Writing for the week of Feb 10, 2025

I have to wonder what Steve Jobs would think about current events. I have to assume he wouldn’t have an account on Twitter.

I digress. This week I’ve been working on recursion. It’s a fun problem in programming. You can feel stuck in neutral. You can pull your hair out. But once you make it past the tipping point, you feel so satisfied.

Programming can feel like that often. After all it’s problem solving. If it were just copying and pasting existing code, I wouldn’t be a programmer. I think there is more right brain activity in it than most give it credit for. Plenty of left brain, but a lot of right brain as well. Which segues into the AI discussion.

I was thinking about it the other day when listening to a podcast conversation between Lol Tolhurst (cofounder of the Cure) and Budgie (member of the Creatures and Banshees). They were talking about joining a band where you were replacing someone. In that situation, you have to learn to play the previous members parts of songs. Specifically they were talking about drumming. I’m not sure that is true of programming when you join a team. I guess you have to learn the existing patterns implemented by previous team members, but you don’t have to continue them. Users won’t notice.

In the context of AI and the end of programming as we know it, I can’t help but wonder how drummers felt when drum machines came on the market. Did they think it would spell the end of someone playing a real drum set? Did they think the singers were going to start programming the drum beats? Were they going to be replaced? I have to assume there was some trepidation. We know from history that drum machines were eventually used by drummers and other band members to work out rhythms and beats, but ultimately someone still plays a real drum set in a lot of bands.

I have to wonder if that is how AI assisted programming will play out. A human programmer will start to work out a solution to a problem with AI assisting. But in the end, the human programmer will have to implement the code into a greater application or system when it is ready for production. I see parallels. It’s a different paradigm for sure. We’ll have to see. It’s early in the lifecycle right now.

Regardless, as with the drum machine example, you still need a human’s creativity and problem solving. No drum machine or AI can replace human creativity which goes back to my right brain comment above.

▧ ▧ ▧

Links

• https://antirez.com/news/145 - Software is a craft and occupation and art form in this post. This resonated with me!
• https://www.oreilly.com/radar/the-end-of-programming-as-we-know-it - I’ve not jumped on the AI bandwagon yet. I’ve used it for simple tasks my brain doesn’t memorize like terminal command options but not as a programming companion. I’m not against the idea. Some of the thoughts and soundbites in this article may motivate me to at least try it and see how the workflow changes. I don’t see AI replacing engineers at this point.

▧ ▧ ▧

Music

• Ministry - with the new tour announcement, I’ve been re-listening to With Sympathy and Twitch. And The Land Of Rape And Honey. I have really fond amemories of the little thrown together nightclub in my hometown and these albums. The nightclub was for punks. It was really just a 400 square foot basement of some house on a busy intersection in a not great part of town. The upstairs may have been a hair salon or something. Some nights a punk band would play. Most nights someone would play industrial tracks really loud. It was great. Lots of combat boots and leather jackets with spikes and hearing damage.
• Nitzer Ebb - again related to the tour announcement with Ministry. I was the biggest fan of Nitzer Ebb in my friend group it seemed. I’m excited to see them live since I missed out on the 242 tour.
• The Creatures - I don’t know when the Boomerang album was added to Apple Music but I’ve been listening to it on repeat the last few days. Some of the tracks on this album may be Siouxsie at her best. I’m a fan of her bluesy stuff.

▧ ▧ ▧

A couple of promotions each week. First, use my invite link to try Warp as your terminal. It’s fast and has some great features. I’m not affiliated with them at all, just really like it. Also, check out my project–Schemabook, especially if you work in an organization that wants to get organized around defining data through contracts and collaboration. Lastly, I’m writing a book about learning Rust if you are familiar with Ruby. Stay tuned. As always, you can connect with me more at https://mikekrisher.com.