drums8787

I feel like I finally get to feel the designer’s pain when people arrive with their vibe-coded pile of garbage and I have to explain why it can’t just slide into the product.

It does something and it’s what the business wants. So what’s my problem?

I particularly love when the “CTO” is also the main offender.

No. The means can spoil the end.

Dehomag.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

I often hear comparisons to Web 1.0 (the bubble aspect, potential for change, etc).

As someone who lived and worked during that era, I don’t remember thinking “holy shit, if this ever gets released on the world at scale we’ll have serious problems”.

Maybe that was a lack of imagination and not thinking through what would actually happen to brick and mortar, the job market and so on. But it feels like this time is different. Or I’m just that much older.

This is a big piece of what drove me out of corp jobs.

With a sufficient hourly rate people are less likely to have you waste time in meetings.

Or maybe I’ve just been lucky. Prob doesn’t work everywhere.

My experience is the opposite I guess. I am having a great time using claude to quickly implement little "filler features" that require a good amount of typing and pulling from/editing different sources. Nothing that requires much brainpower beyond remembering the details of some sub system, finding the right files, and typing.

Once the code is written, review, test and done. And on to more fun things.

Maybe what has made it work is that these tasks have all fit comfortably within existing code patterns.

My next step is to break down bigger & more complex changes into claude friendly bites to save me more grunt work.

I make a living writing software that's hosted on Windows. I've never felt as comfortable with the command line options on Windows as I do with macos/Linux. Git bash with vim was such a relief.

It's an idiosyncratic mix of ergonomics and habit probably. I don't really care since I get the job done efficiently (more so than a lot of "Windows natives" I observe).

Been filling notebooks for years while also keeping pretty meticulous digital notes. Physical is mostly personal or ideas (sometimes for work). Digital is mostly work.

I like to doodle and draw alongside note-taking and there's no substitute for analog there IMO. Plus, being able to write and not be on a device after a long day at work is a relief.

Lack of search can be an issue. But then I sometimes create indexes to things like book notes or stuff I'm learning and that is a pleasure in itself.

Also pairs well with a fountain pen & ink hobby.

Technical debt and “feature debt”?

I imagine some people would object to things being taken out or significantly altered. An existing & happy (?) user base probably carry weight.

I recommend the book “why we sleep”. It helps (helped me) understand some of the fundamentals of sleep and why it matters

Not sure that day/night matters but an essential element is the cycles you experience during extended sleep. Naps won’t make up for that.

Night is probably most realistic because of light/noise factors

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum is a fantastic place.

I was on a backstage tour a few years ago and seeing early 20th century cartoons at original size was such a treat.

Did your cat tell you its name?

Lily Jamali: So you call this “Cerebral Valley,” is that right? ... Jamali: Got it. What does that mean, that term? Tan: Well, I think it’s a play on really the brain,...

The things people say.

I'm holding on to two x230s as backups (only need one, happen to have two).

Great little machine, still enjoy it for basic hacking and writing once in a while.

Some “artists” I know are scraping by on work that could be eaten by generative AI. Even if they don’t self identify as “illustrators”.

Barge hauler 4th from the back appears to be checking his messages.

Did exactly this for about the same amount of time. Couldn’t be happier.

Not sure exactly what you mean but you can have lower average life expectancy and still see lots of people reaching old age (60-80).

Longer average contemporary lifespan in the west has a lot to do with infant/child mortality.

I don’t know, it works now (ios).

First time it just showed some untraditional looking navigation that I couldn’t get past. This time the content actually displayed.

I’d read it if the site would let me do so.

My manager is blissfully absent.

100% agree re: Doom Emacs. Evil mode user and no issues with emacs pinky ;-). It's a perfect match. No concerns about performance either, start my emacs in the morning and close it at the end of the day.

For quick command line things or remote tasks I still use Vim. I know, I know, emacs does all that also.

Agree. It seems it would buy you points at another FAANG but if I were interviewing an ex FAANG I would be concerned about mismatching perspectives and experience around scale and appropriate solutions.

Then there’s the issue of “if you can get into a FAANG you must be really good”. Maybe. But not sure it would outweigh other concerns.

See above CNBC link.

Been there, got out.

I recommend to listen to some of Cal Newport's "lifestyle centric career planning" podcast episodes on this. I basically followed similar ideas a decade ago and have been very happy with the decision.

Your thinking is not at all childish or idealistic. It's important to straighten these sort of questions out.

Maybe they heard the question as “can you perform Under Pressure”. Under Pressure is a hit single by the British rock band Queen.

Great video, thanks for sharing.

Sure, a certain amount of good luck is always required.

I've been involved in two rewrites during the past 5 years. While the rewrites were not by choice (one was forced by Flash EOL), in both cases there were multiple, very obvious (after the fact) benefits:

- Better, modern technology top to bottom

- Better dev process, facilitated by the better technology

- An excuse to focus functionally, and rethink. We couldn't possibly reproduce a heap of legacy features and were forced to focus on what mattered, and managed to offer those key features in a far superior way.

Done right, a rewrite can be fantastic. And sure, rewrites often happen for the wrong reasons and at the wrong time.