36 replies

1. westbrook Mastodon 3 min later

   @zachleat 👆 Look at this smart guy being all smart like.

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 5 min later

      @westbrook if you thought that was smart — *puts on glasses*

      1. Jared White (ResistanceNet ✊) Mastodon 1 hr later

         @zachleat @westbrook Oh wow, you suddenly got 10X more smart!

         <hollywood-logic>
         But be sure to take them off before your date so you become 10X more pretty.
         </hollywood-logic>

         1. westbrook Mastodon 1 hr later

            @jaredwhite @zachleat Just wait till I turn my hat backwards and you see me work 10x harder!

            🤪

            1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 1 hr later

               @westbrook @jaredwhite it’s time for a MONTAGE

               1. Jared White (ResistanceNet ✊) Mastodon 1 hr later

                  @zachleat @westbrook cue “Careless Whisper” sax and some slow-mo hair tossing

2. Khalid ⚡ Mastodon 8 min later

   @zachleat that's always been the most mind-boggling part of working in tech and seeing layoffs. The most important investment comes from creating and nurturing IP, and the I(intellectual) comes from people.

3. Jason Garber Mastodon 23 min later

   @zachleat what sort of leftist commie horseshit is—oh wait that’s actually a super good idea let’s do that

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 29 min later

      @jgarber ne’er the twain shall meet

4. Slab Bulkhead Mastodon 41 min later

   @zachleat what makes you think corporations want stable and reliable software?

   1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 1 hr later

      @slab_bulkhead because corporations like money

      1. twifkak Mastodon 1 hr later

         @zachleat @slab_bulkhead uh oh, look who's here, it's shareholder primacy

      2. Slab Bulkhead Mastodon 4 hr later

         @zachleat making money? In this economy??

5. Alesandro Ortiz 🇵🇷🏳️‍🌈 Mastodon 44 min later

   @zachleat Are we on strike? This is almost a strike slogan. Let's go on strike.

6. Mike Aparicio Bluesky 59 min later

   What is that? And also, what is that?

7. Joe Cooper 🇺🇦 🍉 Mastodon 1 hr later

   @zachleat if I expect to be the one who is responsible for the system for years, I'm going to make a damned fine system that doesn't cause me (or anyone else) any trouble.

8. doragasu Mastodon 1 hr later

   @zachleat But AI... (gets headbutted)

9. The Turtle Mastodon 1 hr later

   @zachleat during the 1980s, when asked by potential employers "what commitment can you give us?" my response was always "exactly the commitment you can give to me."

10. Spontaneously Deliberate Mastodon 2 hr later

    @zachleat while I support stability for developers (union, anyone?), it sometimes goes too far. I have been in attrition-averse companies where complacent well-tenured engineers deliver flaky software. Those engineers have high cultural inertia so it is difficult to get them to start caring about robustness. If you can give your good developers confidence in their job stability while removing bad apples from your team, that's the dream.

11. Tobias Mastodon 2 hr later

    @zachleat Fred Brooks second corollary

12. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 2 hr later

    follow me for incredibly controversial and spicy takes on software development

13. Aaron Gustafson Mastodon 3 hr later

    @zachleat And a union ;-)

    1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 3 hr later

       @Aaron 👀

       1. Jason Garber Mastodon 7 hr later

          @zachleat @Aaron hello comrades how do you do

14. Nathan Knowler Mastodon 3 hr later

    @zachleat nah, I personally love the idea of struggling for my entire career and not having a retirement, while some Great People That Clearly Work Hard And Who We All Should Idolize make more money than a single person could possible need in multiple lifetimes.

15. The Orange Theme Mastodon 3 hr later

    @zachleat You mean programmers write better software when they don't feel like trapped rats? I am *shocked*, sir!

16. Toni Aittoniemi Mastodon 4 hr later

    @zachleat Is this a subtle call for publicly funding critical open source? 🙂

17. Stu Mastodon 5 hr later

    @zachleat does this work for relationships

    1. Zach Leatherman Mastodon 5 hr later

       @Stu if you want stable and reliable relationships, be stable and reliable for your friends? 🤝

18. Private reply Mastodon 6 hr later
19. Janko Luin Mastodon 13 hr later

    @zachleat Exactly this. If I know I’ll be the one who deals with any defects in the software I write, I’m a damn sight more likely to avoid/mitigate them.

20. Dieu Mastodon 17 hr later

    @zachleat sounds nice, but how about an AI-supervised AI to supervise AI-supervised AI-development, isn't that une idée très bonne?

21. esplovago Mastodon 1 day later

    @zachleat https://calnewport.com/be-wary-of-digital-deskilling/

    A world in which software development is reduced to the ersatz management of energetic but messy digital agents is a world in which a once important economic sector is stripped down to fewer, more poorly paid jobs, as wrangling agents requires much less skill than producing elegant code from scratch. The consumer would fare no better, as the resulting software would be less stable and innovation would slow.

22. Carter Braxton Mastodon 1 day later

    @Zach Leatherman :11ty: Is there really such a thing as stable, reliable software? It's doubtful that there are even stable and reliable hardware, much less stable and reliable employment. Unless one works for the US government.
23. zivi Mastodon 12 days later

    @zachleat make working on that software their employment

    or, better yet, do away with the crapitalist rule of “get employed or die”

24. cassie, girl-shaped object Mastodon 28 days later

    @zachleat I don't think companies want stable and reliable software. I think they just want money.