rustyboy

This is basic empathy. It's one of the key differences between a bad and good teacher. People who can see where you're coming from and grasp how your mind is working and correct that train of thought. Meanwhile the bad teacher will simply answer your question. You keep on parroting rather than understanding.

This is a great point, one that I think is reinforced by the fact that these models (at least so far) arn't being trained and benchmarked on "good writing". Which in and of itself is going to be, to your point, a moving target.

And to be clear I don't doubt Fable couldn't pump out 13 thousand alternative fan fictions to Game of Thrones and they would follow some distribution curve that you'd see in meat-space, some garbage, some good, and a lot in the middle.

as a consumate obsidian note taker i've found that as asking questions to a quick model and have it challenge me with leading questions has helped me refine my writing to be more useful and driven. when my note is done, i'll pass it through to see if any jargon is a crutch with my prompts are about forcing me to explain it "as simple as possible and no more".

in other situations feed it notes, bookmarked articles, generate syllabuses for something you want to learn more about, and generate create html/css "interactive textbooks". the ability to have an infinitely deep tutor always around feels revolutionary.

That would be awesome to see! If there was some prize pool like $5,000 to build an operating system through vibe coding tools only and then people could stream themselves on twitch and you could have "sorts desk" type commentators who are collating all that together. I'd watch that and donate a hundred bucks.

What about it has burnt you out? That should direct where you go next

At my very large enterprise, a managers job is not to "promote and demote" it's to "get you where you want to be". That requires you to know your direction (to the article) but importantly, when they say "based on our company policies, you need to demonstrate an outsized inpact" you're going to have to work with the manager to define that, execute, and get the data to equip them to do that.

These takes feel like a failure compared to my daily usage, which is literally non-stop for ten hours a day. Want to construct a niche jq, curl, or find linux command? Can't remember the parameters for a function? Don't want to leave your terminal to search for something? ctrl+I and type in readable english.

Amen - As a SWE and i've come to realize that no one pays for me to treat code as craftman quality so I don't. The whole agile mindset is get something out that demonstrates value and fix it things while you go. And in ten years i've also realized that my ability to sit down and make something really special the first time through is - shit. This is the first time i've been able to meet timelines while still producing a better product.

can I get a ELI10 on this - If I host a mastodon server, would I need to run this software along side it then and then everyone on my server could see these other platforms posts and such?

i find tech hobbies fun because so may of the hard skills are transferable so i'm never starting from scratch, aka the hardest parts of a new hobby.

however, this is the trap i always fall into - i have these vague targets like "learn vue" and spend the whole weekend trying to figure out how to install node on a windows machine and run a basic test

do you find that the side projects are for: fun, learning, or some external pressure like the parent suggested?

what I find is that picking up a new hobby causes me a lot of mental anguish. there's a lot of very basic elementary blocks to learn. however with tech, i always have this hard skill in my back pocket that avoids those initial difficulties. if I want to learn a new language or framework, i'm not starting from scratch but a vast web of other learnings (and I slightly like the stuff so that helps.)

this is really insightful, i am nearing ten years as SWE - i've always loved passion projects and learning outside of work. This has historically got me really far in my career. However I just started a new role as a team lead on k8s platform. I rushed out got a few NICs and started setting up a homelab to learn but havn't spent more than a few hours working on it in weeks.

for the first time in my life i'm starting to think that my hobbies outside work (and the majority of my identity) has very little to do with software.

i had never thought about how much my work was tied to my identity and it's extremely jarring.

I completely agree with the sentiment. The catch here is that, unlike software in the past, there's (at least in America) ALOT of money on the line with software these days that attracts strategic and outgoing people which are "playing the game" more than they are actually interested in the technical details. I've noticed more and more peers interested in giving shallow talks, nice docs with easy diagrams, and those one page blog posts. I'm sure every industry is seeing the same thing as popularity becomes king.

Do you have any tips for practicing this? I feel like I often "take the oxygen out of the room" when I offer suggestions or get talking. Conversely when I bite my tongue (or just unplug my mic) most people don't talk or offer very weak tacit agreement with the last thing that was said.

edit: I wish I had more skill at building coalitions and/or pushing an organization in a direction without saying "we need to do X".

as someone who spent a few years really addicted to stims but eventually got clean, when I started having problems at work with focus and attention, I decided that I didn't want to get diagnosed because - at some fundamental level - stims honestly feel like everyone should be on them. Like everything is better: studying, talking, moving...

I've spent a lot of time trying to avoid things that challenge my attention span, mediating and journally, and trying really hard to use organizational tools/apps. With some pretty decent success.

I really struggle with knowing when disorder is just code for anti-human (or anti-your personality) work.