I’m not sure there’s much reason to freak out about this tweet, it’s full of non-sequiturs and is made by one dude who owns one company with 20 employees. If you panic over every loon on twitter...
I’m not sure there’s much reason to freak out about this tweet, it’s full of non-sequiturs and is made by one dude who owns one company with 20 employees. If you panic over every loon on twitter you’ll hardly have any time leftover in the day.
I mean, I'm suspect right here to begin with. What are you shipping 10 times faster? AI slop websites? So this contradicts remote work as a concept and sounds more like "hey we can outsource!"
enabling people to ship 10-20 times faster than before. This all changed on the day Claude 3.5 Sonnet came out.
I mean, I'm suspect right here to begin with. What are you shipping 10 times faster? AI slop websites?
The optimal approach might be a core team working together physically, supplemented by remote team members... , we’re adding a cost of living adjustment based on the purchasing power parity of each country, capped at a ⅓ discount to our NYC rate. We’re also capping remote positions at 25 hours a week, to be clear that they’re not close to full-time employment.
So this contradicts remote work as a concept and sounds more like "hey we can outsource!"
Yeah I have to agree with you. This guy is spewing total garbage. As a software engineer for a company that has virtually unlimited access to the latest AI tools, I can honestly say it's made very...
Yeah I have to agree with you. This guy is spewing total garbage.
As a software engineer for a company that has virtually unlimited access to the latest AI tools, I can honestly say it's made very little difference in dev time.
It's nowhere near understanding the complexity and interdependencies of large codebases. All it's good for is spitting out small chunks of code that you have to double check anyway. It won't help you solve any of the difficult problems which end up taking most of the time.
Yeah, in my experience even just using AI to generate little helper functions like take a timestamp string in this format and give it to me in number of seconds has failed at least 30-40% of the...
Yeah, in my experience even just using AI to generate little helper functions like take a timestamp string in this format and give it to me in number of seconds has failed at least 30-40% of the time.
It’s nice when it works and incredible that it works slightly more often than not but when it’s wrong it’s usually in subtle ways that are easily missed if you aren’t being careful.
It might “feel” like you’re going faster but you’re probably fooling yourself.
This stuff gives me big “open offices promote amazing collaboration and speed up productivity” vibes. And we all know the results of that.
I started using Copilot about a month ago. It's definitely helpful, but mostly for replacing routine and repetitive tasks. It's also nice for creating lambda functions. It might just be a me...
I started using Copilot about a month ago. It's definitely helpful, but mostly for replacing routine and repetitive tasks. It's also nice for creating lambda functions. It might just be a me thing, but I'm significantly better at understanding lambda functions than I am at writing them in the first place, which is ideal for reviewing AI generated code.
I.. don't entirely agree with this statement. It sounds kinda like someone saying the thing that fits the outcome they want. I understand different people have different ways they work well, so...
... main bottlenecks are now cognitive: getting stuck on problems, running low on energy, or struggling to generate fresh ideas. In-person collaboration is particularly powerful for overcoming these barriers. The spontaneous discussions, quick whiteboarding sessions, and energy of working together help teams think better, learn faster, and get unstuck more quickly.
I.. don't entirely agree with this statement. It sounds kinda like someone saying the thing that fits the outcome they want.
I understand different people have different ways they work well, so for some people/orgs I'm sure this is true. But, I feel like my coworkers have plenty of great brainstorming and whiteboarding opportunities remotely, whether scheduled or impromptu.
I (personally) feel no real difference between dropping by someone's desk vs. sending them a quick chat and hopping on a call. (The latter also has the benefit that if one of us IS focused, we can wait to talk when we're both free.)
In my opinion, or at least work circumstance, it just takes the right tools and the right mindset for leveraging those tools.
My favorite part of that is that apparently overcoming one of the bottlenecks (running low on energy; which I agree is a bottleneck) is done by working together onsite, thanks to "the energy of...
My favorite part of that is that apparently overcoming one of the bottlenecks (running low on energy; which I agree is a bottleneck) is done by working together onsite, thanks to "the energy of working together".
It’s crazy how even in an industry where introverts likely form the majority (software dev), introversion is treated as something that can be “fixed”. How many more years will it take before it’s...
It’s crazy how even in an industry where introverts likely form the majority (software dev), introversion is treated as something that can be “fixed”. How many more years will it take before it’s common knowledge that it doesn’t work that way?
I feel like this view is highly overblown now. Gone are the days of “the programmers” being goblin nerds in a basement. CS programs are exploding because it’s seen as a high income career. It’s a...
It’s crazy how even in an industry where introverts likely form the majority (software dev)
I feel like this view is highly overblown now. Gone are the days of “the programmers” being goblin nerds in a basement. CS programs are exploding because it’s seen as a high income career. It’s a very professional-minded field now. Many people in it have no love for computers, just a love for making a lot of money, for better or for worse (no shame in the latter imo).
Additionally, social skills are ultimately more important than technical for upward movement at tech companies. People who are competent at the latter and incompetent at the former will find themselves flailing, for the most part.
Social skills is not the same as extraversion and a lack thereof isn't the same as introversion, though. The stereotype of the programmer who doesn't know how to interact with people is less true...
Social skills is not the same as extraversion and a lack thereof isn't the same as introversion, though. The stereotype of the programmer who doesn't know how to interact with people is less true than ever, but it's rooted in a grain of truth -- their role doesn't require a lot of day-to-day interaction with people for them to excel, at least not when compared to alternatives. It's no more surprising to see more introverted programmers than it is to find extraverted people in sales, even though there's nothing stopping an extravert from being technical or an introvert from having good interpersonal skills.
That’s exactly why it doesn’t make any sense to say that it’s a field with a “majority introverts” or vice versa. Most software engineers spend more time in meetings than coding, especially as...
It's no more surprising to see more introverted programmers than it is to find extraverted people in sales
That’s exactly why it doesn’t make any sense to say that it’s a field with a “majority introverts” or vice versa. Most software engineers spend more time in meetings than coding, especially as they work up the ladder. There’s no particular selection for or against introversion in modern software engineering companies and positions.
