Wow, that was certainly... something. A fun read, though. I'm not quite sure if the author lives on this planet, but I hope to be as passionate about something one day as he is about vibe coding....
Wow, that was certainly... something. A fun read, though. I'm not quite sure if the author lives on this planet, but I hope to be as passionate about something one day as he is about vibe coding. If nothing else, seems like he's having a lot of fun. Reminds me of when I did hackathons during college.
For those who have never heard about Steve Yegge, he's the dude who wrote a rant about how bad Google+ is (remember it? the Facebook alternative), while working at Google, posted it on Google Plus...
For those who have never heard about Steve Yegge, he's the dude who wrote a rant about how bad Google+ is (remember it? the Facebook alternative), while working at Google, posted it on Google Plus and accidentally made it public.
He also made a multiplatform (PC/Android/iOS) niche online RPG called Wyvern as a long term hobby project (been in development for probably 15 years in total), which is sadly currently dead because it's really hard to market a project like this. It's heavily inspired by oldschool MUDs and traditional roguelikes and at one point it was one of my favorite games ever, a brilliant piece of work full of personality.
Apart from that he's also had a very successful career doing more normal things. Anecdotally some of my friends who I consider the most competent and also most well earning developers in my circles have been using voice driven agents as well in recent months, with great success. So I am inclined to give weight to Yegge's optimism.
Not the point of the article, but I really loathe how techies who won’t get off their computer to live their lives is seen as a positive thing in the tech world? I know he’s clearly smart and...
Not the point of the article, but I really loathe how techies who won’t get off their computer to live their lives is seen as a positive thing in the tech world? I know he’s clearly smart and passionate but just the intro alone was kind of gross to me. He acknowledges driving while voice coding is bad, but like seriously man? Touch grass.
A lot of companies encourage this pretty strongly. If they have one dev who works their 40 hours and then does something disloyal like spend time with their family, and another dev who is...
A lot of companies encourage this pretty strongly. If they have one dev who works their 40 hours and then does something disloyal like spend time with their family, and another dev who is constantly working no matter where they are, they're likely to see the first as lazy/inefficient/slow/disloyal/apathetic, and the other as the best thing since sliced bread. When bonus or probation time comes around, guess who is first in line?
The AI fiasco is making things so much worse. Companies are laying off huge swaths of people with the expectation that they'll be replaced by copilot or something similar. Deadlines didn't change when they did this, so now the folks still there are under huge amounts of pressure to make up for those lost people or teams. If they do succeed, the C suite pats each other on the back because obviously they didn't need that many employees to begin with.
Everyone thinks that was bad, though. I think this sort of enthusiasm is admired despite the well-known downsides. It’s not normal behavior. It’s kind of crazy and he’s leaning into it to get...
Everyone thinks that was bad, though. I think this sort of enthusiasm is admired despite the well-known downsides. It’s not normal behavior. It’s kind of crazy and he’s leaning into it to get publicity for his new project and his book.
Yegge has been doing the influencer thing since long before “influencer” was a word. I first heard about him when he was a blogger who worked at Amazon, known for his crazy rants. That was over twenty years ago.
The behavior is mythologized a bit more than I’d like, but I’d at least say it’s not widely celebrated. More people do than should in my opinion. Yes I agree, this does make a lot more sense...
The behavior is mythologized a bit more than I’d like, but I’d at least say it’s not widely celebrated. More people do than should in my opinion.
Yes I agree, this does make a lot more sense through the lens of him being an influencer peddling his book, he wasn’t trying to be subtle about that.
It's not really that common. It's exaggerated by the TV show and people making cherry-picked examples on twitter. For 20-30s tech workers in the bay, the actual predominant culture is, if...
It's not really that common. It's exaggerated by the TV show and people making cherry-picked examples on twitter. For 20-30s tech workers in the bay, the actual predominant culture is, if anything, performative exercise and nature-loving. It's all about partying all night and then waking up at 5am to do a half marathon and then going hiking in your patagonias and then doing pilates with your organic acai bowl. The yuppie culture of today.
