>to not address the root issues but just scaffold on top of them and try to hide the ugly bits under the carpet
It's totally the devs fault and not the environments devs have to work in. Deadlines forced down on you until you have to make compromises, 24/7 having to compete with people who actually don't care because you have to meet months end payments somehow. Whole businesses blinded by a tech gold rush.
>We're a clown industry.
I do agree here, but that includes every non dev person.
You don't see the same problems in say, structural engineering as you do in software engineering. I suggest this is due to needing to go through the formal training required of a structural engineer, and membership bodies like chartered institutions, with standards and codes of ethics. We might want to reflect on that
The state space of what you must check to ensure correctness in physical engineering is infinitesimal compared to ensuring correctness in software. Correctness in software is qualitatively more difficult by nature and an open problem at a theoretical level.
No amount of bureaucracy and process theater gets around this fact. There is a vast and very expensive gap in software between "don't do stupid things" and "this is actually correct". The tooling to close this gap is severely deficient and not for lack of trying. In physical engineering we've had automated design checking for decades because it is a relatively trivial problem in those domains.
It would be great if compilers could generate proofs but after decades of research they can't even generate SIMD code in most contexts.
Structural engineering, is engineering (though mechanical engineers would disagree), 'software engineering' not so much. It just happens to be a word that's a useful synonym for 'building things'.
I rarely call myself an 'engineer', preferring developer or programmer.
Isn't software "engineering" or shouldn't it be considered that? Creating a new painting program might not be considered that and a software failure would have little impact, but there is a huge amount of software which is essential for the operation of complex systems. We just had large parts of the internet impacted by the PHP bug - a lot of businesses were harmed in their fundamental processes by it. Like if a roof of a warehouse had collapsed.
In Europe, a lot of supermarkets were hit by a remote exploit which allowed attackers to switch off cooling of food. A blood bank in France was attacked the same way.
So how would building software for important or even safety-relvant systems not be considered "engineering"?
Especially, as faulty software might not only cause a product or device to fail in a dangerous manner, faulty software in this day and age often makes it possibly to remotely attack the faulty product.
I agree with you but I would extend that observation to include the age of the industries. We have been making structures for thousands of years. Software is an infant compared to that.
I think that has more to do with than some unverifiable sentiment like "software people are simply inherently less serious than other engineers".
competing with others doing the same thing in a zero sum game. We all just have to simultaneously coordinate to agree not to set unrealistic expectations or deadlines! Sounds easy, right?
you can build workflows without agents. Giving them highly isolated environments where they can't break stuff and having human gates where it makes sense - game changer.
And you can use local LLMs - stata is awesome.
I have a strata tix flake, I start it, it registers the model locally, and it becomes useable everywhere.
Sure. tix.im does not force you to use anything. LLMs are optional.
For me personally, I'm finally able to build an environment that I actually like in absolute perfectionism.
I just have to command and the the workflows bring my wishes to life with hardly any bugs. I had 1 regression in the last month with an avg of 1700 commits / week.
To anyone wondering about this, I did it last year. You don't remember the procedure at all, you're just left with the blissful afterglow of the drugs they use to make you sleep. That stays with you for a couple of days. The uncomfortable part is the day before when you have to do a cleanse. Worth it.
> You don't remember the procedure at all, you're just left with the blissful afterglow of the drugs they use to make you sleep.
Technically this will vary depending on the protocol. I have friends in this field and in some countries they effectively knock you out with sedation. Others you might get some anxiety medication and only sedate elderly or uncollaborative patients.
Regardless of that everyone should absolutely get checked but just wanted to make sure we don't set unrealistic expectations.
I’m literally having a colonoscopy today (Wednesday), so I’ll say what my prep has been.
Starting on Friday, I followed a “low residue diet”. This primarily meant no fibrous fruits/veg or whole nuts/seeds. It was inconvenient but not hard.
