@soph@grrl.me

Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 31, 2026

Strongly coming around to the opinion that requiring named arguments, and explicitly having to opt out to create an anonymous parameter, feels like the better default.

Code is much more readable at a glance if you can see the expected parameter names in the arguments of the call.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 31, 2026

Interesting indictment of AI from one of its users: https://thoughts.hmmz.org/2026-05-31.html

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 27, 2026

Wow that sounds familiar

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 23, 2026

A great visualisation of what LLMs are doing when they "write"

More info, with interactive demo, here: https://tuhinjubcse.github.io/granta-ngram-cartography.html?v=2

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 21, 2026

Please, I ask, if you're using AI consider what you're doing and its impact on others. The cost of this stuff is not just the amount you pay for the service.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/epa-water-chief-pledges-review-151249023.html

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 21, 2026

Replying to @JigenD@mastodon.social

@JigenD@mastodon.social @ftranschel@norden.social @SteveClough@metalhead.club Enough. Please go argue somewhere else and not in my comments.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 17, 2026

Replying to @hazelnot@sunbeam.city

@hazelnot@sunbeam.city It's this one: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:s45hbf5dqdkjpwuuq4djo6l2

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 17, 2026

Replying to @tael@yiff.life

@tael@yiff.life I don't know the backend setup, but it wouldn't surprise me

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 17, 2026

Replying to @hazelnot@sunbeam.city

@hazelnot@sunbeam.city bsky opt-in labelling system for a third-party label

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 16, 2026

In a surprise to no one who has looked at the economics of cloud services before, I think a *lot* of people are in for a rude awakening. It's almost like these bigco's were acting like dealers all along... https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com/post/3mlyuuwxkqs2l

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 15, 2026

Replying to @tael@yiff.life

@tael@yiff.life both, sadly, are true

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 15, 2026

Replying to @EMR@mastodon.sdf.org

@EMR@mastodon.sdf.org I'm glad that there are some projects holding the line, thankfully, but it's going to take a larger effort

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 14, 2026

Replying to @soph@grrl.me

This is what breaks my brain. The Rust folks I knew actually cared back in the day. We wanted to support other humans. We wanted to lift folks up. And we didn't want to step on anyone else to do that. And that's exactly what genAI does. And folks are doing it anyway. It feels like a loss of culture of care, all for the sake of efficiency. I understand that people see the gains. I get that. But if you are paying into these companies and using the tools, you're going against that.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 14, 2026

Here's my frustration: If you use genAI, you *know* you're doing something wrong, and you're doing it anyway. You know you're taxing communities having to bear the burden of the resources being taken. You know of the rampant theft. You know that. You may not know it may also be causing brain damage. That one might take a while, like us finding out more info about smoking over the years. But you at least know the first parts. Why in the world would folks in the Rust community still use it?

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 12, 2026

Replying to @alienghic@timeloop.cafe

@alienghic@timeloop.cafe Oh yeah definitely

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 12, 2026

Replying to @alienghic@timeloop.cafe

@alienghic@timeloop.cafe I read it more like "we didn't get official clearance for this, we just interviewed people"

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 12, 2026

Replying to @alienghic@timeloop.cafe

@alienghic@timeloop.cafe I tried to figure out why and found this. Does definitely raise some questions, but it looks to be not about the specific data but about how it was collected.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 12, 2026

Replying to @soph@grrl.me

References on the on-going work tracking AI and brain issues (I'm sure there are more than this, but these are the ones that were on my radar) AI causing possible learning impairment: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-algorithmic-mind/202505/how-ai-changes-student-thinking-the-hidden-cognitive-risks Similar: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4895486 AI causing mental atrophy: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-algorithmic-mind/202603/adults-lose-skills-to-ai-children-never-build-them Related, AI reduces persistence and indepence: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.04721 There has also been some observation that AI can lead to other kinds of problems in its users: https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 12, 2026

One of my big fears with AI is around the brain damage that multiple papers are reporting on. Smoking guns like this can turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg, and in time be incredibly serious if ignored.

