Whereโs the coffee machine?
Any conversation
I'm doing experiments with short attention-span students and code. Starting with python, and, oddly, now working in BASIC. As a C programmer of 40+ years, I find this aesthetically and pedagogically displeasing, but I am delighted to see them getting fully absorbed in writing
130 PRINT "You have been eaten by a bear!" : GOTO 900. Yes there is spaghetti, but it's their spaghetti and they seem to take delight in debugging it. Python will come later. I read
Still trying to figure out the boundaries of these tools' strengths without outsourcing important thinking, problem-solving, and the collective building-up of a mental model of the systems we're developing.
The shape of LLM tools as toolsโfit for a purpose, ergonomicโis becoming clearer, and human patterns of behavior with them that do more harm than good are also becoming easier to recognize.
code quality is about coupling.
coupling is not a technical property of the code bytes.
code acquires its meaning in contact with the cultural environment, and coupling is about meaning.
two constants with no semantic relationship are nonetheless coupled in pragmatics if they refer to the same domain concept.
if your goal is to minimise the time integral of future work, you must understand your domain: it decides which lines will need changing.
to carve up a codebase is to carve up the world.
Last year I wasn't feeling too good.
I turned forty, waited for surgery, and was hurt by my own colleagues. So I dealt with things. Maybe not so well, but to the best of my ability.
One of the consequences was that I got a bit heavy. My body changed, and I didn't feel like myself. It was a problem for future me. So now I am here with this little belly of mine. We're not enemies, but I decided it's time to part ways.
So I count calories. Maybe not so well, but to the best of my ability.


