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0:33:41 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The cookie banner is a monument to the EU's world-class talent for good intentions leading straight to hell, and a decade of failing to repeal it is a bankruptcy declaration for its bureaucrats.
Their wordsIt's a monument to good intentions leading straight to hell. And the Europe is actually world class in good intentions leading straight to hell.
- 14 min later
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0:47:11 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Python is ugly: full of superfluous instructions kept since 1987 for legacy reasons, and its __init__ offends the sensibilities to the core.
Their wordsPython, to me, I hope I don't offend people too much. I've said this before, it's ugly. And it's ugly in its space, because it's full of superfluous instructions that are necessary for legacy reasons of when Guido made Python back in '87 that are still here in 2025.
- 9 min later
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0:56:20 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Ruby's design rests on trust in programmers' unlimited capacity to learn, the opposite of Java's dark view of them as fools to be sandboxed.
Their wordsMatz went the completely opposite direction. He believes in humanity. He believes in the unlimited capacity of programmers to learn and become better. So much so that he's willing to put the stranger at his own level.
- 6 min later
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1:02:30 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Release the first version of an open source project a little broken on purpose; nothing recruits collaborators like something they know how to fix.
Their wordsI make sure that when I release the first version of any new thing I work on, it's a little broken. It's a little busted in ways that invite people to come in and help me. Because there's no easier way to get the collaboration of other programmers than to put something out that they know how to fix and improve.
- 5 min later
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1:07:04 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Ruby must never get static typing: dynamic duck typing is the essence of what makes Ruby Ruby.
Their wordsIt's the essence of what makes Ruby Ruby. This is why I don't fully understand when people call for Ruby to add static typing. 'Cause to me, it's the bedrock of what this is.
- 7 min later
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1:13:36 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Calling static typing the only way to build reliable systems is idiotic in the face of the evidence, starting with Shopify serving a million requests a second on Rails.
Their wordsThey're still stuck in, essentially, I like static typing. Therefore, static typing is the only way to create reliable correct systems, which is just such a mind blowing, to be blunt, idiotic thing to say in the face of evidence, mountains of evidence to the contrary.
- 5 min later
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1:18:55 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Twitter leaving Rails was the best advertisement Rails ever had: nothing happened at Twitter for ten years afterwards.
Their wordsThey end up then I think writing it in some other language, which by the way I think is the best advertisement ever for Ruby on Rails, because nothing fucking happened for 10 years after they switched over, right?
- 5 min later
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1:23:43 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Ruby is a luxury language, the Coco Chanel of programming, and 99% of web applications can afford it because their real cost is people, not CPU.
Their wordsRuby is a luxury language. It's a luxury, the highest luxury in my opinion. It is the Coco Chanel of programming languages. Something that not everyone can afford. And I mean this in the best possible way.
- 5 min later
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1:28:52 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
AI is welcome as a better search engine and a pair programmer that does not drive, but writing the code itself is not something to hand over to it.
Their wordsI love chiseling my code and the way I use AI is in a separate window. I don't let it drive my code. I've tried that. I've tried the cursors and the wind surfaces and I don't enjoy that way of writing. And one of the reasons I don't enjoy that way of writing is I can literally feel competence draining out of my fingers.
- 5 min later
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1:33:46 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The joy of a programmer is to type the code himself; promoting yourself out of that makes you a project manager of a murder of AI crows.
Their wordsThe joy of a programmer, of me as a programmer, is to type the code myself. If I elevate myself, if I promote myself out of programming, I turn myself into a project manager. A project manager of a murder of AI crows as I wrote the other day.
- 5 min later
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1:39:08 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The prediction that 90% of code will be AI-written by the end of 2025 deserves skepticism, though manual programming may yet become a horse: ridden for love, not transport.
Their wordsThe Anthropic CEO seems to think that 90% of all code by the end of the year is gonna be written by AI. I am more than a little bit skeptical about that, but I'm open-minded about the prospect that programming potentially will turn into a horse when done manually.
- 1 min later
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1:39:52 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Peak programmer has passed: the economic value of writing code by hand has peaked, and Jevons' paradox will not bail every programmer out.
Their wordsIt may no longer have as much economic value as it once did. I think that I'm quite convinced is true that we perhaps have seen the peak.
