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Ironically, this post comes off as out of touch. The purpose of the various martial arts isn't just to win in a life-or-death brawl or murder people as efficien

by tkel 18d ago

Ironically, this post comes off as out of touch. The purpose of the various martial arts isn't just to win in a life-or-death brawl or murder people as efficiently as possible. Similarly, the point of programming isn't just to generate as much code as possible, or only to be more "productive".

deleted 18d ago
[deleted]
motionlessveloc 18d ago
In Musashi's era, meaning the late 1500s, kendo (sword fighting) was absolutely about being as "productive" (read: lethal) as possible. As it happens, this was also the era when firearms had just been introduced to Japan. In 1575 Oda Nobunaga demolished the Takeda cavalry at the Battle of Nagashino, marking the first time firearms had been used at scale in Japanese combat, and in 1600 Musashi participated in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara where both sides used them extensively.
- LarsDu88 18d ago
  The end of the Sengoku Jidai was triggered by a warlord (Nobunaga) who equipped his armies with massed ashigaru levies armed with long spears and tanegashima arquebuses. It was absolutely a technological brawl where the valiant highly trained cavalry of warlord's like Takeda Shingen got mowed down by the bullets of musketeers stationed behind well prepared and covered firing positions. If it was still going on today, the warlords would be adopting drone warfare and vibecoded 3d printed cruise missiles.
  - dragontamer 18d ago
    Everyone in Sengoku Era Japan had access and knowledge of guns and cannons. The key for Nobunaga is "Ashigaru". Nobunaga gave the guns to the peasants. That also means that Nobunaga mass produced the guns to a level that no one else was doing. Yes it was a technological brawl, but inadvertently it was one that worked with and uplifted the Ashigaru into a real combat force.
boshalfoshal 18d ago
Code in most organizations is a means to an end to produce an actual product. The job of a SWE is to not produce the most sublime readable code with cute language bells and whistles that you can show off to your other programmer friends. Yes its fun to do and interesting, but the main value in writing code is to express your intent so you and other people that are working with you can actually build something of value. Software has value to the people on your team reading it. The product that you create with your software has a far wider impact than just that. As such, there is for _sure_ optimization pressure on "professional software engineering" to be more productive and actually make the product better to use, faster, with more features users like. The user typically does not care that you used a new C++26 feature, as much as I enjoyed writing it for them. If I can produce features for users faster and I can iterate on them faster, this is a boon to me. I can program by hand for fun all I want in my spare time, but if I want to produce value for someone else, it is economically infeasible for me to be a luddite, and I will simply be outcompeted. Previously you were outcompeted by smarter teams who out executed you (and who also worked more), and now you can be out executed by basically anyone using an LLM who actually understands that the end goal is making a product that is pleasant to use and actually has utility, not code that is pleasant to read. You can be an "performative/artisanal programmer" just as you can do "performative/artisanal martial arts." Just know that there will not be a large market for it in the real world.
- tkel 18d ago
  You're reducing programming to its utility in producing exchange value in the captitalist political economy. That's what "value" means in this context. That's exactly what I'm pointing out. Programming is more than that, if you can think beyond your current economic constraints. Your life's activity ought to be more than just a tool for producing capitalist exchange value. Does cooking food serve any purpose beyond mass producing food for restaurants to sell?
  - mawadev 18d ago
    Absolutely correct take. People are so caught up in doing the bidding, they forget what it is all about.
helloplanets 18d ago
The whole latter part of the post is exactly about that.
knorker 18d ago
As someone who did train one of the traditional martial arts for a few years, I appreciate the comparison. I don't know how much weight your "just" is meant to carry, but I remember a culture of cope and excuses about why "my" flavor wasn't the winner of any MMA event. But at least I got some exercise, strength, and flexibility out of it. I think it's an interesting analogy, not to be dismissed so easily. I don't see him saying the point is volume of code. I see AI generating code, and if I question it, it can justify design choices pretty well. I can give it bug symptoms, and it can find and fix the bug. Usually. But yes, the analogy breaks down in the fact that I understand what it's saying and understand when it's wrong, because I learned it in the first place. Or maybe it doesn't break down completely. If an MMA (AI) tells me to move in a way where I know I'll lose my balance, or over extend, I will say no, because of my previously acquired experience.
rramadass 18d ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49668392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49668392
hermitcrab 18d ago
Japanese martial arts generally come in 2 forms. -do (the way) and -jitsu (the art). -do forms are about self improvement, -jitsu forms are about effectiveness. You can see this with judo and jujitsu. Carmac is clearly aware of this difference as he says: "We aren’t there yet, but carefully writing code completely by hand is moving from a -jitsu to a -do. " IIRC Carmac has done judo (I'm not sure to what level).
fisf 18d ago
I think you are slightly missing the mark of the historical reference. What you say is true for modernized budō disciplines. They have very different purposes. But this this is not what Musashi was concerned with. He was practicing kenjutsu (not kendo) / writing about hyōhō. The primary criterion was absolutely murdering people as efficiently as possible in a life and death situation. "The true Way of sword fencing is the craft of defeating the enemy in a fight, and nothing other than this"
dartharva 18d ago
> The purpose of the various martial arts isn't just to win in a life-or-death brawl or murder people as efficiently as possible That's a retroactively-applied justification to save the embarrassment for martial arts that don't make the cut for modern CQB.
usef- 18d ago
When photography came out, artists redefined their purpose as not being about realism. Similar has already happened with martial arts, as OP mentions, and you've grown up with the new definition/focus not the original one.

by tkel 18d ago

deleted 18d ago

[deleted]

motionlessveloc 18d ago

In Musashi's era, meaning the late 1500s, kendo (sword fighting) was absolutely about being as "productive" (read: lethal) as possible. As it happens, this was also the era when firearms had just been introduced to Japan. In 1575 Oda Nobunaga demolished the Takeda cavalry at the Battle of Nagashino, marking the first time firearms had been used at scale in Japanese combat, and in 1600 Musashi participated in the decisive Battle of Sekigahara where both sides used them extensively.

