/Thought Piece

AI Ambivalence

- Nolan Lawson tl;dr: “So this is where I’ve landed: I’m using generative AI, probably just “dipping my toes in” compared to what maximalists like Steve Yegge promote, but even that little bit has made me feel less excited than defeated. I am defeated in the sense that I can’t argue strongly against using these tools (they bust out unit tests way faster than I can, and can I really say that I was ever lovingly-crafting my unit tests?), and I’m defeated in the sense that I can no longer confidently assert that brute-force statistics can never approach the ineffable beauty of the human mind that Chomsky described.”

featured in #604

A Society That Lost Focus

- Lionel Dricot tl;dr: “The root problem is that, for the first time in human history, our brain is the bottleneck. For all history, transmitting information was slow. Brains were fast. After sending a letter, we had days or months to think before receiving an answer.”

featured in #601

Revenge Of The Junior Developer

- Steve Yegge tl;dr: Steve describes six waves of coding: traditional, completions, chat-based, coding agents, agent clusters, and agent fleets. While "vibe coding" goes viral, it's already being surpassed by coding agents that work independently with minimal supervision. Companies must budget for significant LLM costs or risk falling behind. Junior developers are adapting faster than seniors, gaining an advantage in this new landscape.

featured in #601

Our Interfaces Have Lost Their Senses

- Amelia Wattenberger tl;dr: “All day, we poke, swipe, and scroll through flat, silent screens. But we're more than just eyes and a pointer finger. We think with our hands, our ears, our bodies. The future of computing is being designed right now. Can we build something richer—something that moves with us, speaks our language, and molds to our bodies?”

featured in #600

The End Of Programming As We Know It

- Tim O’Reilly tl;dr: “There’s a lot of chatter in the media that software developers will soon lose their jobs to AI. I don’t buy it. It is not the end of programming. It is the end of programming as we know it today. That is not new.”

featured in #595

Software Development Topics I've Changed My Mind On After 10 Years In The Industry

- Chris Kiehl tl;dr: Things I now believe, which past me would've squabbled with: (1) Simple is not given. It takes constant work. (2) There is no pride in managing or understanding complexity. (3) Typed languages are essential on teams with mixed experience levels. (4) Java is a great language because it's boring. (5) REPLs are not useful design tools (though, they are useful exploratory tools). And more. 

featured in #588

How Might AI Change Programming?

- Thorsten Ball tl;dr: Thorsten poses questions about future implications of AI: Will this affect programming language adoption? Will code optimization shift to focus on AI readability? Could prompts replace stored code? Will we need new ways to handle AI-generated technical debt? 

featured in #586

Dear CTO: It's Not 2015 Anymore

- Christine Miao tl;dr: “With AI and big tech layoffs, engineering organizations have been put under a microscope like never before. Engineering leaders need to adapt to this new normal.”

featured in #562

Software Engineer Titles Have (Almost) Lost All Their Meaning

tl;dr: “Companies that resist title inflation gain a significant competitive edge. By maintaining meaningful titles, they attract and retain top talent who value authentic growth over inflated roles. This leads to more accurate hiring, improved team dynamics, and enhanced productivity. Realistic titles also foster trust, both internally and with clients, positioning the company as a beacon of integrity in the industry.”

featured in #560

Machines Of Loving Grace

- Dario Amodei tl;dr: From the CEO of Anthropic: “The list of positive applications of powerful AI is extremely long, but I’m going to focus on a small number of areas that seem to me to have the greatest potential to directly improve the quality of human life. The five categories I am most excited about are: (1) Biology and physical health. (2) Neuroscience and mental health. (3) Economic development and poverty. (4) Peace and governance. (5) Work and meaning.

featured in #559