jr3592

For the same reason that increasing headcount never really solved the bug problem.

Flawless software isn't the goal, ever. Feature development is almost always the primary goal, and fixing bugs and performance issues is only done if the bug is bad enough.

classic apple

We're in a similar boat. Entire eng team went full AI about a year ago, and honestly we're struggling to find things to do. Features that would take weeks, take minutes.

I just don't see how we keep going like this without layoffs. The company cannot responsibly continue paying for this many engineers, when half, or less, could do the same job.

Honest question for devs out there... is anyone worried? I don't see enough frank conversation happening around this subject. Timelines. How long until salaries fall? Is it too early to stalk thinking about back up plans? Am I crazy?

pretty fun! beat level 6 after about 4 minutes... should add some more levels :)

"at all" is probably a stretch, but agreed that the number one factor for a mile is cost. users will accept a surprising level of trash, if the price is cheap.

engineers tend to think as engineers do, solving all problems with features, quality improvements, etc. but those all drive costs up, and don't always provide the return we think they will.

> If you have people somewhere, you provide them toilets or you get shit on the ground.

I have no idea if you've traveled much, but this has not been my experience traveling throughout major cities in Europe.

There's often NOT public bathrooms ANYWHERE yet streets are much cleaner than somewhere like San Francisco, where there actually are some public bathrooms.

was totally unaware of any racism of fascism from him... thats surprising.

whats your gripe with DHH? Honest question.

> ignoring the initially terrible Codex app

Still needs a LOT of work IMO.

could you throw a react project (WEB) at it and get a native macos project out of it?

This. I swear the fear mongering is all about investor signaling and regulatory capture. It's so disgusting that anyone believes it.

The only good news is that these models are genuinely helpful and we have competition at least between 2 companies.

I guess I understand why we'd want to flatten a COVID curve, but why do people want to flatten the LLM development curve? Don't we want the opposite? Isn't the goal AGI?

What exactly is "paced" in this context?

I don't think you really are struggling to understand, you just don't agree.

Some people genuinely enjoy the process of thinking hard about a problem and writing the code that solves it.

Literally the entire "flow" of coding has changed. It's now about parallel agent management and testing, less about any actual writing of code. Even thinking hard about problems has been reduced due to how insanely good AI has gotten.

Even better point. Thank you!

good point

Absolutely terrible. As human beings, we should be prioritizing solving these kinds of problems. I don't think we need to live forever, but a graceful ending later in life remains an objective we haven't fully realized for everyone.

Yup, I understand. And through a very narrow definition of economics it makes sense. I just don't see the utility in viewing it this way.

You've returned one of the most valuable resources (time) back to a human. In my mind there's simply nothing more valuable, and no sign of of efficiency more poignant than that.

Everything is ultimately a chosen definition, nothing is "real". I'd argue the definition is antiquated. In the modern world, free time being returned to individuals is perhaps one of the greatest examples of wealth.

I suppose I can understand that perspective, but disagree with it? We should measure time returned to individuals as wealth, maybe even the highest form of wealth.

> One of the problems here is that things like this only count as "increased productivity" in the economic sense if it results in more income at the end of the funnel. Are you actually making more product faster in all your new-found free time?

This strikes me as a problem with how we define productivity in this context. If I can do my job in 1 hour, when it took me 8 before, am I not more productive in a rate-based sense? Sure, I might only work 5 hours in a week instead of 40, so my net production is the same, but my rate of productivity was certainly much higher.

Bummer. I really like my apple vision pro. It's definitely too heavy but for a V1 product it has a lot of promise. Fast forward 10 years and if the components can get small and light enough, it's a no brainer.

The irony here is that his very own post reads (to me) as AI slop. Take this line:

> I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Why? Because there is growing grumbling among everyone about AI writing. And it’s not just others; it’s me!

Classic AI "its not just, its..."

Totally fair and understand that perspective. To some extent, I wish I had the courage to walk away because I agree, much of the joy is gone. I'm not sure what I'd do, or where I'd go though, since software really was/is my calling. Hence, I have decided to learn to make it work, rather than fight it or give up on it.

As if time isn't money? Everything is temporary... Getting somewhere first has immense value.

I hope the author knows they're not alone. This sentiment and existential dread is something many developers are going through right now.

Personally, I've decided to lean into AI heavily. My mindset is that life rarely remains static, and as humans its our duty to adapt. You may not like how the world changes, but if you cannot adapt with it, you will fail.

So for me it's all about sticking with it, leaning into it, and finding a new and different joy in it this style of work. And to be clear, its a dramatically different style of work.

Had an uncle who swore by this. He died at 57 of ALS.

That obviously doesn't mean walking is bad, I just mean to point out that even those people who believe in it as a silver bullet, can be hit with something totally out of left field.

Life is really quite brutish and short. You can do all the right things, and die early. All the wrong things, and live a long time. Take care of yourself for sure, but also find a balance and enjoy your life.

Agreed on every single point. Fable 5 was the first time I didn't feel these points quite as strongly (pre-neuter). But yea, every frontier model right now behaves this way and its tiring.

pretty interesting, the macro economics of the software space seem shaky