Remember when American football was called out for brain damage? The wikipedia article now lists a *lot* of players that had CTE. "345 of 376 NFL players whose brains have been autopsied had CTE"

Over 91% of those who they checked had it. It's disgusting it's still played but I digress.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 12, 2026

Replying to @soph@grrl.me

I designed those error messages to be good for *humans*. @ekuber@hachyderm.io and crew worked hard to make the diagnostics as good as they are today. Ngl feeling a bit sick as this sinks in that my suspicions are likely correct.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 12, 2026

Replying to @soph@grrl.me

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 12, 2026

Yeah don't remind me. This has crossed my mind more than once that my work is helping this shit.

https://x.com/CtrlAltDwayne/status/2032388050584736157?s=20

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 09, 2026

Having fun programming for the first time in a very long time. Feels so good.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 07, 2026

It's frustrating that the Rust project never really faced its racism full-on. There were multiple times it could have. People called for a change, and the project had a chance to reflect. Those who ran it could have transparently opened a dialogue about how to be better, and then proceeded to do better, complete with accountability.

But none of that ever really happened.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 05, 2026

Silly thought of the morning:

You know, Guy Steele worked on Emacs and Lisp. And James Gosling worked on Emacs and Java. And Bill Joy worked on vi and Java.

Am I missing out focusing on programming languages and not working on an editor? 😅

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 04, 2026

Replying to @gimmechocolate@bark.lgbt

@gimmechocolate @mirabilos @brib macOS, using the binaries they provide. I'm guessing maybe they aren't regularly tested

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 03, 2026

Replying to @gimmechocolate@bark.lgbt

@gimmechocolate @mirabilos @brib I gave Kate a try, but it just crashes on startup. Oops 😅

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 03, 2026

Replying to @mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org

@mirabilos @brib Sure, I'd be curious. My main requirement is that it must have good LSP support.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · May 03, 2026

It's been time to get off of vscode for a while, but yeah this definitely did it.

They will now mark copilot as a co-author by default.

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/310226

GitHub

Enabling ai co author by default by cwebster-99 · Pull Request #310226 · microsoft/vscode

Visual Studio Code. Contribute to microsoft/vscode development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 29, 2026

Replying to @amanjeev@cosocial.ca

@amanjeev Niiice I know some folks -- I wanna say maybe in the late 90s and early 00s(?) -- wanted to push back against all the english in programming languages. But I'm forgetting the earliest example I could remember 😅 Lots of cool stuff to dig through here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_languages#Based_on_non-English_languages

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 29, 2026

@renedudfield@fosstodon.org I'm always happy to have a good faith discussion, but you're arguing against things I'm not saying and ignoring things I am saying. No one said anything about parts of the industry not being ethical in the past. But that doesn't grant a pass for the wrongs done to create AI today.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 29, 2026

@renedudfield@fosstodon.org I.. uhhh. What?

I've been working in programming tools for almost two decades. All I've cared about is making tools easier for software development. I've helped make programming easier for tens of millions of people.

Nothing I made poisoned water supplies to train it. Nothing I worked on hurt minority communities to build. What I worked on doesn't cause brain damage to use.

I'm *all* for enabling people. But not like this. Ethically, without massive theft and damage.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 28, 2026

Replying to @lexplt@hachyderm.io

@lexplt@hachyderm.io Ugh, condolences. ngl, it feels a little bit like a way to filter out folks who care (which seems to also include an outsized number of trans folks) from the workforce.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 28, 2026

Replying to @lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place

@lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place My point is there is *no such thing as a 10x engineer* really. You might have some folks that are noticeably faster than their peers, but being an order of magnitude better? I don't think so.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 28, 2026

Replying to @loucyx@mastodon.social

@loucyx@mastodon.social I wish it were just that. I know plenty of folks who like coding but still use tools like this because the gains are tempting. That by itself is surprising. Perhaps it's just because it's new. But you're right. It's no longer craft. It's just efficiency.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 28, 2026

Replying to @soph@grrl.me

If it makes me an "old" to actually care about the things it's harming, then fine. I'll wear that badge. I just feel so strange as if the whole world has turned down a path and has no care for the consequences. Why are *so many* people diving into this stuff as if our efficiency is the only thing that matters?

