Hacker News: drTobiasFunke

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "Engineering management after the cost of code collapsed"

drTobiasFunke — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:51:43 +0000

This is so accurate. I am a fairly senior individual contributor and its been more than a year since I saw a good design doc or quality design discussion. Before you can even question the design, someone has generated a 50k line prototype and already made up their mind because of all the “you’re absolutely right..” and “X is exactly what you need..” from AI.

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "Engineering management after the cost of code collapsed"

drTobiasFunke — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:47:51 +0000

“Not in speed, but in quality” — unfortunately though, not a single CEO, executive, company, VC, investor or anyone with the power to make decisions cares about quality instead of speed.

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "Advertise in ChatGPT"

drTobiasFunke — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 01:43:37 +0000

Seriously? 99% of the ads are trying to sell stuff you dont need at all. But they want to sell that to you. Why would you rely on an ad to realize what you NEED and then buy it?

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "An Englishwoman who sketched India before photography took hold"

drTobiasFunke — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 17:34:59 +0000

Inglorious empire is another good one by Tharoor. Provides letters and statements from British officials and officers to show the intent and exploits.

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "An Englishwoman who sketched India before photography took hold"

drTobiasFunke — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 17:33:25 +0000

Yes, Genghis was a brutal conqueror so he was a monster (rightfully). But Alexander, who was also a brutal conqueror, killed millions and literally burnt down persian capital is “the great”. See how subtle propaganda works? You dont even realize how it gets to you.

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "An Englishwoman who sketched India before photography took hold"

drTobiasFunke — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 05:43:23 +0000

The temples built were by hindu empires like the vijayanagara empire or the marathas later who ruled significant parts of India coinciding with the turkic invasion and occupation that you are conveniently not taught in schools. The trukuc invasion left behind a trail of destroyed temples and coties. From sun temple of multan to martand temple in kashmir to ayodhya to mathura to kashi to hampi to belur and halebidu.. its literally a trail of ruins left behind. I dont even know why you are trying to argue that turkic occupation of India was somehow good for natives. The lack of pioneering art, science, technology, philosophy, astronomy, mathematics and literature during this period shows that ordinary people were just trying to survive and could not produce any of these works. Almost all of those great works were before 1000 ad.

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "An Englishwoman who sketched India before photography took hold"

drTobiasFunke — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 04:51:47 +0000

And no, hindu and muslim conquests were NOT alike. Krishnadevaraya defeated kalinga. Instead of destroying konark sun temple, he came back and built a similar stone chariot in hampi.

The same hampi was plundered and burnt down a century later by islamic foreign invaders.

The marathas defeated mughal empire, but you dont see delhi, fatehpur sikri etc in ruins.

Hindu conquests were like regime or government change for ordinary people. At best some changes in taxation. Islamic conquest meant their cities burnt down, institutions destroyed and life destroyed.

These are not my hallucinations, the turkic invaders proudly wrote about this themselves.

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "An Englishwoman who sketched India before photography took hold"

drTobiasFunke — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 03:26:04 +0000

Not true. It was rich, yes. The emperors took it all. The common people got nothing. Hence the big tombs etc. Indigenous institutions were destroyed, libraries and universities burnt. Religious structires destroyed and natives under constant threat and conflict. This is directly reflected by the complete lack of pioneering work in science, technology, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and literature during this period. All of that was pre islamic invasion.

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "An Englishwoman who sketched India before photography took hold"

drTobiasFunke — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 02:06:58 +0000

Above comment is accurate. All Indian indigenous systems were destroyed (education, governance, taxation etc) during the 1000 years of foreign occupation. India still operates under the oppressive system imposed by the colonizers to subjugate the population. The shock and ripple effects of the plunder, destruction and subsequent partition has crippled the subcontinent. It might take several centuries to rebuild and recover.

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "Learning to code is still worthwhile"

drTobiasFunke — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 02:29:33 +0000

Not a fair comparison. Unlike shoemaker or coopers who do ONE thing, a SWE doesnt do just one thing.. atleast in general. I churned through basic, logo, c, c++, java, c#, python, go and now agents. The executable building on single machine died when distributed systems came in. It again evolved when cloud took over. We have been reinventing our work every few years. Every job change requires us to learn new skills.

How much did a horse farrier have to learn if they switched their employers?

New comment by drTobiasFunke in "Learning to code is still worthwhile"

drTobiasFunke — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:35:55 +0000

You are assuming that the amount of work is finite, so more productive people implies fewer people are required. Is that the case though? Has it ever been?