I think it's a little bit silly to say that most software engineers spend more time in meetings than coding, as that hasn't been my experience, though it is definitely true that you spend more...
I think it's a little bit silly to say that most software engineers spend more time in meetings than coding, as that hasn't been my experience, though it is definitely true that you spend more time in meetings the higher up you are. I don't think it's so ridiculous to think that careers with more human interaction may be more appealing to extraverts than introverts and vice-versa (though idk whether that ends up entailing "a majority"). Especially since, even if you do equate intro/extraversion with social skills, I can promise you what's expected in terms of "soft skills" in software engineering, is definitely still a lot lower than in many other careers, even as programming becomes more professionalized.
I spend over half my time in meetings, either ceremonies or other planning or helping colleagues. Sometimes days are 115% meetings. I live for the days that drop below 50%
I spend over half my time in meetings, either ceremonies or other planning or helping colleagues. Sometimes days are 115% meetings.
Just as a note, this can wildly vary per company. I have also found that companies where the percentage of meetings is this high are also companies with a lot more artificial "calamities",...
Just as a note, this can wildly vary per company. I have also found that companies where the percentage of meetings is this high are also companies with a lot more artificial "calamities", shifting deadlines and an overall lack of focus.
Though, it does depend on what your exact job title is and what your responsibilities are, of course. I am just assuming you are replying here from a software engineering perspective.
Also, very often, when this is the case, people working at companies like that are not truly aware of this happening. Because of the constant baseline of chaos, makes it difficult to focus and is also neatly masquerading behind all those meetings. It effectively can become a boiling frog scenario.
I've been at the same company doing software engineering (though, mostly devops now, but I still have to develop and bugfix the original product, and now stuff like aws cdk, and other bits of...
I've been at the same company doing software engineering (though, mostly devops now, but I still have to develop and bugfix the original product, and now stuff like aws cdk, and other bits of deployment glue) for 36 years now (lots of M&A dragging me along with them though).
I'm much more strict with my lunch times now that I'm full time WFH, I used to be at my desk, munching and working, but now I go out of the room for a full hour.
I'm also hitting that sleep button on the laptop at end time on the dot except in exceptional circumstances, world on fire, prod down etc. which is fair enough. This has not yet happened though. JINX!
I have "please see https://nohello.net" as my teams status, which is helping, eventually.
I think my work life balance now is better than it's ever been.
My estimates (sorry, fruit peeling story point poker things) are reflective of the actual time I know I'll have to work on things.
I was introduced to nohello a few years ago by a coworker and I've desperately wanted to use it but I'm worried it might be seen as passive aggressive, culturally insensitive (I'm at a large...
I was introduced to nohello a few years ago by a coworker and I've desperately wanted to use it but I'm worried it might be seen as passive aggressive, culturally insensitive (I'm at a large multinational corp and some nationalities just saying hello and nothing else is their culture apparently) or just plain ignored.
How has your experience been with it? Has anybody pushed back against it?
They have not. I have been using it for about 4 years, and the reduction in messages like hi have reduced gradually over that time, to almost nothing now. Also, I stopped responding to people who...
They have not. I have been using it for about 4 years, and the reduction in messages like
hi
have reduced gradually over that time, to almost nothing now. Also, I stopped responding to people who just hello me, and I point them at that page if they think I'm being rude.
No-one has given me any pushback. It helps that I've been at the organisation a long ass-time and just about everybody knows me by now, and the new hires find out soon enough.
I think nohello needs to be deployed very deftly to not be seen as passive aggressive. It's not quite lmgtfy aggressive, but it's close enough that I'd recommend caution just sending people the...
I think nohello needs to be deployed very deftly to not be seen as passive aggressive. It's not quite lmgtfy aggressive, but it's close enough that I'd recommend caution just sending people the link in response to their messages.
For me, it's usually: I feel comfortable being somewhat aggressive about it (especially if they're a slow typer) because I've had some coworkers that aggressively push no hello.
For me, it's usually:
Good morning Rajesh, feel free to send me your questions directly. There's no need to send a hello message first :) https://nohello.net/en/
I feel comfortable being somewhat aggressive about it (especially if they're a slow typer) because I've had some coworkers that aggressively push no hello.
That's exactly why I'm staying IC for as long as I still need to work on another's dime. It'll still be 20-30% meetings (a lot of "email meetings" like any other job) but at least my main role is...
That's exactly why I'm staying IC for as long as I still need to work on another's dime. It'll still be 20-30% meetings (a lot of "email meetings" like any other job) but at least my main role is in the trenches.
It’s not been my experience either in the decade I’ve been in this line of work. I believe how much time is spent in meetings by devs is a function of company size and structure, primarily....
It’s not been my experience either in the decade I’ve been in this line of work.
I believe how much time is spent in meetings by devs is a function of company size and structure, primarily. Small-to-midsize companies can be (and often are) relatively flat, with the bulk of devs, even seniors, being ICs and not presiding over anybody else.
I’ve not worked anywhere larger than midsize, and if working at a large company means wasting a lot of time in meetings I’m not sure I want to.
I haven't been in tech as long as you, but I was annoyed by how much time I had to spend in meetings at my last job, and it was well under 20% of my time.
I haven't been in tech as long as you, but I was annoyed by how much time I had to spend in meetings at my last job, and it was well under 20% of my time.
I disagree. I’ve worked with that kind of programmer and it’s awful. They have no actual interest in the field or professional pride in doing a good job. These are the kind of people who do the...
Many people in it have no love for computers, just a love for making a lot of money, for better or for worse (no shame in the latter imo).
I disagree. I’ve worked with that kind of programmer and it’s awful. They have no actual interest in the field or professional pride in doing a good job. These are the kind of people who do the bare minimum to get something that looks like it works, and who don’t stick around long enough to have to deal with the consequences. Being stuck cleaning up their messes is a nightmare.
I think I was clear enough, but yes, I think that there is plenty to be ashamed of in being motivated by nothing but "a love for making a lot of money".
I think I was clear enough, but yes, I think that there is plenty to be ashamed of in being motivated by nothing but "a love for making a lot of money".