Anyhow, I'd note, though, that the author isn't doing this for his job, or anything. By all accounts he seems genuinely interested and passionate. The story of the artist obsessed with their craft is a common, and typically celebrated, story.
If someone said, "I'm obsessed with drawing. I love it. I bring a sketchpad and pencil everywhere I go. I'll be on the beach and sketching; when I'm taking walks I'm thinking about my art." would your response be "your weird, go touch grass"?
I actually think him not doing it for his job doesn’t change my opinion much here. Yes it’s great to have interests you’re passionate about, but this comes across as manic and obsessive in a way...
I actually think him not doing it for his job doesn’t change my opinion much here. Yes it’s great to have interests you’re passionate about, but this comes across as manic and obsessive in a way that I definitely have seen lauded in the Bay tech scene.
It’s also hard for me to accept the comparison of him to an artist at his craft here. He’s feverishly working on improving an endeavor that I think is a net negative for the industry and the world. It’s not art, it’s arguably whether it’s really a “contribution” to the world of SWE. If an artist friend of mine ran around saying they ignored their loved ones and vacations, and sketched while they drove, so they could tirelessly make a leaf blower that shoots paint to emulate Pollock, yeah I’d probably tell them to touch grass. Even that seems like a better endeavor than this, but I’m pretty jaded about vibe coding admittedly.
Based on the writing, I'm pretty sure he's exaggerating for comedic, and eye-catch (or clickbait, if you want to be more cynical) effect. Like I don't think he was actually vibe coding while...
Based on the writing, I'm pretty sure he's exaggerating for comedic, and eye-catch (or clickbait, if you want to be more cynical) effect. Like I don't think he was actually vibe coding while driving or he probably wouldn't be in sufficient physical condition to write said article.
but I’m pretty jaded about vibe coding admittedly.
That's more what I was getting at; you personally dislike the thing he's working on. That's fine, but ultimately the subjective worth and value of creation is exactly that: subjective. When you're talking about whether or not something is good in an objective sense, you have to be able to separate your personal biases.
From his own recollections, he has a family, friends, and seems to be able to obsess over his pet projects while maintaining those relationships, at least in-so-far as they still exist. I think that's still well in the "good for you" range. He's having a blast with his life, and I think that's great for him.
To me, it's about intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards. If you're grinding away to make more money, that's something to re-evaluate. If you love doing something, because you love doing it, then by all means, do it. What is life, if not to do what you love? It feels overly prescriptive to say that you should instead do X, Y, Z just because those are what "normal" people should enjoy doing.
I can’t say I fully agree because I’ve seen how his mindset has corrupted the industry recently, but I can concede that using him as an avatar of that dynamic isn’t fair when he’s just trying to...
I can’t say I fully agree because I’ve seen how his mindset has corrupted the industry recently, but I can concede that using him as an avatar of that dynamic isn’t fair when he’s just trying to share something he excitedly worked on.
For some personal context I just got out of a toxic job where a lot of people like him dominated the organization and led us to make terrible product choices while rapidly burning ourselves out all the ICs. So yes I have my biases at play here, but I don’t think framing your view on it as deciding “whether or not something is good in an objective sense” while mine is personal bias is particularly fair.
I’m not intending to say he should do XYZ because those are more normal, I’m intending to say I strongly believe having a balanced life (which can include plenty of zany, weird things) should be something we value more as SWEs. I get peeved when I see the opposite being venerated even if it’s half jokingly.
I don’t think I disagree with the core of what you’re saying though.
The difference is (theoretically) work-life balance. If you're doing everything for the sake of your work, including a ton of time outside of your pre-defined work schedule, that's a big problem....
The difference is (theoretically) work-life balance. If you're doing everything for the sake of your work, including a ton of time outside of your pre-defined work schedule, that's a big problem. I don't care what your profession is - you should feel secure enough to disconnect for a while. If doing something adjacent to your work is a hobby you enjoy, that's fine, but it shouldn't be with the intent to contribute to your work.
