pmg101

3 ms·

1.
by pmg101 7d ago
I had fun playing around in Claude getting it to write 6502 assembler for the BBC Micro. It is fun to imagine what we could have built on those old machines with these new coding agents! But it is kind of hollow isn't it.
2.
by pmg101 8d ago
It's extremely refreshing reading good human prose isn't it! It's like when I would read a newly-written Paul Graham essay 20 years ago. He also uses rule of three and the phrase "load-bearing", just for fun, which
3.
EU announces plan to ban social media for under 13s(cnn.com)
2 points by pmg101 10d ago|0 comments
4.
by pmg101 11d ago
AI loves an adverb. Even the title feels AI to me.
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by pmg101 12d ago
It's worse even than that. Although I personally wouldn't pay for a bespoke hand designed piece of furniture I can at least see that it is an artisan piece and understand the rationale. Software is all shit anyway, it just helps m
6.
by pmg101 13d ago
It's perhaps the most pernicious Claudism. Or just the one that gets my goat the most. Saying what something isn't, usually twice, before saying what it is. What a fucking waste of words.
7.
Self-Improving Software Memory(john.oram.ca)
1 points by pmg101 15d ago|0 comments
8.
by pmg101 21d ago
Jared Diamond explores this in his book Collapse. The core idea being that each time humanity was going to exceed the carrying capacity of its environment, we invented a new technology which increased the headroom. Obviously this ratchet on
9.
by pmg101 21d ago
Without them then you wouldn't have strength, confidence or motivation and you wouldn't power through life. But you might be just as happy?
10.
by pmg101 22d ago
That backward kink between the head tube and the front forks would make the pelican's job of keeping the bike upright extremely difficult though.
11.
by pmg101 24d ago
Or "will need fixing", right?
12.
A society that runs on stimulants is badly broken(currentaffairs.org)
49 points by pmg101 29d ago|26 comments
13.
by pmg101 1mo ago
Remembr when it was missng lettrs out of wrds
14.
by pmg101 2mo ago
Yeah it tells you nothing of value. It's the Recency Bias taken to its ultimate conclusion isn't it. Anything I learned about AI I learned in the last few months but somehow that's as important as all the experience of my dec
15.
by pmg101 2mo ago
Somebody at $formerwork wrote a "skill" that takes a poorly/briefly specified Jira ticket, and "fleshes it out", purportedly so that when an agent picks up the ticket it has more context. Really at that point, with
16.
by pmg101 2mo ago
I agree. My guess is the author either 1. Deliberately used LLM tics in their prose, for artistic and provocative reasons, or 2. Used AI It's quite interesting to reflect on.
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There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf](users.wpi.edu)
453 points by pmg101 2mo ago|445 comments
18.
by pmg101 2mo ago
Today is August 4, 2026
19.
by pmg101 2mo ago
I'm REALLY REALLY not enjoying this current middle ground where we may be on the cusp of LLMs writing all code better than I could OR we may be on the cusp of realising that this is a chimera. Mostly I just want to skip forward to the
20.
by pmg101 2mo ago
Meanwhile, here in the UK we had the bus with no door at all that you could just jump on and off from in moving traffic. People trusted to manage their own risk. I remember this vividly from my childhood, in the 80s and 90s, in London. Not
21.
by pmg101 2mo ago
Thanks. I do think I see the distinction you're making.
22.
by pmg101 2mo ago
Can you give an example of a pattern that was considered common practice in a book 10 to 15 years ago that would be considered low-quality code today? My experience is pretty much the reverse: that we seem to just go round and round relearn
23.
by pmg101 2mo ago
Isn't "spaghetti code" a casual term to describe "complex and disjointed codebase"? What's the difference? Have I been using the term wrong all this time?
24.
by pmg101 2mo ago
Whether or not it's a transitional phase, it seems reasonable to want and to build better tools for where we are now rather than where we may be in some unspecified future , wouldn't you say?
25.
by pmg101 2mo ago
The longer I spend in my career the more obvious this is to me. Unfortunately younger colleagues don't always have the maturity to have also realised this, which can be a problem if they end up above me in the management chain! I try t
26.
by pmg101 2mo ago
(Just to note that although the article is on martinfowler.com Martin is not the author. It's attributed to Thoughtworks CTO Giles Edwards-Alexander.)
27.
by pmg101 2mo ago
It's very interesting to have some data on this. It matches my experience which is that LLMs greatly benefit from well factored code, but are not particularly adept at creating such code. Much like most human developers I suppose!
28.
by pmg101 2mo ago
It's the "it's not X. It's Y" pattern isn't it? Although the verb "stayed with me" seems a little sloppy to me too.
29.
by pmg101 2mo ago
And didn't the NHS app use Bluetooth proximity to alert you if you'd been in contact with a COVID case early in the pandemic? A nice case of life imitating art.
30.
by pmg101 2mo ago
Yes, I've found it to be completely incompatible with managers and the corporate world. I had some success in small startups where I was left to my own devices and built cool stuff whenever I felt the urge to do so. In corporate jobs I

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