I don’t see the issue. If you don’t have a particular passion, should you feel shame? A job is a job. Ultimately it’s up to the manager to figure out if that’s a problem performance wise. If not,...
I don’t see the issue. If you don’t have a particular passion, should you feel shame? A job is a job.
Ultimately it’s up to the manager to figure out if that’s a problem performance wise. If not, is what it is.
Whatever you say. My experience working with that type of programmer has been uniformly terrible. People should have some pride in their work, especially if they’re being well paid. I’m sick of...
Whatever you say. My experience working with that type of programmer has been uniformly terrible.
People should have some pride in their work, especially if they’re being well paid. I’m sick of people who can’t be bothered to do their jobs.
Then their code gets tossed over the fence to you, and their "it's just a job" minded lack of craftsmanship burns you now that you have to maintain it. I'm starting to lean toward liking the idea...
Then their code gets tossed over the fence to you, and their "it's just a job" minded lack of craftsmanship burns you now that you have to maintain it.
I'm starting to lean toward liking the idea of professional licensure these days as well. Especially when it comes to things like automobiles, aviation and medicine.
If they do their job, great. If they don't do their job and realize fixing it is "low impact" on their career, I will hold some resentment if I end up needing to clean up the mess. It's not a...
If you don’t have a particular passion, should you feel shame? A job is a job.
If they do their job, great. If they don't do their job and realize fixing it is "low impact" on their career, I will hold some resentment if I end up needing to clean up the mess.
It's not a function of passion, but those minmaxing pay focus on politics. And like most non-tech politics, "it's shiny and it works" is good enough for the managers, their bosses, and shareholders.
Ultimately it’s up to the manager to figure out if that’s a problem performance wise. If not, is what it is.
There's a lot of tension with the word for good reason, but we were called Software engineers for a reason at one point in time. But sadly, a lot of code out there wants to pretend it will stand the test of time and barely lasts longer than the next earnings call.
When is does break down, management won't take the hit with layoffs. I will. Even if I told them this would be an issue in the middle-term. So yes, that's frustrating. The other person probably already has jumped ship or moved up.
Introvert doesn't mean antisocial. I'd say I'm strongly introverted, but I also aim to be polite, well-spoken, courteous, and diplomatic when interacting with others. And at my seniority I also...
Introvert doesn't mean antisocial. I'd say I'm strongly introverted, but I also aim to be polite, well-spoken, courteous, and diplomatic when interacting with others. And at my seniority I also try to be conscientious of cross-team, cross-org, and partner-company political ramifications.
Introversion doesn't mean I can't be social, it just means I find it very draining. It means that after rounds of meetings or seeing people, I need alone-time to be in my own head for a while to recharge.
That alone-time in my own head is a big part of what original drew me to programming. Many of my colleagues over the years have been the same way; good with the required interactions during the day, but also happy to go heads-down on code given the chance and then to part ways for home at the end of the day.
Or like...we just ignore the energy wasted on commuting to make the argument appear better? I have far more energy when going to work basically involves rolling out bed, putting pants on, and...
Or like...we just ignore the energy wasted on commuting to make the argument appear better? I have far more energy when going to work basically involves rolling out bed, putting pants on, and typing in a password.
I agree that I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference. What works for you might not work for me, and vice versa. To give the reverse perspective: I would do anything for my company to...
I agree that I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference. What works for you might not work for me, and vice versa.
To give the reverse perspective: I would do anything for my company to force people to come into the office 1-2 days a week. This isn't flawless, but I tried to track how much work I would get accomplished in equivalent meeting types between video calls and in-person white boarding over the course of a few months. In a single day of 4hrs solo-work and 4hrs meetings, my team can get done the same amount of work that it takes us an entire week to get done when everyone is remote.
I'm also a big fan of in-person work. I think the worst case scenario is when a company has an office and is ambiguously hybrid or is supposed to be hybrid but is afraid to tell people to come in...
I'm also a big fan of in-person work. I think the worst case scenario is when a company has an office and is ambiguously hybrid or is supposed to be hybrid but is afraid to tell people to come in on certain days. Then you go into an office and your meetings are still all over video chat. Some people like remote. Others like in person. Please just make it clear which companies and teams are which so employees can make informed decisions about how they want to work. Doing both and neither simultaneously doesn't work.
I honestly like going in 3 or 4 days per week. But I also live in downtown San Francisco and can walk/bike to most places I'd want to work.
Commute and cost of living are my two biggest considerations for in-person vs. hybrid vs. remote. After getting a taste of no need to commute and halved housing expenses (while also being able to...
Commute and cost of living are my two biggest considerations for in-person vs. hybrid vs. remote. After getting a taste of no need to commute and halved housing expenses (while also being able to own instead of dealing with the stress and uncertainty of renting), I can't imagine doing in-person or even hybrid unless I was at most a short bike away from the office and either the office was located in a LCoL/MCoL area or compensation was boosted to allow living near the office in an HCoL area. I'm not eager to return to wasting multiple hours on transit during the week or not being able to save much due to most of my paycheck going towards rent, utilities, food, etc.
This is a discussion I have with my boss every few weeks. He's very old school and social, and believes that in-person is the only way to go, meanwhile I keep explaining that we can get so much...
This is a discussion I have with my boss every few weeks. He's very old school and social, and believes that in-person is the only way to go, meanwhile I keep explaining that we can get so much great collaboration remotely. Many people don't like impromptu brainstorming, because it's an interruption to what they're working on at the moment, and if something is needed on the fly, that's what messaging someone "hey do you have a second to discuss XYZ?" is for on slack.
The amount of context switching in-office really sucks. If I’m pulled away from whatever I was working on for an unexpected meeting or brainstorm session, I’m not going to be of much use for half...
The amount of context switching in-office really sucks. If I’m pulled away from whatever I was working on for an unexpected meeting or brainstorm session, I’m not going to be of much use for half of the meeting/session because my head is still going to be stuck on what I was doing before, and then when I return it’s going to take a while to pick up where I left off. Makes it real easy for upwards of an hour of my day to go up in smoke.