Granted you already said that this isn't as common as media makes it sound. I don't live in this culture so I can't speak to it with confidence. But things like nap pods, bedrooms, full kitchens, etc at big tech campuses certainly makes it look like staying at work beyond work hours is highly encouraged.
He's... not doing it for work, though? He spent the time working, in the article, on what presumably would be an open source project released on his github. I mentioned that in my first reply. By...
He's... not doing it for work, though? He spent the time working, in the article, on what presumably would be an open source project released on his github. I mentioned that in my first reply. By all accounts, he is entirely working on his own personal project.
But things like nap pods, bedrooms, full kitchens, etc at big tech campuses certainly makes it look like staying at work beyond work hours is highly encouraged.
The bedrooms are a myth. Mostly for tax and building code reasons. To have actual bedrooms, you'd need to classify your office as a residential building, and almost no office buildings would qualify for that, not to mention the regulatory headaches. The kitchens are just a nice touch. Catered dinner feels like a fair perk if you're expected to go in the office. It's mostly because a lot of the employees, especially out of college, and boyfailures and girlfailures who would eat chipotle 3 meals a day if not otherwise provided.
I remember the nap pod thing at Google and tried one out once, but using them wasn’t normal. There were only a few and they didn’t seem all that popular; it’s not like you had to reserve them or...
I remember the nap pod thing at Google and tried one out once, but using them wasn’t normal. There were only a few and they didn’t seem all that popular; it’s not like you had to reserve them or wait in line.
There were a lot of oddball amenities like that, where they existed, but with thousands of employees on campus, only a few people could or would use them.
Contrast with something everyone needs like reserving meeting rooms. If the company doesn’t have enough then the shortage is obvious.
I am a Software Engineer, and I’m very much an AI-Luddite. Not necessarily an AI-doomer, and I do believe that AI has some use-cases in coding (I mean it ingested all of Stack Overflow so it’s...
I am a Software Engineer, and I’m very much an AI-Luddite. Not necessarily an AI-doomer, and I do believe that AI has some use-cases in coding (I mean it ingested all of Stack Overflow so it’s easier to ask it questions than ask Stack Overflow questions…but also that’s dooming its usefulness to “known” issues and “known” languages with lots of questions already asked on Stack Overflow. On small things or new languages without documentation they’ve ingested, they haven’t been that useful to me.)
I haven’t tried any “agentic” AI workflows, because where I work doesn’t support it, and I don’t have any side-projects I’m trying to code in my free time currently.
It seems to me like these AI agents are basically like junior SWEs or interns, who can write code but don’t necessarily have the depth of system knowledge to do more than simple tasks at a time. And that’s great, this guy has now put together something that can track their tasks so they can work more cohesively. Just like a big project using something like Jira (or ideally something better), that junior SWEs could use when working on larger projects to prioritize and add tasks. Except now, instead of junior SWEs getting experience, there won’t be anything for them to do, and they’ll never get past being junior SWEs.
I do see how agentic workflows could be useful for complex hobby-projects, where the limiting factor for a single dev doing hobby work is time.
But I really hope businesses will keep juniors around and not move to fully agentic workflows, or we’ll end up with no jobs and no senior SWEs. And just system design folks who have the best solution to a problem as “delete it, and restart from scratch with better architecture”, rather than smart software approaches and architecture in the first place.
Please be aware that Claude will refrain from mentioning the fact that it likes to delete the entire fuckin’ database with DROP TABLE. We eventually solved that by switching to git, and but it’ll still happily delete the database file. Or the whole repo.
lmao
Also I am a bit flabbergasted that it took the author 350,000 lines of TypeScript being written by his AI agents to realize that maybe TypeScript was a bad choice.
Though maybe I’m being a bit harsh, I don’t really know anything about Yegge and his software experience, but from a brief google search he does have more of a history/experience in Software than I do lol.
This matches my previous mental model, but lately I've realized that there is one important addition: Code generated by an AI is always a heavily-bounded local maximum. By which I mean: Instead of...
