GNU/Linux

If you’re truly honest about wanting to improve your skills then do not use AI!

Just write code. Any code! It doesn’t matter. Spend the hours problem solving and debugging and banging your head against the wall. That’s how we all learned and gained experience. But also reach out and seek help about specific problems you can’t solve.

For a project idea, how about a program that uses the Lemmy API to scan resent posts for Python topics. It’s something that can start basic but can be expanded upon. Start simple by just scanning posts from the last day. Then expand by adding a configurable date range, scanning several communities, multiple topics, presenting notifications, etc.

Balenciaga

That’s a terrible take and its desperately trying to draw an equivalence where there isn’t one.

I’d argue that the slop code creates more drudgery with having to constantly babysit the LLM. Never mind a new blog post every week about how your “agentic workflow” from last week is all wrong and you need even more infrastructure to wrangle the LLM. It’s worse than the way the JavaScript ecosystem used to be!

Reading someone else’s code is challenging, but at least with a person you can ask them questions or debate.

I guess I’m just someone who finds reviewing someone else’s work tedious, though a necessary part of the job.

The answer is in the article. Generation happens in gigantic data centers.

Stonkrocket

I get the impression this is common. It seems like education hasn’t caught up to the fact that a lot of people are wanting to learn software engineering, but they lack some fundamentals. There really should be an intro course going all the way from what is a file to maybe some basics about the ELF format? Sort of something that can lead into the OS course, but lay the foundation for just basic computer use. Let the nerds get their easy A, but give everyone else a better understanding and some fundamentals to build on.

I wonder how many of these folks just don’t know about the alternatives. I’ve come across otherwise capable developers who think git and GitHub are the same thing. People come to software from all sorts of backgrounds so I can’t blame anyone for not knowing.

I also imagine that if people are aware, the activation energy of switching is too high. It’s more than just setting a new remote and pushing. You have to learn the new system, maybe migrate tickets, wrestle with CI, etc. For a hobby project it’s probably easier to shut it down and just go do something else. I also don’t blame them here. There’s more to life than open source, and its amazing people are able to contribute when they can.

That gum you like is going to come back in style

Indeed! I think packages like Doom Emacs help, but the learning curve is still steep.

But I do think leaning Emacs was one of the best things I’ve done!

laughs in Emacs

It is unfortunate though, since Zed did seem to have potential. But I can’t say I’m surprised given their focus on vibe coding instead if making a good editor.

I recently had to tell one of my juniors to turn off his AI tools. His code was just all over the place and difficult to review. He still has a lot to learn, but I’ve already seen an improvement now that he actually has to be a bit thoughtful.

This could be fun!

Unfortunately I didn’t clone the repository before it was taken down.

They recently put together a list of software that was built using AI and a bunch of AI people didn’t take too kindly to it. The list has since been taken down and Kat has decided to take a break from open source software.

Most of the people on the list seemed pretty reasonable and were engaging in conversation about it. But emotions did begin to flare a bit and things got a bit out of hand. There are some conversations on Bluesky you might be able to find, but I think Kat also removed their account so the conversations might appear very one-sided.

It’s a very unfortunate outcome I feel. There are people on both sides of the debate whom I respect, Kat included.

And when someone like Kat Marchán tried to raise awareness they get chased off the internet because an LLM did something OK a couple times.

Very much so. I bet most of those people have never run an open source project or business, but they all have an opinion.

Pretty sad to hear this though since I really like Tailwind. I wonder how many other projects this vibe coding bullshit will harm. So sad to see more wealth being concentrated instead of being distributed.

Doom Emacs on Arch with Plasma.

I believe source is here

I’ve started using Disroot recently and I’m satisfied so far.