4 ms·

I think there's an interesting idea behind Gas Town (basically, using supervisor trees to make agents reliable, analogous to how Erlang uses them to make proces

by barrkel 9mo ago

I think there's an interesting idea behind Gas Town (basically, using supervisor trees to make agents reliable, analogous to how Erlang uses them to make processes reliable), but it's lacking a proper quality ratchet (agents often don't mind changing or deleting tests instead of fixing code) and architectural function (agents tend to reinvent the wheel over and over again, the context window simply isn't big enough to fit everything in). However, Steve Yegge's recent credulous foray into promoting a crypto coin, which was (IMO) transparently leveraging his audience and buzz to execute a pump and dump scheme, with him being an unwitting collaborator, makes me think all is not necessarily well in Yegge land. I think Steve needs to take a step back from his amazing productivity machine and have another look at that code, and consider if it's really production quality.

minebreaker 9mo ago
> Steve Yegge's recent credulous foray into promoting a crypto coin I didn't notice that. Can you give me a source?
- sandinmyjoints 9mo ago
  He wrote all about it in https://steve-yegge.medium.com/bags-and-the-creator-economy-249b924a621a https://steve-yegge.medium.com/bags-and-the-creator-economy-...
- tom_ 9mo ago
  There's some related discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46654878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46654878
wrs 9mo ago
I read this post as saying he won’t take funding from VCs, but he will from (his own word) crypto-bros?
PrayagS 9mo ago
> have another look at that code So true. beads[0] is such a mess. Keeps breaking often with each release. Can't understand how people can rely on it for their day-to-day work. [0] https://github.com/steveyegge/beads https://github.com/steveyegge/beads
- CharlesW 9mo ago
  That's been my experience as well. I like the idea of Beads, but it's fallen apart for me after a couple weeks of moderate use on two different projects now. Luckily, it's easy to migrate back to plain ol' Markdown files, which work just as well and have never failed me.
marcins 9mo ago
> have another look at that code That would assume he's even looked at the code in the first place - I think his whole thesis is based on you never looking at the code.
jfultz 9mo ago
"Quality ratchet" is such a great name. Thanks for that.
deng 9mo ago
Indeed, the Gas-Town token is down 97% from all-time high, see https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gas-town/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gas-town/ He's obviously a smart guy, so he definitely should've known better. It's weird how these AI evangelists use AI for everything, but somehow he didn't ask ChatGPT what all of this means and if it may have reputational damage, because I just asked if I should claim these trading fees, and it said: Claiming could be interpreted as: * Endorsing the token * Being complicit if others get rugged later * This matters if your X account has real followers. and in the end told me to NOT claim these fees unless I'm OK with being associated with that token.
- barrkel 9mo ago
  When you're under a lot of stress, your internal evaluation function for what is moral can start to break down. It may have been hard for him to turn the money down, especially if he's addicted to the sense of power he's getting from his coding agent spend. As he said, his wife suggested they can't afford it. There's another thing. A certain type of engineer seems to get sucked into Amazon's pressure culture. They either are, or end up, a bit manic. Laid back and relaxed one day (especially after holidays), but wound up and under a lot of internal pressure to produce the next, and a lot more of the latter. Something like Gas Town must be a crazy fix when you're feeling that pain. Combined with the vision that if you don't, you're unemployed/unemployable in 12 to 24 months, you might feel you have no choice but to spend every waking minute at it. It's a bit (more than a bit) rude to analyse someone at a distance. And to be honest, I think something like Gas Town is probably one of the possible shapes of things to come. I don't think what I can observe looks super healthy, is all.
- tveita 9mo ago
  > Indeed, the Gas-Town token is down 97% from all-time high, What else could possibly have happened? Surely every one put their money in with the express intention of participating in a pump and dump. Not taking the money would have been the high road. I don't think basing the economy on gambling and scams is good for society. But who could realistically claim to be a 'victim' here?

by barrkel 9mo ago

minebreaker 9mo ago

> Steve Yegge's recent credulous foray into promoting a crypto coin I didn't notice that. Can you give me a source?

sandinmyjoints 9mo ago
He wrote all about it in https://steve-yegge.medium.com/bags-and-the-creator-economy-249b924a621a https://steve-yegge.medium.com/bags-and-the-creator-economy-...
tom_ 9mo ago
There's some related discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46654878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46654878

wrs 9mo ago

I read this post as saying he won’t take funding from VCs, but he will from (his own word) crypto-bros?

PrayagS 9mo ago

> have another look at that code So true. beads[0] is such a mess. Keeps breaking often with each release. Can't understand how people can rely on it for their day-to-day work. [0] https://github.com/steveyegge/beads https://github.com/steveyegge/beads

CharlesW 9mo ago
That's been my experience as well. I like the idea of Beads, but it's fallen apart for me after a couple weeks of moderate use on two different projects now. Luckily, it's easy to migrate back to plain ol' Markdown files, which work just as well and have never failed me.

marcins 9mo ago

> have another look at that code That would assume he's even looked at the code in the first place - I think his whole thesis is based on you never looking at the code.

jfultz 9mo ago

"Quality ratchet" is such a great name. Thanks for that.

deng 9mo ago

Indeed, the Gas-Town token is down 97% from all-time high, see https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gas-town/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/gas-town/ He's obviously a smart guy, so he definitely should've known better. It's weird how these AI evangelists use AI for everything, but somehow he didn't ask ChatGPT what all of this means and if it may have reputational damage, because I just asked if I should claim these trading fees, and it said: Claiming could be interpreted as: * Endorsing the token * Being complicit if others get rugged later * This matters if your X account has real followers. and in the end told me to NOT claim these fees unless I'm OK with being associated with that token.

barrkel 9mo ago
When you're under a lot of stress, your internal evaluation function for what is moral can start to break down. It may have been hard for him to turn the money down, especially if he's addicted to the sense of power he's getting from his coding agent spend. As he said, his wife suggested they can't afford it. There's another thing. A certain type of engineer seems to get sucked into Amazon's pressure culture. They either are, or end up, a bit manic. Laid back and relaxed one day (especially after holidays), but wound up and under a lot of internal pressure to produce the next, and a lot more of the latter. Something like Gas Town must be a crazy fix when you're feeling that pain. Combined with the vision that if you don't, you're unemployed/unemployable in 12 to 24 months, you might feel you have no choice but to spend every waking minute at it. It's a bit (more than a bit) rude to analyse someone at a distance. And to be honest, I think something like Gas Town is probably one of the possible shapes of things to come. I don't think what I can observe looks super healthy, is all.
tveita 9mo ago
> Indeed, the Gas-Town token is down 97% from all-time high, What else could possibly have happened? Surely every one put their money in with the express intention of participating in a pump and dump. Not taking the money would have been the high road. I don't think basing the economy on gambling and scams is good for society. But who could realistically claim to be a 'victim' here?