@tiefling I can’t describe images and I can’t conjure up images in my mind’s eye whatever that is. So, yeah, I’m unable to write alt text without a long sit down. Of all the things AI purports to do, this is one, right?

I'm missing the #WWDC keynote, but I'm holding out a grain of hope for a comprehensive Xcode plugin API. I don't want anything else; I just want the ability to improve the tools myself.

I'm happy to release a big update of Emoji Picker, with a brand new icon, as well as drastically improved performance, focus handling and keyboard navigation. Emojis are now localized in 7 new locales, including Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. #SwiftUI
https://kankoda.com/apps/emojipicker/

This is precisely why ‘English language programming’ has never brought the breakthrough of making business people coders. Writing the syntax is not generally the hard part of #programming. It is specifying precisely what you want to happen. And guess what, a programming language is well suited for that job.

Now I do think #AI can be an excellent tool to get a draft. But then the hard work of telling something the details starts.

From: @david_chisnall
https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall/114278564411985648

@jasongorman maybe we could use some sort of formal and precise language to describe the program with.

@chrisgervais This was happening before Covid. I went to the last in person WWDC and there were sessions on APIs that didn’t become available until weeks later. So you’d go to a session, download all the betas and then discover you couldn’t try things out properly.

If you can't see the whole function and it's details at the same time, chances are high that it is too complex. Refactor it into more manageable pieces.

#programming #coding

Let me see if I've got this straight: you don't trust your developers to make decisions, but you trust hallucinating autocomplete?

Righto.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-07/apple-confirms-delay-of-ai-infused-personalized-siri-assistant

@siracusa Instabuy for me. When I first heard about APFS clones I tried to do something similar but I got cold feet - I could not trust myself not to obliterate files. If there is one person I can trust to do this carefully it is Mr John Siracusa.

Steven Spielberg said, after he made Schindler's List, that it was partly an apology for portraying Nazis in the Indiana Jones franchise as less evil than they really were. I think Hollywood has been guilty of something far worse in recent decades: portraying Nazis as competent.

Germany wasn't a country run by Nazis that happened to lose the Second World War, it was a country that lost because it was run by Nazis.

Take a look at the names of the folks that worked on the Manhattan Project. See how many of them are German? Several of them worked on weapons in the First World War, for the Germans. Germany had a huge lead in developing a nuclear weapon in the '30s, but removed people who weren't Nazi enough from positions of authority in fields related to weapons research. A load of their best scientists were on the various lists that would end up on death camps and managed to leave (others didn't, and died). When you start by saying 'only people from this arbitrary subset of the population based on race / gender / religion / sexuality / whatever may contribute to our society', you won't get the best people.

Hitler maintained control by promoting people based on their personal loyalty to him, not based on their competence. He ensured communication flowed through him and made parallel agencies compete, directing their effort against each other rather than towards shared goals, to avoid any becoming powerful enough to challenge his power structures.

Hitler was almost responsible for most of the German army being wiped out early on in the Second World War because he had an exaggerated opinion of his own ability. The only reason it wasn't was that allied commanders didn't believe anyone could be that stupid and assumed it was a trap (it wasn't, he really was that stupid). He then decided to invade Russia in the winter (which worked so well for Napoleon) against the advice of any of the people who paid attention in school, which was one of the key turning points in the war.

Don't let the smart uniforms fool you. They were not competent people who lost as a result of circumstances beyond their control. They were people with an ideology that was ultimately self defeating in the long term. And, if people with the same views are in positions of power again, they will fail in the same way. The problem is not that they might succeed, it's that they have a habit of taking a lot of other people with them on their way to defeat.

@connected I love you guys but ad reads for google gemini???

No, your GenAI model isn't going to replace me

https://marioarias.hashnode.dev/no-your-genai-model-isnt-going-to-replace-me

Discussions: https://discu.eu/q/https://marioarias.hashnode.dev/no-your-genai-model-isnt-going-to-replace-me

#programming

Ahead of Kendrick’s performance today, here’s a look back at the greatest halftime show ever, including the political, cultural & social messages Prince sent through his choice of songs and the story he was telling about Black music, ownership and creative control. https://anildash.com/2021/02/05/how-prince-won-the-super-bowl/

I’m still trying to be convinced that AI is anything more than a clever magic trick. I’m learning card tricks and I can convince you that I can change the colour of any card picked at random. If I was AI everyone would immediately jump to my future ability to turn lead into gold. But it was just a trick.

@simonzryd neovim or zed

Unless someone can actually prove AI has all the amazing abilities the layman believes it will have, I’m very skeptical. Otherwise, it is just a magical thing that we want to exist.

Fuck me. We are doomed. Replace “AI” with “magic genie” and you have about as much chance of this working…

https://news.sky.com/story/bluesky-13287743

Manager: Don't refactor. It already works! It's a waste of time.

Me: OK, the next time I present something, I'll use my first Powerpoint draft. The information is all there!

A reminder that we write programs for the humans, not for the machine.

https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2025/Jan/just-present-the-first-draft/

#refactor #programming

Code lives and the best way to keep it alive is to write tests.
https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2025/Jan/just-present-the-first-draft/