Post #1694727

2026-03-30 07:42 UTC

RE: https://unstable.systems/@jneen/116302498173795149 I think this gets at the idea that a decent chunk of the popularity of LLMs among many software engineers is in some way a reaction to how terrible our tools are. We largely code like we're still using punched cards, so having something that'll handle the mechanics of making holes with minimal setup is always going to be attractive.

Replies (1)

@tuftyindigo@meow.social 2026-03-30 09:35

@alex@tech.lgbt I think you only have to look at digital workflows in other fields to see how good programming tools are in comparison. We're so accustomed to having (a) non-proprietary files so you can choose an editor and use the same editor for all the parts of your system, (b) a way to see what you've changed recently and undo it if it's not what you want, (c) a way to make sure the whole team is working on the same artifact, and see what other people have changed, and (d) automation that finds most mistakes you can make before anyone else sees them. Other workers tend to have proprietary software and files, so you are always working across multiple applications that can't talk to each other and are hard to automate; no long-term change history; either no way to collaborate beyond "email me your file and I'll assemble all the files together" or collaboration features with no way to see what's changed; no way to define rules for automated validation. Software developers have so much tooling, and that's actually a huge benefit for coding assistants: they're a lot more effective when they can collaborate with you on the same artifact directly, and when they can check whether the artifact is right or wrong without having to ask you.

Open ##2294092