How many people could, from scratch, build a ball point pen?
Do we have to understand the 100 years of history behind the tool or the ability to use it? Some level of repair knowledge is great. Knowing the spring vs ink level is also helpful.
Following up - I am the most excited about using computers because the barrier from intent to product are being dropped. At this point my children can 'code' software without knowing anything other than intent. Reality is being made manifest. Building physics into a game would take a decade of experience but today we can say "allow for collision between vehicles".
If you have ever gone running the ability to coordinate four limbs, maintain balance, assert trajectory, negotiate uneven terrain, and modify velocity and speed at will is completely unknown to 99.9% of mortals who ever lived and yet is possible because 'biological black box hand wave'.
The dead man, whomever is in question, can no longer harm you. He was a man, maybe a husband and father, and speaking ill of them is of no tangible benefit. To those that respected or loved them, the relationship is gone, and it is not wise to add to their pain.
I have been to the funeral of bad men. His earthly power is gone and if there is an afterlife his judgment is sealed.
This goes for all enemies and tyrants and criminals. We use the term "I am sorry for your loss" because most times the loss is not ours.
I disagree. I say speak against the ideas, not the person, as the person dies, except Jesus who people continue to invoke his name, which probably means he transcends an idea or belief.
I have a terrible toxic belief troubles you. Can I be a member of society just because I believe pineapple on pizza is acceptable? If you associate me as a person with that belief instead of someone who believes, I suddenly become a problem, and not the belief. Jesus said to love your enemies. He also spoke against ideas, not people.
Long ago where one's politics is elevated to the position of identity the culture shifted and continues to shift.
I realized early on through IRC that some people cannot have a professional or cordial relationship with someone opposed to their position. The moment someone found out I believed in the opposite of the group I was attacked.
I have no idea what the politics of the CEO of Boeing or Ford or Home Depot is. They don't stand on stages brandishing chainsaws, or writing op-eds about political viewpoints, thus I don't disagree with them on politics. Some CEOs do that and thus choose to associate their companies and their business with politics.
If you make your politics part of your identity, as Adams increasingly chose to do throughout the 2010s, then it will become your identity, and that associates his output with his politics.
I will agree, that promoting a specific ideology will put one at odds. What if you learn about Ford's deleted documents? Home Depot's preferential treatment for some people over others? Does this change your position of the quality of their product? I personally can do business and work with people who are outspoken of their hate toward my belief. I am kept around because of my delivery, despite my religion, which I am thankful. I do not hide my faith within the company but I do not actively speak out because I am conducting professional work.
That was a call out to Javier Milei who famously used a chainsaw during his campaigns in Argentina to talk about cutting waste and he's doing it very successfully while raising Argentina out of poverty & hyperinflation. Milei gave a chainsaw to Musk as a gift for DOGE.
Oh, I like this a lot. My kids are quite physically active, but they do love to binge video games, too. I like the idea of letting them "buy" more leisure time at their own discretion through self-disciplined work.
I learned that dentists make their money by doing procedures that have little overhead and high returns.
I read about patients who would go one dentist that said they found X cavities and then go to another dentist that would say 'zero' were found.
I tested it myself when I was told I required extensive cleaning beneath the gums and the next dentist, who has a 3 month waiting list, said it was not required and my teeth were fine.
I no longer believe any dentist and considering most are now private equity operated it makes sense.
Perhaps for the inexperienced or timid. Code quality is it compiles and design is it performs to spec. Does properly formatted code matter when you no longer have to read it?
Formatted? I guess not really, because it’s trivially easy to reformat it. But how it’s structured, the data structures and algorithms it uses, the way it models the problem space, the way it handles failures? That all matters, because ultimately the computer still has to run the code.
It may be more extreme than what you are suggesting here, but there are definitely people out there who think that code quality no longer matters. I find that viewpoint maddening. I was already of the opinion that the average quality of software is appalling, even before we start talking about generated code. Probably 99% of all CPU cycles today are wasted relative to how fast software could be.
Of course there are trade-offs: we can’t and shouldn’t all be shipping only hand-optimised machine code. But the degree to which we waste these incredible resources is slightly nauseating.
Just because something doesn’t have to be better, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to make it so.
I don't agree, I looked at most of the code the AI wrote in my project, I have a good idea of how it is architectured because I actively planned it. If I have a bug in my orders, I know I have to go to the orders service. Then it's not much harder than reading the code my coworkers write at my daily job.
At this point in reality do you read assembly or libraries anymore?
Years ago it was Programmer -> Code -> Compile -> Runtime
Now today the Programmer is divided into two entities.
Intention/Prompt Engineer -> AI -> Code -> Compile -> Runtime.
We have entered the 'sudo make me a sandwich' world where computers are now doing our bidding via voice and intent. Despite knowing how low level device drivers work I do not care how a file is stored, in what format, or on what medium. I do want it to function with .open and .write which will work as expected with a working instruction set.
Those who can dive deep into software and hardware problems will retain their jobs or find work doing that which AI cannot. The days of requiring an army of six figure polyglots has passed. As for the ability to production or kernel level work is a matter of time.
I am validating and testing these for the company and myself. Each has a personality with quirks and deficiencies. Sometimes the magic sauce is the prompting or at times it is the agentic undercurrent that changes the wave of code.
More specific models with faster tools is the better shovel. We are not there yet.
My guess is the purchase captures the 'lessons learned' based upon production use and user feedback.
What I do not understand is that if a high level staff with capacity can produce an 80% replacement why not assign the required staff to complete that last 10% to bring it to production readiness? That last 10% is unnecessary features and excess outside of the requirements.
Do we have to understand the 100 years of history behind the tool or the ability to use it? Some level of repair knowledge is great. Knowing the spring vs ink level is also helpful.
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