Incredible observation. Seasons begin and end on different days depending on sea level. I was under the impression that the first two thirds of March was winter at every elevation in the northern hemisphere. singleshot_ has added much to this conversation. You cannot tell AI slopposters from regular hn users because they all get out of the house the same amount of time.
AI is another step up the ladder of abstraction, another tool like linters, compilers, IDEs, code completion.
Can Claude replace you? Have LLMs altered the software developer productivity equation?
In 1987, Fred Brooks wrote [1]:
"But, as we look to the horizon of a decade hence, we see no silver bullet. There is no single development, in either technology or in management technique, that by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity."
Most companies do not measure software developer productivity. I have never been part of an organization that does.
Will it collapse the economy? The last innovation to collapse the economy was credit default swaps. This says more about the economic systems we have built than technology or progress.
No one knows what is going to happen. But humans are still necessary for every stage of labor, and software developers are still necessary for making software.
So 5-10 years to amortize the cost. You could get 10 years of Claude Max and your $20k could stay in the bank in case the robots steal your job or you need to take an ambulance ride in the US.
And then in the same article he goes to write that Firefox "will evolve into a modern AI browser", which makes AI sound like an intrinsic trait. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence if you ask me.
You could turn Pocket off, you just had to do it every time you updated because they decided to be user-hostile and keep jamming it down users throats (I'm still baffled as to why).
No. My labor is transactional. The rest of my time is leisure.
Same reason why I have no interest in working weekends. Is the CEO going to come by my house on Saturday and mow my lawn? Wait, HR said we were family...
The new CEO centered AI ("It's Time to Evolve Firefox Into an AI Browser") in his first communication to the community. Spawned at least three new forks and introduced people to LibreWolf.
His first communication reduced trust: "It is a privilege to lead an organization with a long history of standing up for people and building technology that puts them first."
Now let's put people first by making Firefox an AI first browser. Enzor-Demeo would have made an excellent Microsoft product manager. Too bad he didn't get the job.
It is satire. You don't need to know the writer to get it. McSweeney's publishes these type of pieces from time-to-time. Laugh or don't. I found this one amusing.
Wikipedia, a generation ago, was considered controversial. It is now more accepted as a legitimate encyclopedia and the criticisms appear quaint when compared to the post-truth atmosphere of our current media. The footnotes and the "citation needed" annotations are meant to mimic a Wikipedia article.
The donate button is a nice touch, from a time when web sites weren't afraid to put links to external sites. Wikipedia probably doesn't need your money, but it is, in my opinion, a solid organization providing an incredible resource to humanity. Though, as with all human enterprises, it has its flaws.
> It is now more accepted as a legitimate encyclopedia
To be fair, it is easily 10x better as a source than any encyclopedia, even disregarding the scope and quantity of entries.
I loved Encyclopedia Britannica, and probably read the set in its entirety as a kid (nonsequentially), but it was like learning biology from Disney specials. Wikipedia is often updated and corrected by multiple experts, and importantly includes biblio endnotes. The latter alone sets it far above mere encyclopedias.
I remember an early advertisement for EB, masquerading as a research article that compared EB and WP. They found that while WP contained a bit more articles, EB was a bit more accurate (in their totally unbiased sampling). They did not mention that WP was growing exponentially at the time, while EB was not, nor did they mention that WP was continuously updated with corrections, while EB was effectively never ever updated (users bought a static copy).
I learned much of what I know by reading the set of encyclopedias someone gave my family as a gift when I was born. By the time I really got to them there were a bit out of date.
What a lot of folks miss is that traditional encyclopedias ensured correctness by employing experts in various fields. Wikipedia often cites those same experts via academic papers, etc. They just don't pay those SME's money directly.
If anything, I feel that Wikipedia often has less bias as the financial motives aren't there to just publish something for the sake of a paycheck.
I'll never forget EB's entry on "baby". It started with a lengthy paragraph that made a human baby sound like a horrifying, antisocial, psychotic parasite.
Yes, you feel obligated to reply with a joke about how accurate that is. Not the point.
The point is: the author was clearly a man, who didn't raise his own children, and it was unvetted by others.
Why are you building projects? Why are you studying Software Engineering?
If you want a career in software development, it's better to learn, which means writing code. And maybe study AI tools as well because they will probably be part of the job.
If you want a career as a prompt engineer, study that. I'm not convinced this will be a viable path anytime soon, as in the next five years. But what do I know? I'm an idiot on the internet and am surprised as you are by this world.
If you want to build solutions for end users or customers, use whatever tools work for you. The only thing that matters is the functioning software and the technical debt to keep it functioning.
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