I guess what I'm saying is that if someone told me they're using AI "responsibly" because they they checked the output and they're using Rust, I'm kind of inclined to call bullshit on the whole affair because they must be using a Rust that exists in an alternative universe than the one that I learned.
Either that or I somehow missed the learn Rust in 24 hours tutorial.
One thing I don't quite get about all of these people using LLMs to target Rust is the idea that these same people would be able to just look at any part of the generated Rust output and easily understand what's happening or why the code looks like it does.
I don't mean that as a knock on Rust, but as an experienced programmer, I felt like it took me quite a while to build an intuition around what Rust was doing. Even now, if you showed me some Rust fragment, it'd take awhile to understand.
I liked single-use software more when it was simply called scripting.
13.5 PB / 8.3 billion people =~ 1.8MB of Python per person on planet Earth per day. Seems normal.
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@pypi/117444912512300470
At this point, something seems very "wrong" about the forces driving this kind of usage.
I knew it was coming in advance and was standing outside right under the flight path--which I will admit was kind of awesome.
How did I know this? I read the newsletter sent out from the city earlier in the week. Yes, reading. Of words. On my own.
Ah, nothing like a low afterburner F-16 flyover of the neighborhood to make the local Reddit group melt down.
Maybe that's just the way of things.
It's been about 30 years since I gave a talk about Python at SC96. At that time, I thought Python was such a breath of fresh air compared to the massive complexity that surrounded C++. But, eventually Python managed to surpass it.
I kind of feel like this video is my first and last comment on AI-assisted coding--or lack thereof. Namely, I coded the whole-ass Lox programming language presented in the 2nd half of Crafting Interpreters from scratch using nothing more than Rust and ed(1). Every keystroke. By myself. And I enjoyed the hell out of it.
Apparently the 67 hour, 6 minute, and 7 second coding video I recorded over new years has become a topic of discussion in the kid's physics class.
I don't know if science fiction ruined tech-bros, but tech-bros have definitely ruined science fiction.
For what it's worth, I had this book just sitting among all of the other Python books in my office for like 10 years, but no one ever noticed.
On the back cover it says "BREAK FREE from this subtle destroyer and reclaim a life of passion & purpose." Preach!
I also present into evidence, this Python book I picked up at Barnes and Noble back in 2013.
"for humans" -> "coming for humans"
"computer programming for everybody" -> "computer programming coming for everybody"
If anything is going to kill humanity, it's probably Python.
I'm doing some other things in the course that are probably only feasible because of the small class size (12). For example, having people using the same implementation language discuss their solutions with each other while the rest of us watch.
However, I'm also leveling the field a bit by not allowing the use of a mainstream programming language for implementation. Moreover, SICP forces people to read code in a somewhat unfamiliar source (Scheme). So, yeah, this is probably going to put most attendees on some unsteady ground.
And that's by design because I want the course to involve a lot of communication related to coding and problem solving.
So, I'm thinking about what literacy might mean in the context of programming. What does it actually mean to be a literate programmer? Well, I think a big part of it means you can read, write, speak, and listen to others talk about code. So, that's what I'm doing in this course. In short, providing an environment to do *ALL* of those things.