Bravo, I respect that VS Code has added a single setting to disable all AI features. It prioritizes user choice and agency. Considering there was a recent rebranding as "the open source AI code editor", it means a lot to new and existing users that there's a choice to not use AI.
For many companies and products it's apparently hard to do these days when LLM integration is the hot new thing pushed by management and investors. Developers, users, and citizens deserve the respect and right to opt-out from AI features as it permeates other areas of work, life, computing, commerce and governance.
I'd like to attach to this comment to say that we should support smaller companies. It doesn't matter how responsive a big company is if it controls too much surface area of the important technological salients.
Large company hegemony of our industry is bad. VSCode, Google Search + Chrome, mobile phone duopoly, Amazon/AWS/MGM/WholeFoods/TeleDoc conglomeration and cross promotion... It doesn't matter. We need more distribution of power.
I do not financially support any restaurant that has a Wall-street ticker. I wish more people would do this. There should be no reason to fund some CEO on Wall-street when we can benefit more by funding local communities.
P.S. You have to pay me to use Microsoft products and to engage with Amazon.
If I understood the history correctly, being a "shareholder" was a path to a fractional business ownership for people who could not afford to outright own a business.
It comes from the same mental position as a co-operative.
In these scenarios, a CEO is really just an employee of sorts for the shareholders.
It's quite funny that we see the CEO of a publicly traded company has worse than a sole-proprietor, when profits will go directly to a sole proprietor- but not to a shareholder CEO.
I understand how it has played out, that the largest companies on earth are publicly traded now, and that CEO compensation in those companies is crazy. But it's quite ironic in my opinion how it played out.
>It's quite funny that we see the CEO of a publicly traded company has worse than a sole-proprietor, when profits will go directly to a sole proprietor- but not to a shareholder CEO.
Speaking in the same mindset as the parent, we're fine with the profits going directly to a sole proprietor.
In fact, what we want is a name attached to the profits, and a not a role.
We're not anti-profits.
We're anti bland corporate leadership, with no reputational risk and no personal ties to the company (and often no financial risks either, see golden parachutes) - one whose only mission is to maximize profits, product and customers and legacy be damned.
As mentioned though, the irony is in that, once upon a time, the lords and landed gentry were the "bland, soulless overlords" and so buying things would improve their profits... and nobody could become them.
Then the idea of fractional ownership came about and the common man could buy in to an enterprise.
Now of course, everyone is correct that this has been weaponised- but it's often interesting to go back to the original intent (or idea) of something to see how warped it has become.
Given the top 10% holds 87% of shares, it seems clear the stock market is primarily a tool to compound wealth. Having a surplus of money is table stakes to play.
Not just that, but if it were "fractional ownership in a business" then every profitable company would pay a dividend. Now it has become normalized to not do such a thing with all sorts of fancy reasoning.
Share repurchases are also a way of returning cash-flow to owners. A stock buyback is equivalent to a dividend, just with automatic reinvestment in the default 'do-nothing' case.
Including buybacks, few large and mature companies fail to return profits to shareholders at all, and we'd ordinarily want growing or startup companies to retain earnings and invest.
You are just reciting the "fancy reasoning" that I already mentioned. All the esoteric stuff is designed to do is concentrate the wealth into the hands of the wealthy. It is a step away from fractional ownership.
There is nothing fancy about it. The reasoning is straight forward and has the exact same impact that paying dividends has, from the perspective of the shareholder. (Well, actually in some ways maybe a better impact, as it makes complying with idiotic tax laws easier)
I recently moved to Wisconsin and decided it was only appropriate to only buy local. Sure, it tastes better but I was surprised to see it was cheaper too. I guess it doesn't matter how much of your food is plastic and sawdust if you have to pay to haul it an extra hundred miles.
I’m quite aware that better options exist. I’ve dined at multiple or different 2 Michelin star restaurants, not to brag or anything.
But sometimes this “corporate bad” mentality is just vapid snobbery. I’m better than you because I don’t support big bad corporate.
Of course, companies aren’t created equal, regardless of size or status of being public or private. Some are run very well and ethically and some are not.
I am sure we can find many mom and pop businesses that do shady things that no public corporation would be caught dead doing.
Did you know, small landlords are exempt from equal housing laws? Mrs. Murphy exemption.
If I go to an Olive Garden I know I’m getting the exact same experience everywhere, I know exactly what amenities and facilities they’ll have, and I know what price I’m going to pay.
Even though Cheesecake Factory is a public company they’re doing more real kitchen prep work and in-restaurant cooking than my local bar and grille that’s reheating premade Sysco food.
When they brand themselves like that, it’s a clear sign for people who dislike “AI” not to use it. Zed having some opt-out “AI” features now was one of the reasons for me to stop even considering properly trying it again.
Having spent years doing software dev myself and now months with the latest frontier models, I don't see a path forward in any software-development capacity that values productivity where AI is not featured.
So I hope for your sake that you and others like you are pure hobbyists. Because anyone paying you to do this job is going to be firing you pretty soon in favor of those who lean on frontier LLMs, otherwise.
He continues: "C++. Well, I've programmed in it but it's kind of like, please spare me - so I prefer C."
I also liked this part:
> ..From a specification perspective, Lisp and SmallTalk are like seniors to me. There's a lot I can reference from them. They're like a treasure trove of ideas. If anything, I often go to them, get ideas, and incorporate them into Ruby.
Aggregability is NP-Hard... Useful the next time someone insists that it's possible to find a "perfect" model for a non-trivial ML problem. (I get this ask 1-2 times per month.)
The animation on their website looks nice, I'm curious to try it. But that's a good point about needing WINE wrapper on Linux and Mac. Apparently they're working on a native port.
I enjoyed this explanation of how the philosophy of Shugyo-style training applies to software engineering. There are some choice phrases that describe the process of mastering an art.
> understand the nature of the steel .. the tool disappears .. to remove the "lag" between thought and action
Brilliantly said. Same with a musician practicing thousands of notes, scales, famous compositions - the repetition, accumulation of physical effort, trying things from all angles, thinking about it deeply, getting to know all the detail and nuance of sound, instrument, materials and conditions. As one trains there are breakthroughs in understanding and skill, building a kind of embodied knowledge and intuition beyond words.
amazing quote. Adding it to my about page, do you want credit or shall I credit it to archimedes xD
On a serious note, its so brilliant that something like this is now possible when we think about it. It's maddeningly crazy to think about all the process but in the end that you can end up with a system / linux iso whose hash you can trust/independently verify and then you use it and spread around the world. Definitely makes me feel as sky's the only limit or just its very pleasant to think about it.
For many companies and products it's apparently hard to do these days when LLM integration is the hot new thing pushed by management and investors. Developers, users, and citizens deserve the respect and right to opt-out from AI features as it permeates other areas of work, life, computing, commerce and governance.
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