And that’s in addition to all the distraction that comes with a typical modern open office, some of which can’t be blocked out with noise canceling headphones — coworkers buzzing around in peripheral vision for instance are difficult to ignore.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this: This just doesn't seem like it's possibly true? Claude is good, better than GPT-4o. But marginally so. If your software used to take days but now takes...
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this:
Software that once took days to ship can now happen in hours or minutes, enabling people to ship 10-20 times faster than before. This all changed on the day Claude 3.5 Sonnet came out.
This just doesn't seem like it's possibly true? Claude is good, better than GPT-4o. But marginally so. If your software used to take days but now takes hours I expect you're employing fresh grads and they're shipping small features. This feels like delusional puffery.
Yes, it’s certainly not my experience. Possibly true using Claude Artifacts to make a simple web page, where it might have taken days to get up to speed if you don’t normally do that. And where...
Yes, it’s certainly not my experience. Possibly true using Claude Artifacts to make a simple web page, where it might have taken days to get up to speed if you don’t normally do that. And where “ship” means you have a link you could share. And it only works for certain kinds of utility web pages.
I have yet to see any of this supposed high quality code generated by LLMs. They can occasionally generate some boilerplate (with competent supervision, sometimes even bug-free), but they are...
I have yet to see any of this supposed high quality code generated by LLMs. They can occasionally generate some boilerplate (with competent supervision, sometimes even bug-free), but they are completely hopeless at comprehensively grokking large codebases. Every line must be double-checked.
This has been my experience as well. Is it a timesaver? Sure, somewhat. But you can't just have these tools generate production-ready code. I would also argue that for newer developers,...
This has been my experience as well. Is it a timesaver? Sure, somewhat. But you can't just have these tools generate production-ready code. I would also argue that for newer developers, LLM-generated can be more difficult. It's always at least somewhat more difficult to debug code that you didn't write. And for new developers who haven't written enough code to fully understand the wide array of coding styles and algorithms whose style differs from their own, it can be very challenging.
I was just wondering today if much of the perceived improvement from LLMs when coding comes from the rubber ducking engineers need to do when using them. I recently made a small web app using...
I was just wondering today if much of the perceived improvement from LLMs when coding comes from the rubber ducking engineers need to do when using them. I recently made a small web app using Cursor (an AI-integrated code editor). Most of the time I was stuck and went to ask Claude for help it was completely incompetent. But the alternative may have been putting down the problem for a while to come back to later. I found that a couple times I would come up with my own, functional, solution while writing back to Claude about how it didn’t listen to anything I said. To its credit it does sometimes suggest a perfect fix right away. So it’s worth having around.
Cursor does however do a great job of making small code editing tasks feel snappy. They’ve got some very fast bespoke models that watch as you type and suggest diffs (not just line completions) which you can see in red/green text and then apply with the Tab key.
And often this makes debugging take even longer. It's like we've been trained for years to look for the kinds of mistakes a human would have made when debugging and the sorts of mistakes and LLM...
Every line must be double-checked.
And often this makes debugging take even longer. It's like we've been trained for years to look for the kinds of mistakes a human would have made when debugging and the sorts of mistakes and LLM makes don't quite line up with that mental model.
The guy seems like an asshole (most of his tweets are pretty much live laugh love for investors and tech bros; “You don’t need a third space, you need a better first and second space”?! Fuck off),...
The guy seems like an asshole (most of his tweets are pretty much live laugh love for investors and tech bros; “You don’t need a third space, you need a better first and second space”?! Fuck off), and with the way he’s phrased that first paragraph I’d be truly amazed if he doesn’t have a financial incentive to promote Anthropic. I also don’t put much weight in his logic here - at best it’s just one guy’s semi-informed opinion, at worst it’s going to be proven factually incorrect.
The one thing I do agree with is @floweringmind’s comment about ownership and cooperatives. Technology has been multiplying productivity for decades (centuries, really), and it looks to be speeding up rather than slowing down. At some point people might collectively realise that 40 hours per week for effectively every adult in the population isn’t actually a requirement to keep society functioning, but that’s going to be a long and difficult fight even after getting enough buy in - in the meantime, ownership is the only way to fairly distribute those productivity gains on a micro scale here and now.
My first space is for me and my family. Guests are welcome but you're only going to get so much "space" in a 1 -2 bedroom apartment. Even a decent house will only have so much room for being a...
“You don’t need a third space, you need a better first and second space”?!
My first space is for me and my family. Guests are welcome but you're only going to get so much "space" in a 1 -2 bedroom apartment. Even a decent house will only have so much room for being a socialite (unless you're in a mansion)
And people like that already helped kill the second space. Workers are a revolving door, how am I supposed to build a community knowing what who's there in 2 years can be completely different, and all mostly doing their work instead of watercooler talk. Not to mention buying power: how am I getting a "better first place" when you're talking about outsourcing me and eventually letting me go?
At some point people might collectively realise that 40 hours per week for effectively every adult in the population isn’t actually a requirement to keep society functioning, but that’s going to be a long and difficult fight even after getting enough buy in
I think it's already happening, just backwards. gig economies and industries cutting hours pretty much gives us the worse of both worlds. Worse paying careers with less hours meaning we need more hours on 2 part time jobs.
But the optimistic side is that discussions about the 4 day workweek is at least sprouting in congress. It'll be a long time, but the wheel is rolling.
What did I just read? It comes off as near jibberish. Is it me, do I just not speak whatever language he's speaking? There are replies that sound equally nonsensical that at first I thought were...
What did I just read? It comes off as near jibberish. Is it me, do I just not speak whatever language he's speaking? There are replies that sound equally nonsensical that at first I thought were people joking about his writing, but now I'm wondering if they're bots or others like him?? Gods, I hope they aren't human. Glad there's a bunch of normal people piping up in the replies, I would think I've gone nuts.
Anyway, remote work is here to stay. Anyone who says different doesn't know what they're talking about or is trying to convince you of that for their own gain.
AI is not going to replace programmers anytime soon, it can make their job faster though.
While I can see there may be some relevant points with regards to an ever increasing speed of "productivity" and how it can stress human cognition and critical thinking when you have less time to...
