ChrisMarshallNY

It's like that kid down the block, with the sweet hot rod that rattles the windows, when he drives past, but whenever you drive past his house, the car is up on blocks, and he's working on it.

Working on tools can be a lot of fun, but I like working on stuff that ships, so I prefer tools that don't require much work.

At one time, every programmer was supposed to be able to analyze a crash dump.

I think it's been a long time, since your average coder has been able to do that, and that's a good thing.

The reason is that the tools became good enough, and reliable enough, to trust.

We are still expected to stand behind the results of our work. It's just that we have learned to trust the tools we use, enough to do so.

We will reach that point with AI tools, sooner or later (maybe sooner).

Accountability will still rest on all-too-human shoulders, but the tools and the scope of our work will change.

At one time, in my career, that was actually expected.

Times, they are a changin'...

Marketing folks talked like that, for almost my entire career (it was basically a meme), which wound up, as AI was coming into its own.

I’m wondering if anyone just flat-out admits they used LLMs in their work. I have no problem, doing that, myself, but I also have the luxury of not having my livelihood on the line, and not being overly-concerned about what people think of me.

Eventually, I assume that AI will affect every aspect of the industry, and it will actually be a signal of effectiveness, to claim its use. I could see a day, when claims of not using AI would be like artisans, declaring their work to be “genuine hand-crafted,” and relegated to fairly small, specialized corners of the industry.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Planet

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmings_(National_Lampoon)

They had a structure, where each studio was run by a partner, and had its own specialty. Almost a separate company.

We worked with the San Francisco one, which specialized in digital design (looks like it’s no longer around, or transitioned to an independent company). We used them for graphic design. We used DDO (they are still around[0]), for interaction design (we worked with both, simultaneously). It was quite an experience, and taught me a great deal about integration of professional designers, into a technical project. I still use a lot of what I learned, to this day.

They had that “AI vibe,” back then, so I guess we know where the LLMs got some of their training materials.

Their Web sites have always been like that. I’m assuming that part of the reason, is to discourage scraping, and another, is to be fairly pretentious. There was quite a bit of showmanship, back then, and I have no reason to think that it’s any less, these days. They are certainly not alone. New York is filled with studios like that. I know a chap that designs top-end jewelry, and is almost a caricature. On any given day, his outfits cost more than my car. It seems to work. He makes a lot of money, so someone takes him seriously.

[0] https://www.dubberly.com/

I mentioned something similar, in a previous comment.

The sad part, is that the same thing is likely to happen to design, as is already happening with software development.

The junior training track is going to get the bottom ripped out. Established outfits like Pentagram will do fine, but lesser ones, like small design shops, are likely to get run out of business by AI image generation, which will improve quickly.

The problem is that these are the shops that train the designers that end up in companies like Pentagram.

Or only Ivy-League sheepskins will get junior jobs at the big studios, which will be the only ones left standing, when the dust settles.

Kinda pricey, though.

It’s unlikely to stay that way, though.

Trying to deny it is just going to end up fighting the tide, but the future belongs to the folks that learn to harness it properly.

I enjoyed the post, and I have already sent it to some friends that I think will find it useful. Thanks!

As he states, he isn't trying to make stuff that doesn't "look like AI did it," he just wants to introduce variety, and has proposed a disciplined way to do that.

[0] https://john.hartnup.uk/poster-prompts/

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_man_o%27_war

It’s likely that I will end up getting a Duo, eventually. I’m not in a hurry. I’ll bet that there will be teething problems.

I suspect all my apps will run OK on Duos. I have been designing for flexible iOS screen dimensions since Day One (2012). It was a habit I already had, from MacOS development, and all my apps work in landscape mode (It’s shocking, how many apps you can break, simply by turning the phone 90 degrees). Looks like an open Duo is about the same dimensions as running an iOS app on Mac (by default—you can easily resize Mac iOS app windows).

I am interested in seeing if I can leverage running on inside and outside screens. That might be interesting (but I don’t know if that’s possible. They probably switch off the outer screen, when the device is open).

I’ll bet that Apple ships an Apple Pen Mini, for Duos.

Depends on how far back you go.

Apple's current docs suck, and they have, for a long time (SwiftUI was so bad, that someone came up with this[0], and it was a lifesaver).

But I'm old enough to remember Inside Macintosh[1], and that was a thing of beauty.

Apple used to take technical documentation very seriously. Many of their technical writers had better tech chops, than the engineers making the stuff they wrote about.

[0] https://swiftui-lab.com

[1] https://vintageapple.org/inside_o/

Velociraptor was quite small. Jurassic Park used Utahraptor, or Deinonychus as a model.

Passkeys work nicely, and I'll use them, in cases where I want decent security, but I don't consider them the "Philosopher's Stone" of regular end-user security. I think they are still a bit too "fiddly" for your average Joe[line].

I live in New York.

These cultures have radically different approaches to communication.

New Yorkers want you to get right to the point. No dilly-dallying. I think that most of the SV Californians I've dealt with, have been similar.

They be like:

    Hey Chris,

    Do you have a published API for the Widget library that was recommended?

    Hey Chris,

    I hope this finds you in good spirits, and good health. Down here, we're experiencing a bit of a heat wave, so our air conditioners are running all day.

    I was writing to ask you if you have an API spec. for that library that was recommended to me...

I find the two ways that you call it to be a bit annoying (not a showstopper). It just seems a bit "kludgy" to me.

I got in the habit, because it is better for technical specifications. It makes it clear, to which word an "and" applies. I think it makes reading prose a bit awkward, though.

I've noticed that LLMs really don't seem to like using commas, in general.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma

It's earned me lots of sneers, over the years, but the people that mattered, didn't care. I spent most of my career at one of the world's best optical equipment companies, working as a peer with some of the top people in the world. It was quite humbling, and extremely gratifying.

They would couple this with things like standardized coding and documentation styles, common tools, etc. Training on these standards was a regular thing for all staff.

The idea was that they could rapidly move experienced staff around. It also helped staff to understand how their work was applied in an integrated system (having “blinders” on, is a fairly typical issue, with dedicated employees).

It generally worked, but relied on their particular culture, and introduced a fairly significant amount of overhead and rigidity to the system. It would also mean that it takes a long time to cultivate experts.

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed learning new stuff (still do). I actually enjoy taking on projects that I don’t know how to do. I wrote about it here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

Also sounds like the author has done a great deal of work to improve himself, physically, and I can respect (and hat tip) to it, but he would definitely see the same issue with a wedding ring (except that you can usually resize those).

I wear my wedding ring constantly; even in the shower. I'm old-fashioned, and haven't really changed that much, since I got married (besides getting grayer and wrinklier).

I suspect the reason for that (nothing other than a "gut feeling" that I get, seeing the story pushed off the front page so quickly, every time), is that the breach was through a backdoor that was deliberately coded into the system, for TLA use, and what happened, is exactly what people keep warning about; it got breached, and is now a "front door," and The Powers That Be don't want that examined too closely.