We need a language and a transpiler. Honestly the LLM has many uses. Agents have many uses. And we are narrowing down how to make them deterministic and predictable for programming machines and software. But that also means we need something beyond natural language for the actual implementation. Yes we've moved a level up, but engineers are not product managers, so as much as we can define the scope and outline a project like a 2 week sprint using scrum or kanban, the reality is deterministic input for deterministic output is still the way to go. Just as compilers and higher level languages opened the doors to the next phase, the LLM manages this translation and compilation, but it's missing a sort of intermediary language, a format that's going to be much better processed and compiled directly down to machine code. We're talking about LLVM. Why are asking LLMs to write Go code or Python, when we could much better translate an intermediary language to something far more efficient and performant. So I think there's still work to be done.
If the compiler only gets you 80% of the way there, but what it does is sufficient to put the LLM on rails, like programming language mad libs, I'd say that's a win.
Concrete example: Next/Turborepo. These tools make your life easier if you drink some kool aid. Rather than have the agent scaffold the app you have the agent use a tool that scaffolds. Agents write specs to manage tools, and those tools scaffold the code, then the agents just sprinkle in business logic that is too bespoke for codegen.
I started working on something similar but for family stuff. I stopped before hitting self editing because, well I was a little bit afraid of becoming over reliant on a tool like this or becoming more obsessed with building it than actually solving a real problem in my life. AI is tricky. Sometimes we think we need something when in fact life might be better off simpler.
The code for anyone interested. Wrote it with exe.dev's coding agent which is a wrapper on Claude Opus 4.5
Take the positive spin. What if you could put in all the inputs and it can simulate real world scenarios you can walk through to benefit mankind e.g disaster scenarios, events, plane crashes, traffic patterns. I mean there's a lot of useful applications for it. I don't like the framing at this time, but I also get where it's going. The engineer in me is drawn to it, but the Muslim in me is very scared to hear anyone talk about creating worlds.... But again I have to separate my view from the reality that this could have very positive real world benefits when you can simulate scenarios. So I could put in a 2 pager or 10 page scenario that gets played out or simulated and allow me to walk through it. Not just predictive stuff but let's say things that have happened so I can map crime scenes or anything. In the end this performance art is because they are a product company being Benchmarked by wall street and they'll need customers for the technology but at the same time they probably already have uses for it internally.
> What if you could put in all the inputs and it can simulate real world scenarios you can walk through to benefit mankind e.g disaster scenarios, events, plane crashes, traffic patterns.
This is only a useful premise if it can do any of those things accurately, as opposed to dreaming up something kinda plausible based on an amalgamation of every vaguely related YouTube video.
> What if you could put in all the inputs and it can simulate real world scenarios you can walk through to benefit mankind e.g disaster scenarios, events, plane crashes, traffic patterns.
What's the use? Current scientific models clearly showing natural disasters and how to prevent them are being ignored. Hell, ignoring scientific consensus is a fantastic political platform.
I think this is quite an interesting question. Especially for the developer audience. If you're an engineer, then you likely have similar tendencies to a lot of other engineers. You want to spend time alone, but you also feel the need to combat this loneliness, isolation and depression that it leads to. You want to connect, but struggle to do so. The internet, software, reddit and other places became a safe haven, but then they perpetuated what was hindering you in the first place. I say these things because I'm that person. I lost decades to this sort of escapism that comes from an online world. Unfortunately the answers rarely work for us at the time we're going through this. It's rare for someone to just break out of the cycle. Something has to change, but it's a change that comes from deep within yourself.
Sometimes you have to reflect on the why. Why am I here, why am I in this situation. And often it's that deeper internal reflection that starts to motivate something, change something. Listen, I lost decades. And I still struggle. But no one else can solve this for you.
In terms of the loneliness epidemic itself. You have to split it into many separate categories. Isolation comes in many forms. For the online generation, who grew up with the internet, we are specific category. But I'll tell you, the path to fixing it has more to do with understanding why we are here than filling the time with arbitrary activities or socialising. Yes we need human connnection and yes we should explore, learn and grow. But fundamentally the first question we should be asking, why am I here, what is my purpose, now what should I do with that.
In my case, I did find talking to someone helped, but only after coming to the realisation that I needed to talk to someone and then proactively seeking it out. As much as we want to solve the problem for many people, they have to walk a path before they can see the truth. We can offer alternatives, but people will only find what they're looking for when they're ready.
Still on https://mu.xyz - a personal app platform without ads. Now includes a mini apps builder via LLMs which unlocks a lot of potential. And also an agent to navigate it via voice so I can use it hands-free in the car.
This is good. I worked at google and lasted less than 2 years. Many other things happening in that time - came in via acquisition, worked on backend for that, dad died, transitioned teams, etc. But I was 27-28 and couldn't really navigate that world after my first job at a startup. In some ways, I wish I'd found a way, but in other ways, I know it wasn't meant to be. It's a good list, if you want to do 10 years at Google or elsewhere, internalise that list and it's lessons.
People read a lot of different things so I'm going to throw this one out there. I read the Quran. I read it continuously and it takes a while to finish but every time I read it I discover something new. People tend to discount a religious text as not for them but I think actually the translation or English narrative needs to fit the people and the times. Also the medium by which we read. I wrote an app to that effect to help me.
To anyone interested not just in reading it but asking it questions here's the app I wrote https://reminder.dev
I wrote https://go-micro.dev - A go framework for microservices. I've written a few other things in my time (https://github.com/asim) and tried my hand at hosted paid APIs which was moderately successful but failed as a VC funded business. I think I've just existed so much in an era of free consumer services like Google and open source software that it's skewed my perspective a lot. Like why charge for this, it could be free..m
So you walked out of the free carpentry store holding Linux, a Go compiler, Git, etc. and now you're looking to build stuff to sell to other carpenters! Non-carpenters don't need microservice frameworks or app platforms. Plus carpenters know they can usually get the stuff for free anyway - they were just in the same store as you!
Have a think about the relative sizes of the carpenter market vs. the non-carpenter market.
0.5% of humans are devs, but 70% of humans have internet. 70-90% of internet users have made an online purchase. (I assume these AI slop answers are at least in the ballpark)
(Anyway I really don't have a head for business, so don't take my advice. I just like programming on and off the clock and I get a salary for it)
No thank you for that example at least because I feel like I got hit in the face with a big fish. Of course trying to sell to other carpenters is mistake! Unless it's really refined tools they need, not the stuff you built with them. I guess the framework was a tool Devs need but I could never sell it...
Now carpenters selling to regular people. Ok finally my brain clicks. Take the easy route. Sell to people who don't code and help them win. Then it's about specialisation I guess. You could build anything, maybe there's a focus area. I did build https://mu.xyz but yet to figure out that user demographic.
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