Part of it seems to be that software languages have "flavors" like natural spoken language does, so that one seems natural to one person and foreign to another, much like how DHH took TypeScript out of Rails, and I can't read Rails code or live without static types.

Also college kids are always learning what the last generation already knew (like Lisp) and reinvent everything in it with the vigor of their youth and it gets popular, which I imagine is how Rails and Redis both started and caught on.

But sometimes there are genuine innovations, and we can't build on them until someone comes up with them, much like how we couldn't invent machines until someone figured out that we could just use the lever to make gears to transport energy, which Archimedes didn't think of. And the more we learn collectively, the more these things spread.

I wonder if this means it'll all stabilize into a JavaScript-like toolchain one day. Maybe Gary Bernhardt was right all along.

post-release fixes: 50%.

pre-release testing and debugging: 25%.

requirements, design, implementation, etc: 25%

All the chip world talk of single function machines and how tech is now energy constrained industry, means pruning the state we store; most software is software to deliver software.

Single function pipeline hardware platforms will act as little more than sync engines from models.

I mean it’s is 2025. Still write software like it’s the 1970s. So high tech.

Edit: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.10668

From LLMs to energy models that transform electromagnetic geometry. Saving what’s needed to recreate cat pics and emails to mom. Pruning the tail as interest dips with generational churn.

But it has a fantastic ease of use