Specialize in software design and DX. VPE at Helios (FinTech). bsky: https://nitter.gq/t.co/E07HCRXXb6 | mastodon: @maxim@ruby.social
Upstate NY
Joined December 2007
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The best kind of programming is not when you get a lot done, but when you painstakingly spend extra time to arrive at something so simple and elegant that it ironically looks effortless and not worthy of any special regard.
This thread hits hard, ngl. Not what's being said, but whom it's coming from. I've been thinking it, but hoped that I'm wrong and people like Mario would exemplify the counterpoint.
Aforeposted meme aside, I think the new reality of building a viable business is: you need to offer something more tangible than software. A pass through a real barrier, like proprietary access to something, red tape, unique knowledge. Tech glue alone is a losing battle.
Opus just wrote me a script without using any of my coding, docs, and review procedures. I asked why, it said "I treated them as optional, even though it says _always_". This is in Claude Code. I don't think it ever did that in Pi via API. 🤔
Just loaded up my "dot" with a bunch of chores that I never got to tackle before. Let's see how it goes. The cool thing about a managed product is that I don't have to think about software updates and memory management.
Technical barriers are lowering now, so app-only businesses are losing value prop. However, there are still physical world, red tape, legal, regulatory barriers. If your business reaches into that, it is more likely to remain standing.
Everyone: “ai is good enough now”
Also everyone: “let’s see who’s the dev building this slop to make sure it’s well made”
I wonder if the same people who never read code also never read their agent skills and configs, and end up with bigger and bigger mess that probably works worse than if they just removed all of it.
5% AI failure rate can feel worse than 20% human one. I think it's because the failures don't overlap.
For humans it feels extra super bad to see an AI fail where you wouldn't have.
Extra super duper bad when talking about self-driving cars.
That’s what I call solution hoarding.
Adding features (and complexity) makes your program less appealing, not more.
Software systems exist to solve a problem. Anything that's not laser-focused on the solution is an annoyance, and building that cruft is worse than money down a hole. It can lose us customers.
AI, when used in the six-month's-work-in-a-week feature-factory mode, adds nothing but undesirable features and complexity. Just sayin'.
One of the biggest insights I've picked up later in life: everything you own owns you back. It takes maintenance, and mental space. The more complex and obscure it is, the more it owns you. This is just as true of the software we build, especially now.
I don't want to build a million things with AI, because I'm not a solutions hoarder. I've grown to resist the urge to solve all perceived problems, because only a few of them are real, and almost never what they seem at first. Clutter taxes my mental well being.
"Stop bottlenecking development by reading code" say people who work on fun/convenience utilities and games. "We must review code" say people who work on finance, medical, low-level infra. Why so godddamn polarized? Read SOME code, use the right amount of due diligence per task.
There is still value for high level PLs and frameworks in AI world, but it’s mostly in critical industries (finance, medical, physical), where proving the outcome is not enough, you must also prove the steps taken. Clear code is that proof.
Removed a fancy work monitor from my wishlist because the way I interact with code is changing too fast.
The more I say to AI, the worse it gets at what I don't say. This skews it away from balanced decision making.
Feels like picking stocks to try to win against the market.
I find it cute how ChatGPT suggests written confirmations for everything. Wonder what'd happen if I actually requested these. "Can I have a written confirmation that your kids pool will be heated?" "Can I have a written confirmation that you serve milk at your restaurant?"
Annoying that AI consistently messes up the changeset reference point for changelogs, commits, etc. I often have to remove notes about fixes to issues that were never published, but AI keeps documenting them. Wonder if this could be handled by a skill. 🤔