It seems to me like these AI agents are basically like junior SWEs or interns, who can write code but don’t necessarily have the depth of system knowledge to do more than simple tasks at a time.
This matches my previous mental model, but lately I've realized that there is one important addition:
Code generated by an AI is always a heavily-bounded local maximum. By which I mean:
Instead of factoring common code out, it will just generate similar (but not identical) code in a lot of places.
Instead of planning sane interfaces, it will let function argument lists (or class constructor argument lists) grow and grow.
It will not follow code conventions unless explicitly, instructed to do so. Claude files and architecture-driven development may fix this one.
Aside from this, the comments it generates in the code heavily follow from the process you used to get to working code (example: "Changing this to follow XYZ pattern"), and often make no sense once the code is finalized.
For these reasons, I basically have two modes:
use chat to generate a whole file, script, etc. - this mode is mainly for one-off scripts that don't need to conform to anything else. It also excels at making a working prototype using a library or tool I'm not familiar with. I know I'll have to rewrite it later, but it's easier to rewrite an existing script than to start from scratch.
autocomplete - copilot autocomplete backed by sonnet 4 is scary good at recognizing your task and suggesting the end of the line / block, or realizing you are renaming something and smartly handling words in different cases or contexts.
This is a crazy fever-dream of a post about alpha software and I recommend waiting a while to see if anything comes of it. But it’s entertaining so I’m posting it.
This is a crazy fever-dream of a post about alpha software and I recommend waiting a while to see if anything comes of it. But it’s entertaining so I’m posting it.
My agents have switched — without a hint of ever going back — from using markdown plans, to using the issue tracker exclusively. This has granted them unprecedented continuity from session to session. And as a bonus, as you’ll see, when you let them use Beads, you will never again lose discovered work.
Wow, that was certainly... something. A fun read, though. I'm not quite sure if the author lives on this planet, but I hope to be as passionate about something one day as he is about vibe coding. If nothing else, seems like he's having a lot of fun. Reminds me of when I did hackathons during college.
For those who have never heard about Steve Yegge, he's the dude who wrote a rant about how bad Google+ is (remember it? the Facebook alternative), while working at Google, posted it on Google Plus and accidentally made it public.
He also made a multiplatform (PC/Android/iOS) niche online RPG called Wyvern as a long term hobby project (been in development for probably 15 years in total), which is sadly currently dead because it's really hard to market a project like this. It's heavily inspired by oldschool MUDs and traditional roguelikes and at one point it was one of my favorite games ever, a brilliant piece of work full of personality.
Apart from that he's also had a very successful career doing more normal things. Anecdotally some of my friends who I consider the most competent and also most well earning developers in my circles have been using voice driven agents as well in recent months, with great success. So I am inclined to give weight to Yegge's optimism.
Not the point of the article, but I really loathe how techies who won’t get off their computer to live their lives is seen as a positive thing in the tech world? I know he’s clearly smart and passionate but just the intro alone was kind of gross to me. He acknowledges driving while voice coding is bad, but like seriously man? Touch grass.
A lot of companies encourage this pretty strongly. If they have one dev who works their 40 hours and then does something disloyal like spend time with their family, and another dev who is constantly working no matter where they are, they're likely to see the first as lazy/inefficient/slow/disloyal/apathetic, and the other as the best thing since sliced bread. When bonus or probation time comes around, guess who is first in line?
The AI fiasco is making things so much worse. Companies are laying off huge swaths of people with the expectation that they'll be replaced by copilot or something similar. Deadlines didn't change when they did this, so now the folks still there are under huge amounts of pressure to make up for those lost people or teams. If they do succeed, the C suite pats each other on the back because obviously they didn't need that many employees to begin with.
Everyone thinks that was bad, though. I think this sort of enthusiasm is admired despite the well-known downsides. It’s not normal behavior. It’s kind of crazy and he’s leaning into it to get publicity for his new project and his book.
Yegge has been doing the influencer thing since long before “influencer” was a word. I first heard about him when he was a blogger who worked at Amazon, known for his crazy rants. That was over twenty years ago.
