@inthehands@hachyderm.io2025-06-09 16:42:33
All this brings me back to some text I was writing yesterday for my students, on which I’d appreciate any thoughtful feedback:
❝You can let the computer do the typing for you, but never let it do the thinking for you.
This is doubly true in the current era of AI hype. If the AI optimists are correct (the credible ones, anyway), software development will consist of humans critically evaluating, shaping, and correcting the output of LLMs. If the AI skeptics are correct, then the future will bring mountains of AI slop to decode, disentangle, fix, and/or rewrite. Either way, it is •understanding• and •critically evaluating• code — not merely •generating• it — that will be the truly essential ability. Always has been; will be even more so. •That• is what you are learning here.❞
11/
@castarco@hachyderm.io2025-05-09 09:29:57
rant on software dev practices
What is it with P5js and virtually all its ecosystem (like Q5js) that, still today, didn't manage to _properly_ package their libraries to be distributed and used via package managers?
Same with their insistence to push global resources and state everywhere... and of course virtually not documenting any of the truly delicate details, just the trivial stuff that could be auto-discovered by relying on auto-complete tools.
I kind of understand wanting to keep the vanilla experience alive, making it "easy" for novices... but that shouldn't be at odds with more "professionalized" production pipelines, at least *not that much*.
For example, with Q5js:
- The NPM packages could be mentioned in their documentation (they are not, even though they are official)
- The NPM packages could define proper exports (same for the JS modules themselves), not forcing us to rely on relative paths to files in node_modules... 🤦
- Globals could be at least namespaced... of course, it would be much, much better if they didn't exist at all.
I'm writing this in 2025, not 1993... and I'm... "triggered".
At this point I'll have to check if I have any other neuro-condition beyond ADHD that makes me "obsessed" with technical flaws, because it seems to be a "me problem" when either virtually nobody sees that as a huge collection of fatal design flaws... or they see it and don't care at all.
@YaleDivinitySchool@mstdn.social2025-06-04 20:09:39
“I know faithful people, including faithful preachers, who persist in hope for the future, against all odds, grounded in their hope in God’s steadfastness. That hope emboldens them both to hear and preach the truth of God’s compassion and of God’s justice, and to act accordingly. Their hope emboldens me.”
—Roger Ferlo ’79 Ph.D. writing in the latest issue of our journal, Reflections
@blakes7bot@mas.torpidity.net2025-06-04 06:18:43
#Blakes7 Series B, Episode 07 - Killer
BLAKE: Kemp, Wardin, Tober, missing in the constellation of 61 Cygnii, seven hundred years ago.
WILER: May I continue?
BELLFRIAR: Sorry.
[Mortuary]
https://blake.torpi…
@leftsidestory@mstdn.social2025-06-02 00:30:03
Natura Urbana VIII 🏡
城市自然 VIII 🏡
📷 Nikon FE
🎞️Ilford FP4 Plus, expired 1995
buy me ☕️ ?/请我喝杯☕️？
#filmphotography
@berlinbuzzwords@floss.social2025-05-21 14:00:24
"We think of generating source code from a prompt as an AI-powered feature of modern IDEs, but the general problem has a rich history in research efforts and domain-specific programming systems." Join William Benton at this year's Berlin Buzzwords to hear him talk about the history of program synthesis, its relationship to the history of AI, and the lessons we can learn from it today.
Learn more:
@june_thalia_michael@literatur.social2025-06-02 05:34:34
Week 1 - #EroticMusings Setting — Is sexuality suppressed or celebrated in your setting? Is the setting erotic in its own right?
Writing in German, but still wanted to participate here. In Erytan, where at least the first five novels take place, sexuality is not only celebrated. Ethical BDSM is governing every aspect of culture, including the aspect that the official title of the q…
@nemorosa@mastodon.nu2025-05-27 08:08:38
#WritersCoffeeClub 5/27. What is a ‘load-bearing’ part of your non-writerly life that makes writing possible for you?
I have a limited amount of energy and my family comes first, and then obligations that I have to take care of. Work is necessary, not optional.
The time I have left is my spare time. We all have that, an hour or two when we're free.
During that time,…
@castarco@hachyderm.io2025-03-31 07:21:14
uspolitics, trump
I keep seeing smart people writing stuff like
> [the US] kept peace through strength balanced with restraint, and wielded influence through culture, values, and diplomacy
I understand that #Trump is terrible and some people feel tempted to idealize what they had before him, but we should be more discerning, or otherwise it becomes impossible to understand how this happened in the first place.
Let's start with some questions:
- peace where? and for who? was it true peace, or "Pax Romana"?
- are we going to take seriously that statement on "restraint"? after all the lies, internal witch hunting, sanctions, coups, wars, invasions, genocides, and last but not least, 2 unnecessary nuclear strikes on Japan?
Now, on "culture, values, and diplomacy". Sure. Why not. Not everything was going to be bad, right?
But the thing is, abusive husbands aren't bad all the time either. From time to time they know how to be sweet and seem to care: one present here, flowers the next day, a little bit of gaslighting, and fake apologies after that "accidental" slap.
Given enough time (if the wife is still alive), at some point the victim decides to leave, and then all hell breaks loose. Trump is the manifestation of that moment. He does not represent a change in #USA's nature, but a hidden side that was "always" there, just waiting to play its role.
Others believe this is because #US citizens have been intentionally dumbed down by a combination of propaganda and a disfunctional education system, and I'm sure it's partly true... But let's see what many of their most brilliant and educated citizens are choosing to do with their lives today: https://sfstandard.com/2025/03/12/stanford-students-want-in-on-the-military-tech-gold-rush/
So, all I'm asking is: please drop the act. It was always a clusterfuck.
@nemorosa@mastodon.nu2025-05-27 08:08:38
#WritersCoffeeClub 5/27. What is a ‘load-bearing’ part of your non-writerly life that makes writing possible for you?
I have a limited amount of energy and my family comes first, and then obligations that I have to take care of. Work is necessary, not optional.
The time I have left is my spare time. We all have that, an hour or two when we're free.
During that time,…