- 12 min later
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1:52:15 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Vibe coding teaches nothing but empty calories: to become a competent programmer you have to program, and if it can be vibe-coded, you are not a programmer.
Their wordsYou're gonna learn in this superficial way that feels like learning, but is completely empty calories. And secondly, if you can just vibe code it, you're not a programmer.
- 3 min later
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1:55:31 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Being a good editor of code is the reward for having been a good doer first; a prompt engineer who cannot write cannot judge.
Their wordsEditing, in my opinion, is the reward, the capacity to be a good editor is the reward you get from being a good doer. You have to be a doer first.
- 11 min later
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2:06:59 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Microservices for a team of twenty on half a million lines of code is idiotic: the first rule of distributed programming is do not distribute your programming.
Their wordsWhen you're at Netflix scale, when you apply that pattern to a team of 20 programmers working on a code base of half a million lines of code, you're an idiot. You just don't need to turn method invocations into network calls. It is the first rule of distributed programming. Do not distribute your programming.
- 2 min later
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2:09:06 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Splitting front end from back end was one of the great crimes against web development, and the industry is still atoning for it.
Their wordsThis is why I have fiercely fought splitting front end and back end apart. That, in my opinion, this was one of the great crimes against web development. That we are still atoning for.
- 10 min later
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2:18:36 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The meme that programmers no longer need to be competent is a trap: the path is competence, and AI does not change that.
Their wordsWhere I get fired up, and this ties back to the AI discussion, is when that's turned into this meme, that programmers no longer have to be competent. I mean the AI is gonna figure it out. The generators is gonna figure it out. I don't need to know SQL, active record is gonna abstract it away from me. No, no, no dude, hold up. The path here is competence.
- 3 min later
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2:21:12 · watch on youtube.com↗ · turned
Our reading
The Rails doctrine's 'progress over stability' is the one point that dated: churn is not progress, and stability turned out to be worth more.
Recalls holdingI used to think it required more churn to get progress to stay on the leading edge of new stuff. And I wrote this before I experienced the indignity of the 2010s in the JavaScript community.
Their words nowAnd if I was gonna write the doctrine today, I'd write that differently. I wouldn't say progress over stability.
- 3 min later
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2:24:20 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Engineering managers are a necessary evil for when things break down; 37signals tried them for two years and went back to leaving programmers alone.
Their wordsAnd after that I thought like, no, no, I was right. This was correct. We should not have had managers. Not every programmer needs a therapy session with an engineering manager every week.
- 10 min later
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2:33:57 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
A thousand programmers build the kind of software a thousand people build; Basecamp could never come out of that, and the breakthroughs come from individuals and tiny teams.
Their wordsYou cannot produce the kind of software that Basecamp is with a team of a thousand people. You will build the kind of software that a thousand people builds. And that's not the same thing at all.
- 1 min later
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2:35:00 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The default team is two people, one programmer and one designer, on one feature; at that size you can just do instead of plan.
Their wordsour default team size is two. One programmer, one designer, one feature. When you're operating at that level of scale, you don't need sophistication. You don't need advanced methodologies.
- 4 min later
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2:39:07 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The way to stay small is never to take other people's money: the moment you do, they want the largest return, and the enterprise playbook follows.
Their wordsBecause the problem isn't just venture capital, it's other people's money. Once you take other people's money, completely understandably, they want a return and they would prefer to have the largest return possible.
- 8 min later
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2:46:51 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Anything loved by many must produce an equal and opposite force of haters; the only escape is mediocrity.
Their wordsIf you are creating something of value that a lot of people love, you must create an equal and opposite force of haters. You cannot have people who love what you do without also having people who hate what you do. The only escape from that is mediocrity.
- 16 min later
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3:02:39 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Mojito Island is a mirage: there is no retirement for ambitious people, and leisure without purpose is misery, not happiness.
Their wordsMojito Island is a mirage. It always was. There is no retirement for ambitious people. There is no just sitting back on the beach and sipping a mojito for what? For two weeks before you go damn crazy and wanna get back into the action?
- 4 min later
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3:06:21 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Basecamp was the best business idea he will ever have: lightning is not caught twice, and a founder's second idea is rarely as good as the first.