While I can see there may be some relevant points with regards to an ever increasing speed of "productivity" and how it can stress human cognition and critical thinking when you have less time to think about problems, but I don't really see what AI directly has to do with he is saying. He starts off with a statement about faster shipments, but automated CI/CD pipelines have been a thing for years and where I work, we can deploy to production several times a day. That has nothing to do with AI, just better automation and tools.
It likely has very little to do with AI, just like a lot of statements from "leaders" like this person have very little to do with actual reality and more their reality or how they want to perceived.
It likely has very little to do with AI, just like a lot of statements from "leaders" like this person have very little to do with actual reality and more their reality or how they want to perceived.
I honestly don't feel the need to visit twitter anymore. From the comments, I do get what is going on. But maybe provide an archive link or whatever is suitable for twitter as well so that people...
I honestly don't feel the need to visit twitter anymore. From the comments, I do get what is going on. But maybe provide an archive link or whatever is suitable for twitter as well so that people who don't want to send traffic that way don't need to?
I took another stab at Bluesky since first trying it a while ago. I found that many of the twitter accounts that I actually cared about are using bots to mirror their content over to Bluesky. And...
I took another stab at Bluesky since first trying it a while ago. I found that many of the twitter accounts that I actually cared about are using bots to mirror their content over to Bluesky. And a couple have basically abandoned twitter and moved completely. So I added the mirror bots and disabled all notifications from Twitter. One step closer to just deleting my account, but there's still occasionally something there that I want to see.
Bluesky kinda sucks, but I definitely think it's the cleanest dirty shirt. most of the legacy social medias are in some stage of collapse, Twitter is horrendous, and the fediverse has no real...
Bluesky kinda sucks, but I definitely think it's the cleanest dirty shirt. most of the legacy social medias are in some stage of collapse, Twitter is horrendous, and the fediverse has no real solution to the moderation problem because of how they do federation. bsky has some problems with userbase quality, to put it lightly, but I think it will eventually succeed because it has a better user experience than fediverse and despite those problems still has way better content quality than, say, its most obvious direct competitor, threads.
If I open bsky I see art cats and funnies. I open threads and I see ragebait.
I think I would actually welcome a scenario where Twitter, Bluesky and Threads all survive as struggling, barely-fit-for-purpose platforms and everyone winds up syndicating their posts to all...
I think I would actually welcome a scenario where Twitter, Bluesky and Threads all survive as struggling, barely-fit-for-purpose platforms and everyone winds up syndicating their posts to all three. I think that would encourage people to use them as a broadcast medium, which is far healthier than the current status quo: trying to use them as social forums and being randomly slapped with toxicity.
absolutely agreed, I would just say the annoying users on Twitter are the Nazi kind of too online, and the annoying users on bluesky are the tumblr kind of too online. bluntly I think the Internet...
absolutely agreed, I would just say the annoying users on Twitter are the Nazi kind of too online, and the annoying users on bluesky are the tumblr kind of too online.
bluntly I think the Internet is just broadly worse than 2 years ago because a lot of the people who post interesting content have logged off the corporate Internet to go do something else. there'll be backfill in time but. it will take time
Xitter also seems to randomly block folks who aren't logged in from viewing tweets. I really wish we could just point all xitter links to archived copies, or copy/paste the (short!) text instead.
Xitter also seems to randomly block folks who aren't logged in from viewing tweets. I really wish we could just point all xitter links to archived copies, or copy/paste the (short!) text instead.
Normally when software developers adopt better tools that make their jobs easier (a better IDE, a faster compiler, a better language, a faster computer), this improves productivity but nobody...
Normally when software developers adopt better tools that make their jobs easier (a better IDE, a faster compiler, a better language, a faster computer), this improves productivity but nobody worries about its effect on jobs. If you’re pessimistic, you complain that the churn isn’t improving your productivity and that’s bad.
If they’re AI tools, though, there is sometimes crazy talk from bizarro world where make-work is good and productivity-enhancing tools are bad.
Sometimes you get both: a claim that AI tools both lower quality and put people out of work. I think that’s short-sighted. Introducing bugs generates work when they have to be fixed later. Failed projects due to poor quality generate more work for programmers, too. AI slop makes conditions more challenging for people who work on search engines, and creates opportunities for companies that can filter out the nonsense. AI, used badly, can generate lots of work :)
I’m not sure there’s much reason to freak out about this tweet, it’s full of non-sequiturs and is made by one dude who owns one company with 20 employees. If you panic over every loon on twitter you’ll hardly have any time leftover in the day.
My heart goes out to those poor 20 employees.
I mean they probably know exactly what they signed up for. It's a company dedicated to replacing workers with AI
I mean, I'm suspect right here to begin with. What are you shipping 10 times faster? AI slop websites?
So this contradicts remote work as a concept and sounds more like "hey we can outsource!"
Yeah I have to agree with you. This guy is spewing total garbage.
As a software engineer for a company that has virtually unlimited access to the latest AI tools, I can honestly say it's made very little difference in dev time.
It's nowhere near understanding the complexity and interdependencies of large codebases. All it's good for is spitting out small chunks of code that you have to double check anyway. It won't help you solve any of the difficult problems which end up taking most of the time.
Yeah, in my experience even just using AI to generate little helper functions like take a timestamp string in this format and give it to me in number of seconds has failed at least 30-40% of the time.
It’s nice when it works and incredible that it works slightly more often than not but when it’s wrong it’s usually in subtle ways that are easily missed if you aren’t being careful.
It might “feel” like you’re going faster but you’re probably fooling yourself.
This stuff gives me big “open offices promote amazing collaboration and speed up productivity” vibes. And we all know the results of that.
I started using Copilot about a month ago. It's definitely helpful, but mostly for replacing routine and repetitive tasks. It's also nice for creating lambda functions. It might just be a me thing, but I'm significantly better at understanding lambda functions than I am at writing them in the first place, which is ideal for reviewing AI generated code.
I.. don't entirely agree with this statement. It sounds kinda like someone saying the thing that fits the outcome they want.