The behavior is mythologized a bit more than I’d like, but I’d at least say it’s not widely celebrated. More people do than should in my opinion.
Yes I agree, this does make a lot more sense through the lens of him being an influencer peddling his book, he wasn’t trying to be subtle about that.
It's not really that common. It's exaggerated by the TV show and people making cherry-picked examples on twitter. For 20-30s tech workers in the bay, the actual predominant culture is, if anything, performative exercise and nature-loving. It's all about partying all night and then waking up at 5am to do a half marathon and then going hiking in your patagonias and then doing pilates with your organic acai bowl. The yuppie culture of today.
Anyhow, I'd note, though, that the author isn't doing this for his job, or anything. By all accounts he seems genuinely interested and passionate. The story of the artist obsessed with their craft is a common, and typically celebrated, story.
If someone said, "I'm obsessed with drawing. I love it. I bring a sketchpad and pencil everywhere I go. I'll be on the beach and sketching; when I'm taking walks I'm thinking about my art." would your response be "your weird, go touch grass"?
I actually think him not doing it for his job doesn’t change my opinion much here. Yes it’s great to have interests you’re passionate about, but this comes across as manic and obsessive in a way that I definitely have seen lauded in the Bay tech scene.
It’s also hard for me to accept the comparison of him to an artist at his craft here. He’s feverishly working on improving an endeavor that I think is a net negative for the industry and the world. It’s not art, it’s arguably whether it’s really a “contribution” to the world of SWE. If an artist friend of mine ran around saying they ignored their loved ones and vacations, and sketched while they drove, so they could tirelessly make a leaf blower that shoots paint to emulate Pollock, yeah I’d probably tell them to touch grass. Even that seems like a better endeavor than this, but I’m pretty jaded about vibe coding admittedly.
Based on the writing, I'm pretty sure he's exaggerating for comedic, and eye-catch (or clickbait, if you want to be more cynical) effect. Like I don't think he was actually vibe coding while driving or he probably wouldn't be in sufficient physical condition to write said article.
That's more what I was getting at; you personally dislike the thing he's working on. That's fine, but ultimately the subjective worth and value of creation is exactly that: subjective. When you're talking about whether or not something is good in an objective sense, you have to be able to separate your personal biases.
From his own recollections, he has a family, friends, and seems to be able to obsess over his pet projects while maintaining those relationships, at least in-so-far as they still exist. I think that's still well in the "good for you" range. He's having a blast with his life, and I think that's great for him.
To me, it's about intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards. If you're grinding away to make more money, that's something to re-evaluate. If you love doing something, because you love doing it, then by all means, do it. What is life, if not to do what you love? It feels overly prescriptive to say that you should instead do X, Y, Z just because those are what "normal" people should enjoy doing.
I can’t say I fully agree because I’ve seen how his mindset has corrupted the industry recently, but I can concede that using him as an avatar of that dynamic isn’t fair when he’s just trying to share something he excitedly worked on.
For some personal context I just got out of a toxic job where a lot of people like him dominated the organization and led us to make terrible product choices while rapidly burning ourselves out all the ICs. So yes I have my biases at play here, but I don’t think framing your view on it as deciding “whether or not something is good in an objective sense” while mine is personal bias is particularly fair.
I’m not intending to say he should do XYZ because those are more normal, I’m intending to say I strongly believe having a balanced life (which can include plenty of zany, weird things) should be something we value more as SWEs. I get peeved when I see the opposite being venerated even if it’s half jokingly.
I don’t think I disagree with the core of what you’re saying though.
The difference is (theoretically) work-life balance. If you're doing everything for the sake of your work, including a ton of time outside of your pre-defined work schedule, that's a big problem. I don't care what your profession is - you should feel secure enough to disconnect for a while. If doing something adjacent to your work is a hobby you enjoy, that's fine, but it shouldn't be with the intent to contribute to your work.
