My biggest feeling right now is an immense sense of loss. My belief was that the purpose of one’s life is found through acts of creation. The painter finds joy in painting, and the result is valued because of the effort involved. This feels like an attack on all intellectual pursuits, including the arts, but it’s especially hard considering the technology seems to have the most value at replacing its creators.

Where do we go from here? So many of my friends have talked about switching fields, as we watch this miracle field edge towards becoming a facsimile of itself. I am personally left with many questions about my own future.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44184607

Points: 19

# Comments: 24

We're truly building walls everywhere.

~/src/$host/$owner/$repo

organization structure makes a ton of sense for every project and as long as you organize all of your languages into this one tree, everything just works.

1. Average users primarily use mouse based workflows.

2. Super isn't discoverable.

3. It confused users coming from other DEs.

4. It actually takes more keypresses than clicking a favorited app on a dock that is always available.

Overall it's less discoverable, less efficient, and not baked into the mind of computer users who are coming from almost any other bistro.

"On the other hand, new users generally got up to speed more quickly with Endless OS, often due to its similarity to Windows. Many of these testers found the bottom panel to be an easy way to switch applications. They also made use of the minimize button. In comparison, both GNOME 3.38 and the prototype generally took more adjustment for these users.

“I really liked that it’s similar to the Windows display that I have.” —Comment on Endless OS by a non-GNOME user"

So why does GNOME continue down this path. Is it a fear of being "just like everyone else" by using a tried and true dock/application bar? Is it a desire to not be the front running WM and be more "niche" to power users? I still don't really understand their decision making process.

LLMs are nothing more than an alternative take on auto-complete, a feature that has been around forever and doesn't radically change programming. It will speed up good programmers to some degree and probably lead to bugs and more bad code from everyone else.

This is yet another hype cycle overselling a modest advancement in technology.

ebpf isn’t really novel beyond the interfaces it provides. They are just kernel modules that have been vetted and are sandboxed. Inserting executable code has been part of the kernel since forever in module form and kprobes.

SRE should always be a subtitle for a SWE and not a separate position, and they should always be embedded with SWEs into one team either building products of infrastructure. The shared ownership and toil reduction only works if you have these two things.

All this said, I think the regression is also due to the fact that real SREs are rare. A solid SWE that also has deep systems domain knowledge, understanding how to sift through dashboards and live data, and root cause complex performance problems is a master of many domains and is hard to find.

I feel like this terminal is counterproductive. It adds visual niceties at the cost of dumbing down the power of the terminal and removing terminal feature that will be confusing to regular terminal users. It really doesn't have to be this complicated to be useful.

I have always loved correctness, cleanliness, and understanding how things work. Companies are racing to integrate tools that remove all of those attributes from my job. LLMs constantly spit out false information, poorly written and buggy code, and their inner workings are a black box of statistical knobs. They are a tool that encourages bloat and turns the job of the software engineer into a code checker watching over the shoulder of an intern.

I’ve realized the age of discrete, deterministic computing is coming to a close. Due to the tantalizing notion that programming can be commoditized and outsources to a machine, I know corporations will continue to pursue this avenue in full force. It’s put me into a real depression, and I wonder if I’m the only one.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39401690

Points: 30

# Comments: 33