I understand different people have different ways they work well, so for some people/orgs I'm sure this is true. But, I feel like my coworkers have plenty of great brainstorming and whiteboarding opportunities remotely, whether scheduled or impromptu.
I (personally) feel no real difference between dropping by someone's desk vs. sending them a quick chat and hopping on a call. (The latter also has the benefit that if one of us IS focused, we can wait to talk when we're both free.)
In my opinion, or at least work circumstance, it just takes the right tools and the right mindset for leveraging those tools.
My favorite part of that is that apparently overcoming one of the bottlenecks (running low on energy; which I agree is a bottleneck) is done by working together onsite, thanks to "the energy of working together".
I guess introverts don't exist.
It’s crazy how even in an industry where introverts likely form the majority (software dev), introversion is treated as something that can be “fixed”. How many more years will it take before it’s common knowledge that it doesn’t work that way?
I feel like this view is highly overblown now. Gone are the days of “the programmers” being goblin nerds in a basement. CS programs are exploding because it’s seen as a high income career. It’s a very professional-minded field now. Many people in it have no love for computers, just a love for making a lot of money, for better or for worse (no shame in the latter imo).
Additionally, social skills are ultimately more important than technical for upward movement at tech companies. People who are competent at the latter and incompetent at the former will find themselves flailing, for the most part.
Social skills is not the same as extraversion and a lack thereof isn't the same as introversion, though. The stereotype of the programmer who doesn't know how to interact with people is less true than ever, but it's rooted in a grain of truth -- their role doesn't require a lot of day-to-day interaction with people for them to excel, at least not when compared to alternatives. It's no more surprising to see more introverted programmers than it is to find extraverted people in sales, even though there's nothing stopping an extravert from being technical or an introvert from having good interpersonal skills.
That’s exactly why it doesn’t make any sense to say that it’s a field with a “majority introverts” or vice versa. Most software engineers spend more time in meetings than coding, especially as they work up the ladder. There’s no particular selection for or against introversion in modern software engineering companies and positions.
I think it's a little bit silly to say that most software engineers spend more time in meetings than coding, as that hasn't been my experience, though it is definitely true that you spend more time in meetings the higher up you are. I don't think it's so ridiculous to think that careers with more human interaction may be more appealing to extraverts than introverts and vice-versa (though idk whether that ends up entailing "a majority"). Especially since, even if you do equate intro/extraversion with social skills, I can promise you what's expected in terms of "soft skills" in software engineering, is definitely still a lot lower than in many other careers, even as programming becomes more professionalized.
I spend over half my time in meetings, either ceremonies or other planning or helping colleagues. Sometimes days are 115% meetings.
I live for the days that drop below 50%
Just as a note, this can wildly vary per company. I have also found that companies where the percentage of meetings is this high are also companies with a lot more artificial "calamities", shifting deadlines and an overall lack of focus.
Though, it does depend on what your exact job title is and what your responsibilities are, of course. I am just assuming you are replying here from a software engineering perspective.
Also, very often, when this is the case, people working at companies like that are not truly aware of this happening. Because of the constant baseline of chaos, makes it difficult to focus and is also neatly masquerading behind all those meetings. It effectively can become a boiling frog scenario.
A few months ago, I replied to someone else about this, I am just linking it in case it is relevant for you.
Again, this might not be the case at all. In that case feel free to ignore my comment :)
I've been at the same company doing software engineering (though, mostly devops now, but I still have to develop and bugfix the original product, and now stuff like aws cdk, and other bits of deployment glue) for 36 years now (lots of M&A dragging me along with them though).
I'm much more strict with my lunch times now that I'm full time WFH, I used to be at my desk, munching and working, but now I go out of the room for a full hour.
I'm also hitting that sleep button on the laptop at end time on the dot except in exceptional circumstances, world on fire, prod down etc. which is fair enough. This has not yet happened though. JINX!
I have "please see https://nohello.net" as my teams status, which is helping, eventually.
I think my work life balance now is better than it's ever been.
My estimates (sorry, fruit peeling story point poker things) are reflective of the actual time I know I'll have to work on things.
I was introduced to nohello a few years ago by a coworker and I've desperately wanted to use it but I'm worried it might be seen as passive aggressive, culturally insensitive (I'm at a large multinational corp and some nationalities just saying hello and nothing else is their culture apparently) or just plain ignored.
How has your experience been with it? Has anybody pushed back against it?
They have not. I have been using it for about 4 years, and the reduction in messages like
hi
have reduced gradually over that time, to almost nothing now. Also, I stopped responding to people who just hello me, and I point them at that page if they think I'm being rude.
No-one has given me any pushback. It helps that I've been at the organisation a long ass-time and just about everybody knows me by now, and the new hires find out soon enough.
I think nohello needs to be deployed very deftly to not be seen as passive aggressive. It's not quite lmgtfy aggressive, but it's close enough that I'd recommend caution just sending people the link in response to their messages.
For me, it's usually:
I feel comfortable being somewhat aggressive about it (especially if they're a slow typer) because I've had some coworkers that aggressively push no hello.
I think that's relatively deft, I just think it's a very tough needle to thread!
That sounds awful! I'm really glad that hasn't been my experience (at least not yet!)
That's exactly why I'm staying IC for as long as I still need to work on another's dime. It'll still be 20-30% meetings (a lot of "email meetings" like any other job) but at least my main role is in the trenches.
It’s not been my experience either in the decade I’ve been in this line of work.
I believe how much time is spent in meetings by devs is a function of company size and structure, primarily. Small-to-midsize companies can be (and often are) relatively flat, with the bulk of devs, even seniors, being ICs and not presiding over anybody else.
I’ve not worked anywhere larger than midsize, and if working at a large company means wasting a lot of time in meetings I’m not sure I want to.
I haven't been in tech as long as you, but I was annoyed by how much time I had to spend in meetings at my last job, and it was well under 20% of my time.
I disagree. I’ve worked with that kind of programmer and it’s awful. They have no actual interest in the field or professional pride in doing a good job. These are the kind of people who do the bare minimum to get something that looks like it works, and who don’t stick around long enough to have to deal with the consequences. Being stuck cleaning up their messes is a nightmare.