Yesterday I started a “clear liquid diet”, which meant that I did not eat anything and only drank apple juice, gatorade, and the prescription prep solution. Starting at 5pm and going until about 6:45p, I drank half of the prep solution, which was like 64oz of stuff that tasted like flat Sprite. Right about the time I finished drinking, the draining out the other end began. It wasn’t a problem, and didn’t hurt, but I did visit the bathroom about 10 times over the next 2 hours with another few throughout the night.
I slept great overnight, and now I’m getting ready to start the second half of the prep solution. I’ll drink it over a 90 minute span, beginning four hours before I am scheduled to arrive at the endoscopy clinic.
(I’m also planning to have my colonoscopy without sedation. I have a very high pain tolerance, and was told that I’ll be able to watch the realtime video feed!)
The hardest part was probably convincing my doc that “yes, I’m sure I don’t want sedation.”
The procedure took under 15 minutes, with only about 2 minutes at the start being quite uncomfortable (“beesting way up my butt”). After that, it just felt like a bad case of gas rumbling through my gut. It wasn’t pleasant, but I’m not sure it is that much worse than a painful dental cleaning.
The doctor was quite good at talking through what we were seeing on the big screen. I didn’t feel anything when he used forceps to remove a few tiny polyps. I felt good that I saw the “problem spots” in realtime and could ask questions. (I’d likely have stressed out with a “we found a few tiny polyps” report after waking from sedation.)
After the procedure, I was free to leave. I put on my clothes and immediately left to walk home. No issues throughout the rest of the day.
I’m glad I skipped the propofol, and will skip sedation in the future.
It might depend on the doctor also. I had one last year and, from what I remember, there was no prep besides the 24 hour fast/liquid diet before the procedure.
I was long overdue to the first one but I won't be from here on out. The entire thing was easy.
Did it without sedatives, nothing special. Common thing in northern Europe - not so much in eastern. Stomach checkup as well, cause you might as well at that point - the equipment and specialists are there.
A friend's girlfriend got stage3(?) recently, not 30 yet. My dad passed away ~5 years after diagnosed stage4. I had some pretty nasty IBD which, along with the mention of my family history, _finally_ got them to agree to do it. Anyways, all clean, other than h.pylori that got taken out with the first round - stomach - apparently exceedingly common here.
Watch your shit, get your stuff checked. I still had the needles set up in case perforation occurred and they had to sedate and do exploratory.
not sure if that makes it better for you, but usually you are knocked out and don't know what is happening during the procedure. Much worse is the preparation starting days before with disgustingly tasting things that intentionally give you diarrhea (and maybe make you puke) to clear the path, and no food at all
People get a safe but vile-tasting laxative by default. If you don't have any known problems with your colon then you could ask for a faster-acting laxative that is easier to get down.
I have a condition so I have a colonoscopy every year. Once I had found out about there being a fast-acting option, I've always chosen that.
I've never done it sedated. I prefer to watch the screen and and ask questions. I've found the view quite fascinating, actually.
The doctors and nurses have always been professional, focused on the colon: not the butt. There is absolutely nothing sexual about it. I've never felt pain: only some tension, and that's been because of gas (needed to get a clear view). It is perfectly safe unless your colon has some illness of some sort.
The worst part has always been the prep.
Yea I know, my life just isn't worth living and I'd prefer not to have something shoved up my ass to prevent something that could end it early cuz I am too foolish to do it myself.
Everyone who goes through the procedure says the same thing: it really is no big deal and the procedure itself is less of a problem than the laxatives you need to take the day before.
You are not going to catch the gay for having a colonoscopy, if that is your fear.
The only thing they might possibly judge you on is how well you followed the prep instructions. They've all seen thousands of assholes, most of them professionally, and will forget about you as soon as they wheel you back to the recovery room.
> The only thing they might possibly judge you on is how well you followed the prep instructions.
