Its really tough to change that mindset though, once it takes hold, its so deeply ingrained. ("Ober sticht unter").

Basically the whole education system needs to push discussions more, were you have to argue a point, proof you are right and stick to your guns. Something regarding this is going right in some education systems and cultures, and fails utterly in others. Its a education to lead, instead of education to be led.

But thats the point. Doing as you are told, often includes reimplementation after remimplementation in germany, not improving upon pre existing software. Not resisting useless usecases, you already know are doomed by experience, but are specified anyway. 5 versions of the same object, collected on a usb and even copied back down (remote) from customer machines.

Exampletime:

A thousand versions of a cylinder valve controller software for a plc floating around a machine builder.

Instead of writting one for each version of statefullness and interfaces to encapsulate the different usecases. (Can be done with TC3) shared by all collagues via Git.

IOpenCloseable {} and that then can be used for example for a drive home routine

DrivePointHome() {

  foreach (IOpenCloseable cylinder in allElementsInHomestateInOpeningOrder)

  {

    cylinder.open()

    wait(cylinder.isOpen())

  }

}

And there you have it. Configuration instead of programming. Reusability instead of Recreating. Testability (https://tcunit.org/).

It could all be done. It is done, good, elsewhere on the planet, daily.

In my last career we fought this mentality, to exaustion.

Now im out of it, im just waiting for someone with the mindset to swoop in, disrupt and clean that space out with the effectiveness of good software. There really is no reason to employ half a million electricians to program subpar software when you can have it better for cheap.