The deterioration of IT

We call that "live testing".

In the 10 or so years of using windows 7 I don't remember having a single issue.

With windows 10 something horrid happens once a week at least - changes not saved, file lost due to a cloud sync error, scheduled restart closed all my programs now have to recover them.

The problem is that people don't care what issues things have becasue they think the latest thing is always the best. I'm sure someone will get offended with me saying 7 is better than 10...

Windows7 was a fine OS, probably the best designed OS MS did in terms of design and user interface.

I don't mind windows 10, it works, dont have a choice in enterprise, you have to be on an OS that can be patched for security vulnerabilities.

We still have a few server 2008r2 boxes on our infrastructure that need their apps migrated and then the OS Shut down.

I got a ZX81 in 1982 and a ZX Spectrum in early 1984. We had a black and white portable (purchased in late 70s) so both were plugged into that. About one third of my class in the CBS had computers then. The richest lads had BBC Micros and Commodore 64s. One had an Oric-1, another a Vic 20. The rest of us had Spectrums and there was loads of game trading done.

This - you definitely hit the nail on the head. I've been working in or around software development for the last 20-something years, and I've witnessed the descent into this state of madness. "Agile" is just an excuse for "never finished" and to be officially let to release programs in a state that is often borderline unusable ("minimum viable features" my ass, it's more "minimum BILLABLE features").

The biggest issue by far is the lack of specifications, as you mention: product management produces some simple, useless "GUI mockup" in the form of a PNG file (I've even seen badly compressed JPGs); Then a GUI team that is made of DEVELOPERS and not designers, implement what is effectively their own interpretation of said mockup - and then QA tests according their own interpretation of whatever the dev team serves them. No amount of "communication" will solve the issue of missing/poor specs.

The issue mentioned in the OP is exactly a result of that - the function was implemented without a specification, nobody looked at it twice. And when they did, "best interpretation" was the approach - the programmer working on it clearly happened to be unfamiliar with how international phone numbers are encoded...et voila', you have a sh1tty implementation!

I like windows 7,i have no problem with windows 10, never lost any data, windows 7 is full of security issues, no longer supported, no updates, the problem is see is many games, apps presume you have a 24 7 online connection. I think every techie has nostalgia, when you are over 50,in my day you had to know your pc, os Language, we had 500meg ram, and a 20gig hardrive. Some factory's or company's use windows 7 because certain devices or machines don't work with windows 10.windows 7 was not designed to be online 24,7

When I went to school there was no official. computer course, on the curriculum maybe UK schools had pcs or the bbc micro, Sinclair spectrums or commodore amigas were popular.

So is the problem here that IT people are too "nerdy" or not nerdy enough. Or are lacking diligence or attention to detail. Or people who had no real interest in or aptitude for IT have chosen it as a career because of the perception that riches await.

A lot of people in various professions are winging it. Once they get paid, they have not a shred of guilt about doing a sloppy job and leaving a mess behind them. Too busy (or think they are) to give much thought to anything. Blurt out or throw down whatever comes into theIr head and if it appears to solve a problem (for now) or get someone off their back (for now), it's good. I have experienced this with various professions from doctors to scientists to tradesmen.

Your problem is with MonkeyButter not me.

I just gave my experience and being curious looked up the prices.

Perhaps I never noticed them because I had no interest at the time.

Where did I say use "not possible" or "Extremely Rich" exactly.

Often valid issues are ignored with the excuse it needs to be done quickly. But in reality its just a means of bypassing doing it properly, or having their opinion questioned.

Then afterwards when it becomes a nightmare they avoid any criticism with excuse, it was the only way at the time, and they didn't know about anything else. Then they move on to their next disaster.

OP, I'd agree to a certain extent, but you might be looking at the past through slightly rose tinted glasses

I'd be of a similar vintage to yourself by the sounds of it and would have had a similar career trajectory, so while I'd agree there's an awful lot of sloppiness out there, you have to frame this against the Microsoft driven horrorshow that persisted up until they finally started to get their act together in the late noughties. Windows OS and application code full of buffer overruns that made it trivial to inject code and root a system though malicious ActiveX (shudder) controls. And not just Windows, I've been using primarily Linux and other Unix like OSes since the mid 90s and they've all had their fair share of vulnerabilities over the years. Apple I'd imagine are similar, but I don't track them, and they tend to fix stuff quietly from what I can see

Core platform quality is therefore way better than it was 20-25 years ago. Pre mid 90s it didn't really matter all that much as hardware was rarely connected to the Internet and when it was, it was generally intermittent (metered dial-up)

You are correct though in pointing the finger at wide ranging poor standards. If development of a service is contracted out, it'll be entirely cost driven, so testing and QA is the first thing that's going to suffer. How much may depend on how savvy the commissioning entity is WRT validating that it handles various situations and edge cases (such as the 4 digit GPRN mentioned earlier). All this stuff can almost always be put in automated test suites which will prevent breakage down the line, but this can take as much time as writing the actual code itself, so it's not as widespread a practice as it should be.

The real worry these days is not what happens on the backend to all that data you give them, but that's another story and hopefully not a matter for the data protection commissioner

1980s was a decade of recession, unemployment and emigration.

Irish Interest Rates

1980	14.15%
1981	16.25%
1982	16.25%
1983	13%
1984	11.75%
1985	13%
1986	12.5%
1987	12.5%
1988	9.25%
1989	11.4%
1990	12.37%

But computers certainly started to appear. I wasn't interested enough to notice many. I can't find any stats on it though. I only really got interested in at the start of the 1990s.

i did

1960s to present, history of PCs, even includes your machine

Working class in the 80's meant it was a struggle to buy a new pair of shoes, not buy a computer. I would say rose tinted glasses but it's more delusional to think you were working class or to put yourself in that category.

Game consoles and gaming is entirely different thing.

1982, the 2600 cost Atari was sold for an average of $125 (equivalent to $350 in 2021).

Don't have to remember back then if we can google it today. looking at economic conditions certainly gives a very different context to what your suggesting.