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 28, 2026

Replying to @soph@grrl.me

"The only people who aren't using this are the old people" I try to draw comparisons in my head to different things. You might draw a parallel between woodworking with hand tools and power tools, for example. Harder to find hand tools these days, everyone just uses power tools. But this? This isn't that. This is a system with a) no clear copyright, b) large amounts of theft, c) funding war crimes, d) destroying underserved communities, all while e) likely causing brain damage.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 28, 2026

Replying to @soph@grrl.me

We realise that the idea of a 10x engineer was *always* a myth, right? That was a gimmick to try to get engineers to push themselves to be better than their peers. The best engineers I've ever worked with were able to navigate nasty spots and produce successful fixes. I've never met *anyone* who was a 10x engineer, who shipped 10x the number of features at a high level of quality. It's always a trade, you code worse as you go faster. We know that. And we've read No Silver Bullet.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 28, 2026

It's bizarre coming back into tech after taking a break.

I come back to an industry falling over itself to trade our daily sessions in our code editor with paying sketchy companies for the convenience of having tedious things done for us. The industry almost seems to hate itself now? "Join in or get left behind". I've had two people close to me say almost that exact thing in the last 24 hours.

Perhaps it's just me. I want to code slowly and think about what I'm doing. I want to craft.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 27, 2026

Replying to @bodil@social.treehouse.systems

@bodil possibly, though I tend to think not in overall numbers, but in groups of users. I know a lot of devs with mac machines because they're efficient for builds. An intel/amd-only distro is going to perform far slower as a VM on a mac than a ARM64 distro would, for example.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 27, 2026

Replying to @bodil@social.treehouse.systems

@bodil Sigh. Wish I could say I was surprised, but they've been going the wrong way for a while now. I took a look at Aurora, but unfortunately I don't see an easy way to get an ISO for ARM64. In 2026, that feels like a nonstarter for any serious distro.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 18, 2026

Replying to @ekuber@hachyderm.io

@ekuber I think both are true. As an author, I will feel something during creation that's different from what someone reading my book is going to feel, but their experience is just as valid.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 11, 2026

RE: @yaah@hachyderm.io

A lovely person who'd make a great addition to a Rust team if you're hiring

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 10, 2026

Replying to @scarlet@plush.city

@scarlet@plush.city I moved to NZ right before Trump got elected the first time. The tides had already shifted by then. And while some things aren't universally better, detoxing from the US is absolutely worth it.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Apr 04, 2026

Replying to @emmatyping@hachyderm.io

@emmatyping love the glow!

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Mar 25, 2026

Replying to @sunfish@hachyderm.io

@sunfish They need to open more engineering jobs outside of the trans no-go-zone 😅

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Mar 14, 2026

Replying to @ErickaSimone@mastodon.social

@ErickaSimone@mastodon.social This 💯

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Mar 13, 2026

Replying to @soller@floss.social

@soller@floss.social Seriously starting to consider returning to the old way we did open source, where you built up a human connection, did very intentional patches, etc. rather than all of this big source control is a social network thing.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Mar 11, 2026

Replying to @mark@mastodon.fixermark.com

@mark@mastodon.fixermark.com The big recent one is this one by US Supreme Court: https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-supreme-court-doesnt-care-if-you-want-to-copyright-your-ai-generated-art-171849407.html The test here is that if it fails for artwork, how will code be different, and can projects take that risk? It's a bit of a legal time-bomb.

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Sophia J. Turner @soph@grrl.me · Mar 11, 2026

Replying to @JamesWidman@mastodon.social

@JamesWidman@mastodon.social @PierricD@mastodon.green I'd contest that this is not clear, either. If it can be shown that something an LLM created has clear lineage back to a copyrighted work, then we have a clear breach of the original license. This needs to be the case to support the original license and the spirit of that license. Tools that are just doing a glorified copy/paste are violating those original licenses.

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Sophia J. Turner

Posts

Enabling ai co author by default by cwebster-99 · Pull Request #310226 · microsoft/vscode

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