I think we've let ourselves get distracted by languages, frameworks, and design patterns. We've forgotten what computing is. Ultimately, computing is about receiving data, transforming it, and writing it to an output.
+--------------+ +--------------+ +--------------+
| input |-------->| transform |--------->| output |
+--------------+ +--------------+ +--------------+
Anything outside of this is making things more complicated and bloated than they need to be.
Of course, there is the complication called the real world. Data must be represented and transformed using the physical world according to physical laws. This means we have to worry about things like the physical representation of our numbers, cache lines, memory management, etc.
There's nothing wrong with dealing with these things. It is part of the problem we must solve. However, like some grotesque Rube Goldberg device, we invent numerous complications and proclaim that they help us compute. Things like object oriented programming, frameworks, and design patterns.
We forget that every convenience also comes at a cost. What makes software engineering earn that "engineering" term at the end is the careful consideration of tradeoffs. At nearly every turn we are trading performance, conciseness, and good design for convenience. Doing an npm install that takes 11 minutes is considered normal. Millions of lines are considered normal. What's really bad is people are making excuses for their sloppiness by saying they "provide value".
I am not talking to the average programmer here. They won't understand this talk. This is for the people who know and understand that our discipline is a craft, and that there is an art to it. We can do better.
We don't have to choose between developing concise, fast software and meeting a deadline. That is a false dichotomy. People who do engineering with good iterative design can actually develop software considerably faster than those who develop sloppy software and call it "providing value".
The way we can change how things are done is by showing it can be done. Start making good software. Start making concise software. Start making fast software. Let one person be more productive than a team of 20!
Happy coding!