It goes without saying that your feelings are personal ones, totally valid, and nobody can really question them.
I'm 20 years behind you, and I don't know what effect that will have on my views. But I don't really recognise the picture you're painting. Compared to the first steps I took as a developer about 15 years ago, almost everything about software development seems better to me. I find developing software to be easier, more consistent, and less frustrating than it used to be. Good development practices—things like testing, CI, coding standards and so on—seem more prevalent than they used to be. It's easier to get code out to production than it ever was. Everything in the ecosystem—like tooling, libraries, and services—feel far more open, consistent, and accessible than they used to.
I am almost certain that on the whole I spend a far greater proportion of my time now actually writing code that does interesting things, as opposed to code that hacks together some junk to try and make it work with other junk.
I think I'd draw the conclusion that everybody's opinion on how the industry works is going to be heavily influenced by their individual experiences. Maybe I just enjoy software right now because I've now got the technical competence and confidence to avoid some of the frustrations that I experienced earlier in my career, and in another 20 years I'll be right there with you lamenting the state of the industry. Who knows?
I'm 20 years behind you, and I don't know what effect that will have on my views. But I don't really recognise the picture you're painting. Compared to the first steps I took as a developer about 15 years ago, almost everything about software development seems better to me. I find developing software to be easier, more consistent, and less frustrating than it used to be. Good development practices—things like testing, CI, coding standards and so on—seem more prevalent than they used to be. It's easier to get code out to production than it ever was. Everything in the ecosystem—like tooling, libraries, and services—feel far more open, consistent, and accessible than they used to.
I am almost certain that on the whole I spend a far greater proportion of my time now actually writing code that does interesting things, as opposed to code that hacks together some junk to try and make it work with other junk.
I think I'd draw the conclusion that everybody's opinion on how the industry works is going to be heavily influenced by their individual experiences. Maybe I just enjoy software right now because I've now got the technical competence and confidence to avoid some of the frustrations that I experienced earlier in my career, and in another 20 years I'll be right there with you lamenting the state of the industry. Who knows?