LarsDu88 18d ago
The end of the Sengoku Jidai was triggered by a warlord (Nobunaga) who equipped his armies with massed ashigaru levies armed with long spears and tanegashima arquebuses. It was absolutely a technological brawl where the valiant highly trained cavalry of warlord's like Takeda Shingen got mowed down by the bullets of musketeers stationed behind well prepared and covered firing positions. If it was still going on today, the warlords would be adopting drone warfare and vibecoded 3d printed cruise missiles.
- dragontamer 18d ago
  Everyone in Sengoku Era Japan had access and knowledge of guns and cannons. The key for Nobunaga is "Ashigaru". Nobunaga gave the guns to the peasants. That also means that Nobunaga mass produced the guns to a level that no one else was doing. Yes it was a technological brawl, but inadvertently it was one that worked with and uplifted the Ashigaru into a real combat force.

boshalfoshal 18d ago

Code in most organizations is a means to an end to produce an actual product. The job of a SWE is to not produce the most sublime readable code with cute language bells and whistles that you can show off to your other programmer friends. Yes its fun to do and interesting, but the main value in writing code is to express your intent so you and other people that are working with you can actually build something of value. Software has value to the people on your team reading it. The product that you create with your software has a far wider impact than just that. As such, there is for _sure_ optimization pressure on "professional software engineering" to be more productive and actually make the product better to use, faster, with more features users like. The user typically does not care that you used a new C++26 feature, as much as I enjoyed writing it for them. If I can produce features for users faster and I can iterate on them faster, this is a boon to me. I can program by hand for fun all I want in my spare time, but if I want to produce value for someone else, it is economically infeasible for me to be a luddite, and I will simply be outcompeted. Previously you were outcompeted by smarter teams who out executed you (and who also worked more), and now you can be out executed by basically anyone using an LLM who actually understands that the end goal is making a product that is pleasant to use and actually has utility, not code that is pleasant to read. You can be an "performative/artisanal programmer" just as you can do "performative/artisanal martial arts." Just know that there will not be a large market for it in the real world.

tkel 18d ago
You're reducing programming to its utility in producing exchange value in the captitalist political economy. That's what "value" means in this context. That's exactly what I'm pointing out. Programming is more than that, if you can think beyond your current economic constraints. Your life's activity ought to be more than just a tool for producing capitalist exchange value. Does cooking food serve any purpose beyond mass producing food for restaurants to sell?
- mawadev 18d ago
  Absolutely correct take. People are so caught up in doing the bidding, they forget what it is all about.

helloplanets 18d ago

The whole latter part of the post is exactly about that.

knorker 18d ago

As someone who did train one of the traditional martial arts for a few years, I appreciate the comparison. I don't know how much weight your "just" is meant to carry, but I remember a culture of cope and excuses about why "my" flavor wasn't the winner of any MMA event. But at least I got some exercise, strength, and flexibility out of it. I think it's an interesting analogy, not to be dismissed so easily. I don't see him saying the point is volume of code. I see AI generating code, and if I question it, it can justify design choices pretty well. I can give it bug symptoms, and it can find and fix the bug. Usually. But yes, the analogy breaks down in the fact that I understand what it's saying and understand when it's wrong, because I learned it in the first place. Or maybe it doesn't break down completely. If an MMA (AI) tells me to move in a way where I know I'll lose my balance, or over extend, I will say no, because of my previously acquired experience.

rramadass 18d ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49668392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49668392

hermitcrab 18d ago

Japanese martial arts generally come in 2 forms. -do (the way) and -jitsu (the art). -do forms are about self improvement, -jitsu forms are about effectiveness. You can see this with judo and jujitsu. Carmac is clearly aware of this difference as he says: "We aren’t there yet, but carefully writing code completely by hand is moving from a -jitsu to a -do. " IIRC Carmac has done judo (I'm not sure to what level).

fisf 18d ago

I think you are slightly missing the mark of the historical reference. What you say is true for modernized budō disciplines. They have very different purposes. But this this is not what Musashi was concerned with. He was practicing kenjutsu (not kendo) / writing about hyōhō. The primary criterion was absolutely murdering people as efficiently as possible in a life and death situation. "The true Way of sword fencing is the craft of defeating the enemy in a fight, and nothing other than this"

dartharva 18d ago

> The purpose of the various martial arts isn't just to win in a life-or-death brawl or murder people as efficiently as possible That's a retroactively-applied justification to save the embarrassment for martial arts that don't make the cut for modern CQB.

usef- 18d ago

When photography came out, artists redefined their purpose as not being about realism. Similar has already happened with martial arts, as OP mentions, and you've grown up with the new definition/focus not the original one.