Replying to
@bodil@social.treehouse.systems I am so fucking sick of people saying it's "just a tool". Cluster bombs and anthrax are just tools.
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ganxel
@ganxel@oldbytes.space
mastodon 4.7.2+glitchMusician, enjoyer of snooker, retrocomputing and obscure but beautiful programming languages.
22 Followers
61 Following
14 Posts
Joined November 07, 2022
Replying to
@netbsd@mastodon.sdf.org @argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org @jaypatelani@bsd.network there are so many disenfranchised nerds wanting to get away from the Linux kernel (and Debian) slopocalypse. NetBSD is one of vanishingly few options that seems like it might form a trustworthy alternative.
Replying to
@JulianOliver@mastodon.social excellent -- another great post by the author here, on a topic that really grinds my gears: the fallacious analogies of "it's just a tool... you may as well object to the printing press or calculator".
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-algorithmic-mind/202607/ai-is-not-a-calculator-stop-saying-it-is
Replying to
@fn0rd I was interviewing for Hubspot recently, and spent about 30 mins chatting with the recruiter before she said "ok so there's a code test, then systems design test, then another code test, then of course the AI fluency test, then a hiring manager call..."
I satd "sorry, what's an AI fluency test?"
"Oh, well just a standard test because you need to use AI for everyday coding"
"Aha... do you mean, it's available as a tool for engineers when they see fit, or like they MUST use it X number of times per day?"
"Yes."
"...?"
Replying to
@davidgerard@circumstances.run that or a "reactionary Luddite" according to Tim Sweeney. Apparently all the reasons I have for disliking LLM use are hysterical virtue signalling or something...
https://ratfactor.com/tech-nope2
I was starting to wonder if I was the only one who felt this way; totally perplexed and disturbed that so many fellow programmers seem to have never had the slightest interest in the craft and art of programming, and saw it merely as an irritating barrier to "generating outputs" at the absolute maximum possible speed.
I guess in retrospect, this should have been apparent earlier, whenever I met pushback from technical management wanting me to produce code more quickly as a way of "taking ownership" rather than asking questions about what we were doing, why we were doing it and whether it was the best way.
But certainly the commercial LLM hype era has made that gulf in purpose and philosophy much, much more obvious.
So the industry is mostly fucked and I'm not sure there's much of it left that I would be compatible with (to the limited extent that I ever was).
Anyway, glad I'm not *uniquely* insane in feeling that loss.
Replying to
@ifixcoinops@retro.social me and my sis found Frontpage Express in 1999-2000 and made a page with just endless screenshots of Final Fight captured from either MAME or Callus. It was great fun - totally different from programming in GFA Basic on my old Atari ST, but enjoyable, visual and practically immediate.
Replying to
@pesco yes!!! I always found that distinction of programmer vs "software developer" or even "software engineer" to be a fictional, self-serving snobbish narrative. I like "programmer" or even "coder" and to me, they always connotated "someone who writes programs that solve problems". Of course this includes thinking about the problem and system design.
@c64whiz@oldbytes.space That Sneakers clip is so disturbingly prescient...
Replying to
@ghalldev@mastodon.social 3 years here -- boosted your post and hoping you find something :tinking:
Replying to
@ghalldev@mastodon.social cheers! The safety net in Ireland is relatively forgiving, but... I do miss the industry bigmoneys.
@macinjosh then you switch back to one of the setup steps which has tmed out waiting for some kind of brower SSO thing and have to restart that, then it's 6pm...
Replying to
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social whoa, "Move fast and piss everywhere" sounds like the perfect title for a history book explaining how civilisation dove head first down the shitter :highfive:
Replying to
@Adorable_Sergal@hachyderm.io I bought a 32 GB RAM stick for my laptop like 3 years ago for just over €100 ... went back to the retailer's site a few days ago and they're selling the same thing for over €300.
All of this so people can build slop content farms faster, write half-assed insincere emails and generate video nobody wants to watch.
Ugh.