In the context of software development; requirements are based on what we wanna do (which is based on emotion), the methods we choose to implement it are also based mostly on our predictions about what will work and not work well.

Most of our affinity for good software development hygiene comes from emotional experiences of the negative feelings felt from the extra work of bad development hygiene.

I think this explains a lot of varied success with coding agents. You don’t talk to them like you talk to an engineer because with an engineer, you know that they have a sense of what is good and bad. Coding agents won’t tell you what is good and bad. They have some limited heuristics, but they don’t understand nuance at all unless you prompt them on it.

Even if they could have unlimited context, window and memory, they would still need to be able to which part of that memories is important. I.e. if the human gave them conflicting instructions, how do they resolve that?.

I eventually think we’ll get to a state where a lot of the mechanics of coding and development can be incorporated into coding agents, but the what and why we build will still come from a human. I.e. will be able to do from 0 to 100% by itself a full stack web application, including deployment with all the security compliance and logins and whatever else, but it still won’t know what is important to emphasize in that website. Should the images be bigger here or the text? Questions like that.

However some specification only exists in natural language. IE: make this page optimized for a smartphone. The task of turning that vague direction into formal requirements is work in and of itself. The more you can have the llm help with that — the more time it will save you.

Eg compiler errors, unit tests, mcp, etc.

Ive heard of these; but havent tried them yet.

https://github.com/hmans/beans

https://github.com/steveyegge/gastown

Right now i spent a lot of “back pressure” on fitting the scope of the task into something that will fit in one context window (ie the useful computation, not the raw token count). I suspect we will see a large breakthrough when someone finally figures out a good system for having the llm do this.

When we setup our sprint goals we would have built in time to handle random requests aannddd I would have kept in good grace with the vp so that he knows were on the same team even if I say no to the request.

Also, how I respond depends on why the vp decided to backchannel me. If they did because they didnt care about our teams goals (and only theirs) then I might need to escalate to their management to set clear boundaries. If they did so because in the past I forgot about their requests, then I probably need to not forget about their requests.

If they are clearly not looking out for our shared interest (or that of the company) and instead only worried about themselves, maybe slightly narcissistic then Im going to respond in a different tone than if they made a genuine mistake.

If its true, the market will soon reward it. Being able to competently write good code cheaper will be rewarded. People don't employ programmers because they care about them, they are employed to produce output. If someone can use llms to produce more output for less $$ they will quickly make the people that don't understand the technology less competitive in the workplace.

Ie “remember on Tuesday how you said that you were going to make tacos for dinner”.

Would an llm be able to reason about its internal state? My understanding is that they dont really. If you correct them they just go “ah you right” they dont say “oh i had this incorrect assumption here before and with this new information i now understand it this way”

If i chatted to an llm and was like “remember on Tuesday when you said X” i suspect it wouldn't really flow.

especially based on their prompting skills

By consciously accepting who you are and how you work with the world, it lets you navigate better in it. For some people that is just feeling it out and ending up in a career that fits them. For some people, it might be getting a diagnosis. The end result might be the same.

An 8th grader may not have control over how their time is spent, but an attuned response from the people around them will help the child adapt.

A child experiencing: 'everyone around me can take this test, but i cannot, I must be dumb'

vs

A child experiencing: 'everyone around me can take this test, but i cannot, I must be dumb' and a caring figure in their life explaining to them 'you show traits of ADHD, this commonly makes it harder for you to focus on things like a math test. it really hurts when you fail the test and you wanted to get an A. Why don't you try again at the same problem at home, I believe in you. And maybe I will talk to your teacher about some extra time for the next test. We can't always get this, and even if you don't pass the test it's ok.'

> A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture

Theres also a pernicious way of identifying with the struggle. Instead of I have trouble focusing in certain situations, so maybe I should find ways to spend my time (careers, hobbies) that work well with that. We instead go to 'I have ADHD' and my 'job' should make special accommodations for me.

Regardless of whether a job should or should not make accommodations. It's not a very helpful construct to think they should. It removes agency from the person experiencing the struggle. Which in turn puts them farther from finding a place that they would fit in well.

For the vast majority of behaviors (ADHD, attachment issues, autism, etc) they exist on a continuum and are adaptive/helpful in certain situations. By pathologizing them, we(society) loose touch for what they mean in our life. It also makes discourse hard because the (this is causing me to truly not be able to function) gets mixed in with the (this is a way that my brain behaves, but I can mostly live a life).

'If someone doesn't spend money irrationally like I spend money irrationally its bad'

There is indeed a blind spot.

'watch this ad before we give you your boarding pass'

'no boarding pass for you until your group is called'

'ah ha! you have an iPhone 17 pro max instead of a $BUDGET_ANDROID, cool your seat fees will be 20% higher'

'oh you got your boarding pass on this device, but need it on a different device now? cool lets do a device transfer fee'

- What jobs are they applying for? - Do they understand the benefits they can bring to a team? - Are they showing up in interactions like they show up in this blog post? How can they take radical responsibility for the problem of finding job? Doing what you are told and not getting a job sure sucks but if that's all someone tells me about what they did, I am 100% not passing on a good recommendation. - Their resume needs work

It's very hard to get a job right now, I don't doubt that. Also it's not very helpful in getting a job to look at macroeconomic trends: the relative change in the trends is much smaller than how you show up in the process.

The poster had consulting work, and 3 internships.. I sense a disconnect between what a potential employer needs (ie why they would pay you) and what they have to offer.

Its easier for the ego to go "man the job market it bad", ie if I don't get this job what does that say about 'my worth as a human' but its not very helpful in getting a job.