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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

Interesting. I hadn't touched my Openclaw install but just recently revived it, updated the software, and switched API keys to a different provider. Suddenly everything was completely broken. I kept messing with it, abandoned discord for IRC in an attempt to just get basic comms online, but it's still cooked. Now it makes sense.

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> everything was completely broken.

How could this happen in 2026? I've been told "Coding is solved"...?

It seems pretty clear to me that "coding" as such is pretty much solved. It's just that software engineering isn't, and these advancements have put a spotlight on the difference between the two.

I know the bricklaying metaphor gets overused, but saying coding is solved and then seeing what kind of code ends up in CC or OpenClaw seems to me like building a retaining wall out of oddly shaped broken brick parts and wood and stones and saying building walls is solved. Technically it's a wall and can do what a wall does, so maybe who cares what went into it, but I wouldn't ever use it to keep earth from falling in and crushing my house. I'd hire experienced engineers and craftspeople.

I know it's a very controversial stance, but I'm of the full opinion that in a world where a codebase can be entirely automatically regenerated from a test suite, code style and "maintainability" become concepts with negative utility in anything beyond an artisinal project. And I think that what we'll need to define and stand behind is going to be just the test suite and other "boundary conditions".

to be fair I hadn't touched it in a month and didn't even look at changelogs or anything - just went bill o'reilly style.

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