Use posting

Just in: program that can’t distinguish between data and instructions may be insecure!

If only it was just a problem of understanding.

The thing is: Programming isn’t primarily about engineering. It’s primarily about communication.

That’s what allows developers to deliver working software without understanding how a compiler works: they can express ideas in terms of other ideas that already have a well-defined relationship to those technical components that they don’t understand.

That’s also why generative AI may end up setting us back a couple of decades. If you’re using AI to read and write the code, there is very little communicative intent making it through to the other developers. And it’s a self-reinforcing problem. There’s no use reading AI-generated code to try to understand the author’s mental model, because very little of their mental model makes it through to the code.

This is not a technical problem. This is a communication problem. And programmers in general don’t seem to be aware of that, which is why it’s going to metastasize so viciously.

I truly wish they could steal it away.

“Flexible labor” is a euphemism for “derisking capital” (Cory Doctorow)

Well… You Don’t Need Democracy If You Don’t Have People

Yes, but you do need to be careful with what level you test at. Too high level and the tests may be slow, flaky, and difficult to focus onto small details. Too low level and they may just bake-in the existing implementation.

I would think Reticulum would be a good fit

This line of reasoning was already perfectly captured in Office Space: https://youtube.com/watch?v=yZjCQ3T5yXo

Regular git CLI, with like 15 years of aliases

Nature of the code? Library, CLI tool, cloud service, API, UI?

My first thought is test suite.

Lazily-evaluated, too!

There just needs to be one universal standard that handles everyone’s use cases

This isn’t anything new. There have been multiple waves of “code-gen for normies”, and every time after the hype dies down there’s a heap of shitty code to fix.

There’s gonna be no shortage of customers up to their eyeballs in broken slop after the bill comes due and Anthropic has to stop subsidizing their prices. AI slop is the best thing to happen to our job security in a while. (Provided you retain your critical thinking skills.)

The BT client will advertise the IP(s) of whatever network interface(s) you allow it to use.

But “shoot” is why you went in there!

They don’t want to save capitalism. They believe capitalism is about to be over, and they want to be in control of whatever it is that comes next.

They’re worried they’re not spending enough on AI.

Classic MLM tactics. “If you’re not seeing a return on Herbalife, it’s cuz you’re not spending enough on it!”

AI (through agents, but even completions to an extent) extends your reach and reduces your grasp.

For some sectors, that’s perfectly acceptable. There are plenty of codebases that don’t need to worry about keeping devs accountable.

There are also plenty of business models these days (especially in the Trump era) that face no downside from failing to keep devs accountable even if they should. VC-backed vaporware looking to exit before they drown in tech debt, private equity acquisitions that just need to bleed existing customers dry while disemboweling the productive capacity of the firm, or even publicly-traded brands that are chronically unable to think past next quarter’s P&L. And especially if they’re already a monopoly.

The trouble is really when a CTO misunderstands what kind of business they’re running, and considers the wrong folks to be their “peers”. There’s a big incentive to just copy whatever Amazon/Microsoft/Google says. It’s the new “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”.

Idk if that’s your situation or not.

Is there a perfect building?

Probably not, since they exist in an environment — which is constantly changing — and are used by people — whose needs are constantly changing.

The same is true of software. Yes, programs consist of math which has objective qualities. But in order to execute in the physical world, they have to make certain assumptions which can always be invalidated.

Consider fast inverse sqrt: maybe perfect, for the time, for specific uses, on specific hardware? Probably not perfect for today.