I think people might be a bit offended by what sounds like arrogance. But I completely agree with your general concern that nuts and bolts of making somebody else's software work is often frustrating, complicated and inaccessible while math, logic and domain knowledge is "easy" for many people and far more generally known. Even to the point that it's often easier to write your own thing than bother to learn about an existing one.
A way I sometimes evaluate whether to implement some feature in my work is the ratio of the work it does for the user to the work the user has to do for it. Adding a page header in MS Word used to have a very low ratio. A web based LLM is at the other extreme. Installing a bunch of interdependent finicky software just to do simple child-level programming for HA seems like a poor ratio too.
Thank you so much for that comment. I really appreciate the feedback.
I do sometimes come off as arrogant. That's unfortunate, and in part due to my cultural background. It's helpful feedback. It's difficult to be downvoted or attacked, and not know why.
I will mention: They're just different skill sets. I know people who can dive into a complex piece of code or dev-ops infrastructure and understand it in hours or days. I'm just not one of them.
Learning to design control systems is a very deep (and rather obscure) pile of mathematics which takes many years of study and is a highly specialized. I picked it up for oddball reasons a few decades ago. Doing proper control systems requires a lot of advanced linear algebra, rational functions, frequency domain analysis, parts of differential equations, etc. That's not the same thing as general math skills. Most people who specialize in this field work in Matlab, wouldn't know what docker is, and in terms of general mathematics, have never taken a course on abstract algebra or topology. Even something like differential equations, one needs only a surface understanding of (it disappears when one shifts to Laplace domain or matrix state space representations).
There's a weird dynamic where things we can't do often seem easier or harder than ones we can. Here, I just have a specialized skillset relevant to the conversation. That doesn't imply I'm a genius, or even a brilliant mathematician.
That just implies I can design an optimal control system. Especially for a system with dynamics as simple as room lighting. And would have a fun time doing that for everything in HA in my house and sharing.
I'd really like to have other things work the same way too, for that matter, where e.g. my HVAC runs heating 24/7 at the right level, rather than toggling on and off. With my background, the intimidating part isn't the math or the electronics, but the dev-ops.
A way I sometimes evaluate whether to implement some feature in my work is the ratio of the work it does for the user to the work the user has to do for it. Adding a page header in MS Word used to have a very low ratio. A web based LLM is at the other extreme. Installing a bunch of interdependent finicky software just to do simple child-level programming for HA seems like a poor ratio too.