Yes, it’s sort of convenient at a rational level, but everything appears the same, and there’s no way to differentiate one cross from the next. Streets doesn’t have their own “personality” and you have to learn them by name. I don’t know half of the street names of the city I grew in, but I know where I am by the way they intersect and twist around in interesting shapes…

Or perhaps is just the way I’m used to

It's very common to start adding more and more infra for use cases that, while technically can be better cover with new stuff, it can be served by already existing infrastructure, at least until you have proof that you need to grow it.

Code should be generally written so it's easy to read.

  setup_spi(&adc, mode=SPI_01, rate=15, cs_control=CS_MUXED,  
            cs=0x01);
  setup_spi(&eeprom, mode=SPI_10, rate=13, cs_control=CS_MUXED,  
            cs=0x02);
  setup_spi(&mram, mode=SPI_10, rate=50, cs_control=CS_DIRECT, 
            cs=0x08);

I like short lines in general, as having a bunch of short lines (which tend to be the norm in code) and suddenly a very long line is terrible for readability. But all has exemptions. It's also very dependent on the programming language.

But, at the same time, there are two issues:

- Companies can be really complex. The "create a system and parametrise it" idea has been done before, and those parametrisation processes are pretty intensive and expensive. And the resulting project is not always to be guaranteed to be correct. Software development is a discovery process. The expensive part is way more in the discovery than in the writing the code.

- The best software around is the one that's opinionated. It doesn't fit all the use cases, but it presents you a way to operate that's consistent and forces you to think and operate in certain way. It guides you how to work and, once going downstream, they are a joy to work with. This requires a consistent product view and enforcing, knowing when to say "no" and what use cases not to cover, as they'll be detrimental from the experience. It's very difficult to create software like that, and trying to fit your use case I'll guarantee it won't happen.

These two things tension any creation of software, and I don't think they'll go away just because we have a magical tool that can code fast.

I understand, for example, search with intent to buy "I want to decorate a room. Find me a drawer, a table and four chairs that can fit in this space in matching colours for less than X dollars"

But I want to do the final step to buy. In fact, I want to do the final SELECTION of stuff.

How is agent buying groceries superior to have a grocery list set as a recurring purchase? Sure an agent may help in shaping the list, but I don't see how allowing the agent to do purchases directly on your end is way more convenient, so I'm fine with taking the risk of doing something really silly.

"Hey agent, find me and compare insurance for my car for my use case. Oh, good. I'll pick insurance A and finish the purchase"

And many of the purchases that we do are probably enjoyable and we don't want really to remove ourselves from the process.

It’s the equivalent of those cheap digital effects. They look bad for a Hollywood movie, but it allows students to shot their action home movies

So, IMHO, he focused in the interview process over everything else, including understanding and exploiting the blind spots. He iterated and refined it, until, he became a master of it.

He really seemed to be not great at the work itself, though. He was being fired after a couple of days, which I don’t think is common. You really have to do it very badly to be fired so quick after being hired.

But, at the same time, automating purchases to a GenAI sounds risky, and with “purchase the same thing every month” you have most of it covered. And I remember both the ideas of purchase through Alexa or “push button to order again” that never lived up to their own hype…

[1] “Deadpool and Wolverine”, “Wicked” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in London, “Dune part 2” in Budapest and Italy, “Godzilla x Kong” in Australia. Only “Twisters” was filmed in the US.

Biggest real action movie last year was “Deadpool & Wolverine”, a Disney movie which was shot in UK and made a bit over 50% of its revenue overseas[1]. Its main stars were Canadian and Australian. Does this mean that you’ll have to pay double to go watch it to cinemas in the US? Will that make Disney to focus on the international market?

[1] https://the-numbers.com/movie/Deadpool-and-Wolverine-(2024)

That's a very human reflective process that requires time.