Same with if you get snipped. I didn't realize that "shaved" meant with a safety razor and I just trimmed with a beard trimmer. I ended up having two younger women give me a proper shave as I laid there, which was about the dumbest I ever felt in my entire life. Made for a great story for my friends though.
> GI doctors and their teams do this all day long.
I've had an extended conversation about this with an ER nurse friend, in which I reminded her that although the staff go through the gamut all day every day and it's normal for them, the patient (hopefully) does not and whatever procedure(s) are new and scary.
Add in the fact that (sexualized) abuse and med students using anesthetized patients for training without explicit consent is more common in the medical field than any of us would like, and people having concerns strong enough to avoid treatment sounds pretty reasonable to me.
"we see this all the time" may settle a few concerns, but it makes others (such as the power imbalance) worse.
Ok well you will have to be touched in order to receive medical care, particularly surgeries. I’ve had been touched while unconscious during surgeries. It was either that or die.
If it makes you feel any better, it is literally impossible to remember it. You can’t be traumatized by it even if you wanted to.
The meme that homophobic people are in the closet is, in itself, not only factually wrong but also deeply homophobic.
It is factually wrong because, objectively, there are far more homophobes in conservative areas than there are gay people even in the most tolerant places.
And it is homophobic because it puts the blame of homophobia on the victims themselves. Yes, there are closeted gay and bisexual people who display performative homophobia to separate themselves from the LGBT community, but they are a tiny fraction of the homophobes.
I understand you mean well, but you are not helping the community.
Yes, that is indeed part of what I said. There is also far more than an 8% rate of homophobia in most places around the world [0]. This fact flies in the face of the meme that homophobes are repressed gays.
Okay well do the math. Way more than 8% of people are homophobic, depending on the country.
Putting the societal onus of homophobia on gay people just makes no sense. Even a couple seconds of thought will completely demolish that reasoning. So, think.
They can do the math, but they don't like what it plainly shows.
If homophobes were self-hating gay people, then they feel like they can wash their hands and walk away. "They hate themselves, because of course they do. It is their problem, not ours".
But when unimpeachable data is presented, showing that homophobes vastly outnumber gay people, now they have to face that their community is hurting a minority that has done nothing to them other than existing.
They can no longer place the blame on the very minority that they hold in contempt, and the door now opens to ask why is it that some members of that minority hate themselves in the first place. The answer to that is also obvious, and they don't like it either.
i don't care about leaderboards but i do care about the community of like-minded people that comes with these kinds of competitions, which AI larpers totally eliminate
>so let's fire up whatever datacenter we can find and get us to these outcomes
You're delusional if you think this is what these datacenters are built for. The goal of AI is commercialization, not advancing the human race. Sure, both can be done in parallel, but dont be fooled, immediate money is worth more to stakeholders than advancements with results nobody can turn into money.
Presumably the same effect that made every fashion designer at every sports shoe company decide simultaneously and “independently” to put the players they were sponsoring in pink shoes during the recent World Cup, despite each of these companies having incentive for their design to stand out.
Ask AI (roughly) the same question; get (roughly) the same answer. Regardless of what model you’re talking to.
(Why? Because every AI company consumes the same whole-Internet corpus and distillations of all their competitors’ models; of course all their models’ answers will converge, especially about anything subjective where they haven’t supplied a specific “right answers for domain X” training dataset to override the “base consensus.”)
You cant possibly evoke the same cultural reaction in the modern day. Things are short lived now. Star Trek wouldn't have survived if it came out in 2026.
It's when I wrote some code at work. I couldn't easily complete the task. Each day I go to work and write even more code. The task is far from complete. I have written hundreds of thousands of code so far.
I seem to be closing in the completing the task nowadays, though.
It's totally the devs fault and not the environments devs have to work in. Deadlines forced down on you until you have to make compromises, 24/7 having to compete with people who actually don't care because you have to meet months end payments somehow. Whole businesses blinded by a tech gold rush.
>We're a clown industry.
I do agree here, but that includes every non dev person.
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