(Following thread was prompted by people pointing out that the Bluesky dev team seems heavily into vibe-coding now and originally posted on said vibe-coded Bluesky platform that is now constantly failing.)
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Few devs have a reference point for genuinely working software. Usability labs were disbanded over 20 years ago. Very few companies do actual user research, so their designs are based on fiction. Bugs are the norm
Alienation is also the norm for devs, both socially and organisationally. Whether it works for the end user doesn't cross their mind. Whether the design fulfils business needs is not their problem. Bugs are a future problem. Ship insecure software and patch it as user data gets stolen
Devs are so disconnected from the output of their work that many of the norms of the industry are outright illegal: there's a good chance that if you follow popular practices for a React project, for example, you'll end up with a site or product that violates accessibility law in several countries
Few devs would even know where to begin to look to answer the question "does my software work for the people forced to use it?"
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Devs are so disconnected from the output of their work that many of the norms of the industry are outright illegal: there's a good chance that if you follow popular practices for a React project, for example, you'll end up with a site or product that violates accessibility law in several countries
Few devs would even know where to begin to look to answer the question "does my software work for the people forced to use it?"
Because the element of coercion and a complete disregard for consent is now an integral part of how the industry works, but that's a topic for another day.
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Few devs have a reference point for genuinely working software. Usability labs were disbanded over 20 years ago. Very few companies do actual user research, so their designs are based on fiction. Bugs are the norm
Alienation is also the norm for devs, both socially and organisationally. Whether it works for the end user doesn't cross their mind. Whether the design fulfils business needs is not their problem. Bugs are a future problem. Ship insecure software and patch it as user data gets stolen
@baldur This reads like an open Work–Feedback Loop: work ships, but real user effects don’t reliably change decisions or next work. Maybe that is a good starting point to discuss this issue in the organization. Thats at least what my thinking model is for
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Best part? It's always somebody with years of experience. Exactly the demographic that is supposedly able to use this shit safely, but my impression is they're just as bad as the novices
This is happening IMO because of one of the fundamental issues with software dev (and this predates "AI" and was one of the themes of my first book):
Most software projects fail and most of what gets shipped doesn't work. The way the industry is set up means there is little downside to shipping broken software
@baldur Honestly I think a big part of it is more than our industry being deeply immature still; I think the most important throughline of the research on LLMs' effects on cognition is a consistent attack on metacognition, which seemingly doesn't abate with experience. The same corrosion happens to juniors and seniors alike, but the seniors have more rationalizations at hand to pretend it doesn't.
(Speaking of, that "cognitive surrender" paper is the latest in that theme: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6097646)
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Best part? It's always somebody with years of experience. Exactly the demographic that is supposedly able to use this shit safely, but my impression is they're just as bad as the novices
This is happening IMO because of one of the fundamental issues with software dev (and this predates "AI" and was one of the themes of my first book):
Most software projects fail and most of what gets shipped doesn't work. The way the industry is set up means there is little downside to shipping broken software
@baldur Apropos of nothing, the absolute worst implementation of Raft I've ever seen in my Raft course was by a pair of senior devs with a combined 60+ years of experience who decided to pair program together and announced ahead of time to the group that they were going to "win" Raft. They did not.
An undergraduate who'd never coded with sockets before did reasonably okay.
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Best part? It's always somebody with years of experience. Exactly the demographic that is supposedly able to use this shit safely, but my impression is they're just as bad as the novices
This is happening IMO because of one of the fundamental issues with software dev (and this predates "AI" and was one of the themes of my first book):
Most software projects fail and most of what gets shipped doesn't work. The way the industry is set up means there is little downside to shipping broken software
@baldur motivated reasoning is one hell of a drug. I've seen a developer far better than me getting completely hypnotized by LLM sycophancy; I tried pointing out that what they proudly posted as "see? Completely bug free after just a few rounds of conversation!" did in fact contain a subtle bug/violation of their prompt. Got ignored and they only went downhill from there. It's a saddening cult really.
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Few devs have a reference point for genuinely working software. Usability labs were disbanded over 20 years ago. Very few companies do actual user research, so their designs are based on fiction. Bugs are the norm
Alienation is also the norm for devs, both socially and organisationally. Whether it works for the end user doesn't cross their mind. Whether the design fulfils business needs is not their problem. Bugs are a future problem. Ship insecure software and patch it as user data gets stolen
@baldur I think alot of it stems from the “move fast and break things” attitude under VC pressure, that now includes breaking their own software. “Agile” is to blame as well, which tends to prioritise siloed rapid feature development, all too often these are hacks to get it working within the timeframe allotted. This ignores broader impacts in the codebase leading to rapid bit rot.
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topicR relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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Devs are so disconnected from the output of their work that many of the norms of the industry are outright illegal: there's a good chance that if you follow popular practices for a React project, for example, you'll end up with a site or product that violates accessibility law in several countries
Few devs would even know where to begin to look to answer the question "does my software work for the people forced to use it?"
@baldur years of industry "leaders” with new design patterns, a dozen development methodologies with the (sometimes misguided) intention of doing better software. Went from jokes about places using LOC as a productivity metric to bragging about how much (and only) code can be output
Deeply unserious industry
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(Following thread was prompted by people pointing out that the Bluesky dev team seems heavily into vibe-coding now and originally posted on said vibe-coded Bluesky platform that is now constantly failing.)
Over the past year, every single time one of the apps or services I use suddenly became less reliable and more buggy, I never have to look far for the "Claude is amazing and now writes most of my code" post for the devs involved.
@baldur This is what we get for challenging the sloperators to actually ship code instead of wittering on interminably about how they are a 100x coder now thanks to the chatty bot!
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(Following thread was prompted by people pointing out that the Bluesky dev team seems heavily into vibe-coding now and originally posted on said vibe-coded Bluesky platform that is now constantly failing.)
Over the past year, every single time one of the apps or services I use suddenly became less reliable and more buggy, I never have to look far for the "Claude is amazing and now writes most of my code" post for the devs involved.
@baldur there is that but looking forward to the stories in 18 months about how the AI can't fix a critical bug and the codebase is now in WingDings so humans can no longer read it
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Few devs have a reference point for genuinely working software. Usability labs were disbanded over 20 years ago. Very few companies do actual user research, so their designs are based on fiction. Bugs are the norm
Alienation is also the norm for devs, both socially and organisationally. Whether it works for the end user doesn't cross their mind. Whether the design fulfils business needs is not their problem. Bugs are a future problem. Ship insecure software and patch it as user data gets stolen
@baldur Disillusionment is the name of the game.
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@baldur years of industry "leaders” with new design patterns, a dozen development methodologies with the (sometimes misguided) intention of doing better software. Went from jokes about places using LOC as a productivity metric to bragging about how much (and only) code can be output
Deeply unserious industry
@spinnyspinlock @baldur You could easily be describing the entire culture of capitalist management since WW2. Endless people management “strategies” that are just elaborate rain dances to avoid saying “pay good money, hire enough people to do the work, and treat them all with respect”.
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@spinnyspinlock @baldur You could easily be describing the entire culture of capitalist management since WW2. Endless people management “strategies” that are just elaborate rain dances to avoid saying “pay good money, hire enough people to do the work, and treat them all with respect”.
@naptowncode @baldur It was not what I meant (valid interpretation though), some people do legitimately want to write good software. Or so I thought
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