It is exactly the strategy of all platforms - they get greedy to the point of screwing over their own customers. I've lost count of number of times I've seen a platform get popular and then expand to offer the same services as its customers, often even undercutting market rates.

Just wait till they offer "Developer Certification" so you have to pay them to get a shiny little badge and a certificate while they go around saying no badge = you're shit.

I think in this you are the autotune, trying to make the raw LLM writing in tune and palatable.

I did read your previous story (not as polished but still interesting) and noticed in the image that linked to "beautiful but the Mandarin module has a tone recognition bug that makes it nearly impossible for non-native speakers", that the tone bug was Hebrew rather than Chinese characters. Interesting...I might have a look again and translate.

There is an interesting dichotomy where we express an uncanny-valley revulsion to AI-generated text, art, video and music; yet we seemingly go with the AI-generated code.

Personally I have an uneasiness with it and are correspondingly cautious. Often after a review and edits it loses that "smell". I kind-of felt the same about NPM and package managers for a long time before using it became obligatory (for lack of a better word).

Are we conditioned to use other people's code unthinkingly, or is it something else?

It's because code isn't a way to communicate ideas, it's a way to specify behavior. Text, drawings, video, and music are means for brains to connect with each other. When you read or view or listen to something generated you're not connecting with any other brain. No idea has been transmitted to you. The feeling is analogous to speaking on the phone and only realizing several minutes later that the call was dropped. It's a feeling that combines betrayal, being made to waste time, and alienation.

I tend to disagree that code can't be a way to communicate an idea. Sure, I might struggle to edict an emotion in the reader (excluding confusion or frustration) but I feel it is a way to describe ideas, model constructs and processes, etc.

With AI-generated text where there is this disconnect between the audience and the prompter who has an idea but not the skill to express it. Would you say reading an English translation of Dostoevsky is similar because you're connecting with the interpreter rather than the actual author? Or something as simple as an Asterix comic where the English translation is rarely literal but uses different English plays on words?

>I tend to disagree that code can't be a way to communicate an idea.

I wouldn't go as far as can't, but in general it won't be, and if any ideas are indeed communicated, they will be impersonal.

>With AI-generated text where there is this disconnect between the audience and the prompter who has an idea but not the skill to express it. Would you say reading an English translation of Dostoevsky is similar because you're connecting with the interpreter rather than the actual author? Or something as simple as an Asterix comic where the English translation is rarely literal but uses different English plays on words?

I can think of a better example. In comic circles there's the rewrite, which is when an editor isn't fluent in the original language, and so instead of actually translating, they just rewrite all the dialogue to something that matches the action. People (generally) hate rewrites. Unknowingly reading a rewrite provokes a similar feeling of betrayal that unknowingly reading LLM output provokes.

No, code is a way of communicating ideas, or more correctly information. All languages convey information. All languages convey ideas.

Did you read past the first sentence? The kind of information that a piece of code transmits is fundamentally different from that which is transmitted by a sentence or a song.

Yes, though I would take it in a different direction and say that LLMs are better at putting actual ideas into code. They've never gotten real feedback on how their literary metaphor feels, but they have gotten very direct feedback on whether code runs at all, and slightly more indirect feeds on whether it runs as part of the larger system.

So code that is written which plays music, yes people do live code music, doesnt count?

An elegant algorithm or intentionally inelegant one do not speak or communicate ideas? Please, keep hairsplitting.

Sir. You’re wrong and wrong on the internet. Two capital offenses. For shame.

You're being purposefully dense and I'm not going to engage with you.

No I am not but you came across in the last reply aggressive so i tried to lighten the mood a bit. This is the internet and people can disagree. It is fine.

I dont think you are reading my point at all and are instead getting worked up. If you disagree, fair.

I think a heavy argument needs to be made to say that code or programming languages do not carry ideas for me to change my mind on it. Id be happy to engage in good spirit but you seem pretty set in stone there.

That it was largely/mostly generated by Claude adds a certain poignancy to it.

As an allegory it reminds a lot of one I read as a teen: Joshua by Joseph Girzone. Not a literary masterpiece but a cleaver thought-raising story.

"This was the mechanic’s paradox: the cheaper you were relative to the cost of failure, the more your clients needed you; and the more they needed you, the more they resisted the implication that they’d need you again."

This is my common issue from building websites for SMEs. It's not until Google updates their algorithm - killing their ranking and their sales leads slow that you hear from them.

There is wisdom in constantly up-selling to your customers (we offer management services, SEO and are cautiously moving in AIO), they may say no, but you have a fall back that you offered things that would have mitigated their current crisis.

Used to play a multi-player Lords of Midnight (the Spectrum/C64 game) where each player (up to 8) made their moves in turn. The original used a day/night turn-based system, so using that for 2-8 humans made sense.

It actually improved on the original by introducing new maps, which probably helped players unfamiliar with the original game who could probably draw the map from memory.

Games could often stall where a real-life didn't allow a player time to make their moves.

A hard change is the required skills mix.

Early stage you want the generalists who can do everything, move fast and probably break things.

There's an inflection point where you want to stop breaking things and for that you need specialists. Experts in scaling, security, optimisation and code purists.

Finding new roles for your generalists at this point could be hard, even harder will be having to let them go. It's possibly something you should consider at the start and give them the ability to vest and leave for a new greenfield. Alternatively find them a role as an architect/lead where it's their responsibility to be across everything and able to bridge between teams because they have your domain and institutional knowledge.

A camera is potentially a deterrent to opportunistic theft, if the thief notices it and believes they could be recorded. I have a camera that covers our gate and front yard; it's not charged a lot of the time, but I leave it there anyway.

On the positive, my neighbour has a sensor camera and let us know one of our dogs was out wandering in front of his house. No idea when or how he got out the gate so we had no idea he was missing.

Geez, I have issues with bent bindings and people who lick their fingers to turn pages, but you take it to a whole other level of grossness. You did forgot the common practice of reading on the toilet.