Granted you already said that this isn't as common as media makes it sound. I don't live in this culture so I can't speak to it with confidence. But things like nap pods, bedrooms, full kitchens, etc at big tech campuses certainly makes it look like staying at work beyond work hours is highly encouraged.
He's... not doing it for work, though? He spent the time working, in the article, on what presumably would be an open source project released on his github. I mentioned that in my first reply. By all accounts, he is entirely working on his own personal project.
The bedrooms are a myth. Mostly for tax and building code reasons. To have actual bedrooms, you'd need to classify your office as a residential building, and almost no office buildings would qualify for that, not to mention the regulatory headaches. The kitchens are just a nice touch. Catered dinner feels like a fair perk if you're expected to go in the office. It's mostly because a lot of the employees, especially out of college, and boyfailures and girlfailures who would eat chipotle 3 meals a day if not otherwise provided.
I remember the nap pod thing at Google and tried one out once, but using them wasn’t normal. There were only a few and they didn’t seem all that popular; it’s not like you had to reserve them or wait in line.
There were a lot of oddball amenities like that, where they existed, but with thousands of employees on campus, only a few people could or would use them.
Contrast with something everyone needs like reserving meeting rooms. If the company doesn’t have enough then the shortage is obvious.
I am a Software Engineer, and I’m very much an AI-Luddite. Not necessarily an AI-doomer, and I do believe that AI has some use-cases in coding (I mean it ingested all of Stack Overflow so it’s easier to ask it questions than ask Stack Overflow questions…but also that’s dooming its usefulness to “known” issues and “known” languages with lots of questions already asked on Stack Overflow. On small things or new languages without documentation they’ve ingested, they haven’t been that useful to me.)
I haven’t tried any “agentic” AI workflows, because where I work doesn’t support it, and I don’t have any side-projects I’m trying to code in my free time currently.
It seems to me like these AI agents are basically like junior SWEs or interns, who can write code but don’t necessarily have the depth of system knowledge to do more than simple tasks at a time. And that’s great, this guy has now put together something that can track their tasks so they can work more cohesively. Just like a big project using something like Jira (or ideally something better), that junior SWEs could use when working on larger projects to prioritize and add tasks. Except now, instead of junior SWEs getting experience, there won’t be anything for them to do, and they’ll never get past being junior SWEs.
I do see how agentic workflows could be useful for complex hobby-projects, where the limiting factor for a single dev doing hobby work is time.
But I really hope businesses will keep juniors around and not move to fully agentic workflows, or we’ll end up with no jobs and no senior SWEs. And just system design folks who have the best solution to a problem as “delete it, and restart from scratch with better architecture”, rather than smart software approaches and architecture in the first place.
lmao
Also I am a bit flabbergasted that it took the author 350,000 lines of TypeScript being written by his AI agents to realize that maybe TypeScript was a bad choice.
Though maybe I’m being a bit harsh, I don’t really know anything about Yegge and his software experience, but from a brief google search he does have more of a history/experience in Software than I do lol.
This matches my previous mental model, but lately I've realized that there is one important addition:
Code generated by an AI is always a heavily-bounded local maximum. By which I mean:
Aside from this, the comments it generates in the code heavily follow from the process you used to get to working code (example: "Changing this to follow XYZ pattern"), and often make no sense once the code is finalized.
For these reasons, I basically have two modes:
use chat to generate a whole file, script, etc. - this mode is mainly for one-off scripts that don't need to conform to anything else. It also excels at making a working prototype using a library or tool I'm not familiar with. I know I'll have to rewrite it later, but it's easier to rewrite an existing script than to start from scratch.
autocomplete - copilot autocomplete backed by sonnet 4 is scary good at recognizing your task and suggesting the end of the line / block, or realizing you are renaming something and smartly handling words in different cases or contexts.
This is a crazy fever-dream of a post about alpha software and I recommend waiting a while to see if anything comes of it. But it’s entertaining so I’m posting it.
I’m interested enough in this to actually try using it. Let’s see where this goes!
Great, I’d love to read about how well it works for you!