Okay friends, I am back at the hotel after a wonderful dinner with friends, both old and new, and before I go to sleep I wanted to talk about ConFoo.

[grmpyprogrammer@yac.grumpy-learning.com]

Okay friends, I am back at the hotel after a wonderful dinner with friends, both old and new, and before I go to sleep I wanted to talk about ConFoo.

On the one hand, it was great to be with lots of enthusiastic people who are interested in programming. As a staff-level engineer with almost 30 years of experience and having given talks for more than 20 years, I enjoy all the sharing and the conversations.

AI talks were everywhere, at least a third of all talks. People are excited and lots of examples of integrating this stuff.

But the AI stuff is very deeply personal for me because these companies stole my books and paid me nothing to use them. They are attempting to resell to others what they stole. I am not attempting to gatekeep people. If you want to use them, knock yourself out.

I am just disappointed at the overall lack of empathy being shown to folks like me who had their stuff stolen. Too many shrugs or weak comments.

You are not required to care about what happened to me. Just don’t be surprised at the frosty reception and comments you will get from me when you ask me to be impressed by what you have done with these tools.