Disagree with what? That there’s no shame in the latter?
I think I was clear enough, but yes, I think that there is plenty to be ashamed of in being motivated by nothing but "a love for making a lot of money".
I don’t see the issue. If you don’t have a particular passion, should you feel shame? A job is a job.
Ultimately it’s up to the manager to figure out if that’s a problem performance wise. If not, is what it is.
Yeah, like my job is fine and I do actually enjoy programming... but I also only do any job for the money.
Whatever you say. My experience working with that type of programmer has been uniformly terrible.
People should have some pride in their work, especially if they’re being well paid. I’m sick of people who can’t be bothered to do their jobs.
Then their code gets tossed over the fence to you, and their "it's just a job" minded lack of craftsmanship burns you now that you have to maintain it.
I'm starting to lean toward liking the idea of professional licensure these days as well. Especially when it comes to things like automobiles, aviation and medicine.
If they do their job, great. If they don't do their job and realize fixing it is "low impact" on their career, I will hold some resentment if I end up needing to clean up the mess.
It's not a function of passion, but those minmaxing pay focus on politics. And like most non-tech politics, "it's shiny and it works" is good enough for the managers, their bosses, and shareholders.
There's a lot of tension with the word for good reason, but we were called Software engineers for a reason at one point in time. But sadly, a lot of code out there wants to pretend it will stand the test of time and barely lasts longer than the next earnings call.
When is does break down, management won't take the hit with layoffs. I will. Even if I told them this would be an issue in the middle-term. So yes, that's frustrating. The other person probably already has jumped ship or moved up.
Introvert doesn't mean antisocial. I'd say I'm strongly introverted, but I also aim to be polite, well-spoken, courteous, and diplomatic when interacting with others. And at my seniority I also try to be conscientious of cross-team, cross-org, and partner-company political ramifications.
Introversion doesn't mean I can't be social, it just means I find it very draining. It means that after rounds of meetings or seeing people, I need alone-time to be in my own head for a while to recharge.
That alone-time in my own head is a big part of what original drew me to programming. Many of my colleagues over the years have been the same way; good with the required interactions during the day, but also happy to go heads-down on code given the chance and then to part ways for home at the end of the day.
Or like...we just ignore the energy wasted on commuting to make the argument appear better? I have far more energy when going to work basically involves rolling out bed, putting pants on, and typing in a password.
Was thinking the same, apparently the solution to low energy is a 1.5 hour commute.
I agree that I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference. What works for you might not work for me, and vice versa.
To give the reverse perspective: I would do anything for my company to force people to come into the office 1-2 days a week. This isn't flawless, but I tried to track how much work I would get accomplished in equivalent meeting types between video calls and in-person white boarding over the course of a few months. In a single day of 4hrs solo-work and 4hrs meetings, my team can get done the same amount of work that it takes us an entire week to get done when everyone is remote.
I'm also a big fan of in-person work. I think the worst case scenario is when a company has an office and is ambiguously hybrid or is supposed to be hybrid but is afraid to tell people to come in on certain days. Then you go into an office and your meetings are still all over video chat. Some people like remote. Others like in person. Please just make it clear which companies and teams are which so employees can make informed decisions about how they want to work. Doing both and neither simultaneously doesn't work.
I honestly like going in 3 or 4 days per week. But I also live in downtown San Francisco and can walk/bike to most places I'd want to work.
Commute and cost of living are my two biggest considerations for in-person vs. hybrid vs. remote. After getting a taste of no need to commute and halved housing expenses (while also being able to own instead of dealing with the stress and uncertainty of renting), I can't imagine doing in-person or even hybrid unless I was at most a short bike away from the office and either the office was located in a LCoL/MCoL area or compensation was boosted to allow living near the office in an HCoL area. I'm not eager to return to wasting multiple hours on transit during the week or not being able to save much due to most of my paycheck going towards rent, utilities, food, etc.
This is a discussion I have with my boss every few weeks. He's very old school and social, and believes that in-person is the only way to go, meanwhile I keep explaining that we can get so much great collaboration remotely. Many people don't like impromptu brainstorming, because it's an interruption to what they're working on at the moment, and if something is needed on the fly, that's what messaging someone "hey do you have a second to discuss XYZ?" is for on slack.
The amount of context switching in-office really sucks. If I’m pulled away from whatever I was working on for an unexpected meeting or brainstorm session, I’m not going to be of much use for half of the meeting/session because my head is still going to be stuck on what I was doing before, and then when I return it’s going to take a while to pick up where I left off. Makes it real easy for upwards of an hour of my day to go up in smoke.
And that’s in addition to all the distraction that comes with a typical modern open office, some of which can’t be blocked out with noise canceling headphones — coworkers buzzing around in peripheral vision for instance are difficult to ignore.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this:
This just doesn't seem like it's possibly true? Claude is good, better than GPT-4o. But marginally so. If your software used to take days but now takes hours I expect you're employing fresh grads and they're shipping small features. This feels like delusional puffery.
Yes, it’s certainly not my experience. Possibly true using Claude Artifacts to make a simple web page, where it might have taken days to get up to speed if you don’t normally do that. And where “ship” means you have a link you could share. And it only works for certain kinds of utility web pages.
I have yet to see any of this supposed high quality code generated by LLMs. They can occasionally generate some boilerplate (with competent supervision, sometimes even bug-free), but they are completely hopeless at comprehensively grokking large codebases. Every line must be double-checked.
This has been my experience as well. Is it a timesaver? Sure, somewhat. But you can't just have these tools generate production-ready code. I would also argue that for newer developers, LLM-generated can be more difficult. It's always at least somewhat more difficult to debug code that you didn't write. And for new developers who haven't written enough code to fully understand the wide array of coding styles and algorithms whose style differs from their own, it can be very challenging.
I was just wondering today if much of the perceived improvement from LLMs when coding comes from the rubber ducking engineers need to do when using them. I recently made a small web app using Cursor (an AI-integrated code editor). Most of the time I was stuck and went to ask Claude for help it was completely incompetent. But the alternative may have been putting down the problem for a while to come back to later. I found that a couple times I would come up with my own, functional, solution while writing back to Claude about how it didn’t listen to anything I said. To its credit it does sometimes suggest a perfect fix right away. So it’s worth having around.
