality crisis, warning that the physical constraints of computing systems are reaching their limits. Energy is finite, and hardware has its bounds. The piece argues that companies investing heavily in avoiding fundamental problems are not the ones that will survive. Instead, those who remember the fundamentals of engineering are more likely to endure. Stetskov’s critique serves as a wake-up call to the tech industry about the need for a return to core engineering principles.