RE: https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/117387400968417143
My favourite bit is where “extra lines of code” are touted as productivity gains in software development. No real developer thinks that just producing more code is meaningful.
It has to translate to what the customer gets eg more features, less bugs. Thankfully the article points out that the actual returns are marginal.
@lukesutton you don't remember the code shortages?
So many lives lost 😢
RE: https://mastodon.au/@lukesutton/117398613900078267
This is your regular reminder what with very significantly less sophisticated tools people created *tens of thousands* of shareware apps in the 80s and 90s.
Also dBase and VBA have allowed non-programmer types to create useful apps in the same era.
The challenge *always* was translating needs to software and being able to help a stakeholder to articulate their needs is what separates a sr from a jr developer. Current LLMs won't help because you need to push back and make well educated jumps.
Oct 7, 2026, 3:44 PM@chx I could only give my kid obfuscated perl one-liners. It was miserable.
@lukesutton @davidgerard I’d go further: code is a liability. The corresponding asset is functionality — you try to take on as little code as possible to provide the function you need. That’s why library code is so popular.