Cursor does however do a great job of making small code editing tasks feel snappy. They’ve got some very fast bespoke models that watch as you type and suggest diffs (not just line completions) which you can see in red/green text and then apply with the Tab key.
And often this makes debugging take even longer. It's like we've been trained for years to look for the kinds of mistakes a human would have made when debugging and the sorts of mistakes and LLM makes don't quite line up with that mental model.
The guy seems like an asshole (most of his tweets are pretty much live laugh love for investors and tech bros; “You don’t need a third space, you need a better first and second space”?! Fuck off), and with the way he’s phrased that first paragraph I’d be truly amazed if he doesn’t have a financial incentive to promote Anthropic. I also don’t put much weight in his logic here - at best it’s just one guy’s semi-informed opinion, at worst it’s going to be proven factually incorrect.
The one thing I do agree with is @floweringmind’s comment about ownership and cooperatives. Technology has been multiplying productivity for decades (centuries, really), and it looks to be speeding up rather than slowing down. At some point people might collectively realise that 40 hours per week for effectively every adult in the population isn’t actually a requirement to keep society functioning, but that’s going to be a long and difficult fight even after getting enough buy in - in the meantime, ownership is the only way to fairly distribute those productivity gains on a micro scale here and now.
My first space is for me and my family. Guests are welcome but you're only going to get so much "space" in a 1 -2 bedroom apartment. Even a decent house will only have so much room for being a socialite (unless you're in a mansion)
And people like that already helped kill the second space. Workers are a revolving door, how am I supposed to build a community knowing what who's there in 2 years can be completely different, and all mostly doing their work instead of watercooler talk. Not to mention buying power: how am I getting a "better first place" when you're talking about outsourcing me and eventually letting me go?
I think it's already happening, just backwards. gig economies and industries cutting hours pretty much gives us the worse of both worlds. Worse paying careers with less hours meaning we need more hours on 2 part time jobs.
But the optimistic side is that discussions about the 4 day workweek is at least sprouting in congress. It'll be a long time, but the wheel is rolling.
If this is what companies are going to do with AI, then we need to start our own companies and worker cooperatives, to avoid being exploited.
I wish others in our profession would have listened to those of us wanting to unionize while we held all the power
What did I just read? It comes off as near jibberish. Is it me, do I just not speak whatever language he's speaking? There are replies that sound equally nonsensical that at first I thought were people joking about his writing, but now I'm wondering if they're bots or others like him?? Gods, I hope they aren't human. Glad there's a bunch of normal people piping up in the replies, I would think I've gone nuts.
Anyway, remote work is here to stay. Anyone who says different doesn't know what they're talking about or is trying to convince you of that for their own gain.
AI is not going to replace programmers anytime soon, it can make their job faster though.
While I can see there may be some relevant points with regards to an ever increasing speed of "productivity" and how it can stress human cognition and critical thinking when you have less time to think about problems, but I don't really see what AI directly has to do with he is saying. He starts off with a statement about faster shipments, but automated CI/CD pipelines have been a thing for years and where I work, we can deploy to production several times a day. That has nothing to do with AI, just better automation and tools.
It likely has very little to do with AI, just like a lot of statements from "leaders" like this person have very little to do with actual reality and more their reality or how they want to perceived.
What I'm most impressed by is that even the other bluechecks and entrepreneur-types in the replies are arguing with him. 😂
I honestly don't feel the need to visit twitter anymore. From the comments, I do get what is going on. But maybe provide an archive link or whatever is suitable for twitter as well so that people who don't want to send traffic that way don't need to?
I took another stab at Bluesky since first trying it a while ago. I found that many of the twitter accounts that I actually cared about are using bots to mirror their content over to Bluesky. And a couple have basically abandoned twitter and moved completely. So I added the mirror bots and disabled all notifications from Twitter. One step closer to just deleting my account, but there's still occasionally something there that I want to see.
Bluesky kinda sucks, but I definitely think it's the cleanest dirty shirt. most of the legacy social medias are in some stage of collapse, Twitter is horrendous, and the fediverse has no real solution to the moderation problem because of how they do federation. bsky has some problems with userbase quality, to put it lightly, but I think it will eventually succeed because it has a better user experience than fediverse and despite those problems still has way better content quality than, say, its most obvious direct competitor, threads.
If I open bsky I see art cats and funnies. I open threads and I see ragebait.
I think I would actually welcome a scenario where Twitter, Bluesky and Threads all survive as struggling, barely-fit-for-purpose platforms and everyone winds up syndicating their posts to all three. I think that would encourage people to use them as a broadcast medium, which is far healthier than the current status quo: trying to use them as social forums and being randomly slapped with toxicity.
Care to expand on the user ase quality of bsky? I've found the vast majority of my interactions there to be quite friendly and interesting.
absolutely agreed, I would just say the annoying users on Twitter are the Nazi kind of too online, and the annoying users on bluesky are the tumblr kind of too online.
bluntly I think the Internet is just broadly worse than 2 years ago because a lot of the people who post interesting content have logged off the corporate Internet to go do something else. there'll be backfill in time but. it will take time
Xitter also seems to randomly block folks who aren't logged in from viewing tweets. I really wish we could just point all xitter links to archived copies, or copy/paste the (short!) text instead.
Normally when software developers adopt better tools that make their jobs easier (a better IDE, a faster compiler, a better language, a faster computer), this improves productivity but nobody worries about its effect on jobs. If you’re pessimistic, you complain that the churn isn’t improving your productivity and that’s bad.
If they’re AI tools, though, there is sometimes crazy talk from bizarro world where make-work is good and productivity-enhancing tools are bad.
Sometimes you get both: a claim that AI tools both lower quality and put people out of work. I think that’s short-sighted. Introducing bugs generates work when they have to be fixed later. Failed projects due to poor quality generate more work for programmers, too. AI slop makes conditions more challenging for people who work on search engines, and creates opportunities for companies that can filter out the nonsense. AI, used badly, can generate lots of work :)