Their wordsI know this from experience because I've been trying to build a lot of other businesses since. And some of them have been moderate successes, even good successes, none of them have been Basecamp. It's really difficult to do that twice.
- 7 min later
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3:13:32 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Being in the top 5% at five things beats being the best at one: the top 0.1% costs a hundred times more and demands an obsession he never wanted.
Their wordsBut if I'm content just being in the top 5%, I can be in the top 5% on like five things at once. I can get really good at writing. I can get decent at driving a race car. I can become pretty good at programming. I can run a company. I can have a family.
- 7 min later
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3:20:32 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The cloud pitch of easier, cheaper, faster is false on two counts: it is not easier and not cheaper, and the speed that is real is overvalued.
Their wordsIt's not easier to use AWS than it is to run your own machines, which we learned when we pulled out the cloud and didn't hire a single extra person. Even though we operate all our own hardware, the team stayed exactly the same.
- 8 min later
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3:28:33 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
After the cloud exit, the next step is out of the data centre: home servers and multi-gigabit home connections make the garage startup literal again.
Their wordsNow my next kind of tingle is that if you could move out of the cloud, can you also move out of the data center? Personal servers have gotten really scarily quick and efficient and personal internet connections rival what we connected data centers with just a decade or two ago.
- 8 min later
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3:37:01 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The superpower in hiring is evaluating work product directly, and it belongs only to leaders who actually know things, which is Elon Musk's real secret.
Their wordsI think part of the secret there is that Elon actually knows things. And when you know things, you can evaluate the quality of work products. And when you can evaluate the quality of work products, you can very quickly tell who's full of shit and who will actually take you to Mars.
- 1 min later
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3:38:05 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Hiring a programmer turns on two things, the cover letter and a real programming test, never the resume, school, grades or pedigree.
Their wordsthe main pivot point for getting hired was not your resume, was not the schooling you've had, it was not your grades, was not your pedigree, it was how well you did on two things. A, your cover letter. Because I can only work with people remotely if they're good writers.
- 8 min later
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3:46:31 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The App Store toll booth let a rot into Apple's foundations: money for taking 30% of other people's business without making anything.
Their wordsBut as Apple discovered the gold mine, it is to operate a toll booth where you don't have to innovate, where you don't actually even have to make anything, where you can just take 30% of other people's business. There was a rot that crept into the foundation of Apple and that started all the way back from the initial launch of the app store.
- 8 min later
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3:54:54 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Every developer owes Epic and Tim Sweeney a debt of gratitude: theirs is the only fight that ever seriously wounded Apple's App Store regime.
Their wordsI think it is incredible and the entire developer ecosystem. Not just on iOS but on Android as well, owe Epic, Tim Sweeney and Mark Rein, an enormous debt of gratitude for taking on the only battle that has ever inflicted a series wound on Apple in this entire sorted campaign of monopoly enforcement.
- 10 min later
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4:04:43 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Apple has more reason to stumble now than ever: terribly behind on AI, faltering software quality, rivals catching up on silicon, and a leadership too old to relearn.
Their wordsApple could absolutely stumble and I think they have more reason to stumble now than ever. They're behind on AI, terribly behind. Their software quality is faltering in a bunch of ways.
- 7 min later
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4:11:26 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Something is broken in how people pair up in the West, and that shortage of couples and marriages, not money, is why there are too few children.
Their wordsthere's something broken at the moment about how people pair up in the western world. And it's at the source of why we're not having enough children because there's not enough couples, there's not enough marriage.
- 2 min later
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4:13:26 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Parents have an obligation to talk up having children, because the case against is made a thousand times louder than the case for.
Their wordsthose of us who've chosen to do the traditional thing to get married and to have children have an obligation to kind of talk it up a little bit, which would've seen ridiculous again 50 years ago that you'd have to talk up something so fundamental of that.
- 9 min later
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4:22:50 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
He is not religious and wishes he were: religion is a societal operating system, and every recent replacement for it has been worse.
Their wordsReligion is one of those things I've struggled with a lot because I'm not religious. I sort of wish I was. I can now fully appreciate the enormous value having an operating system like that brings not just at the individual level, but rather at a societal level.
- 3 min later
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4:25:41 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Framing childcare as unpaid labour, and a mother who stays home as a failure of feminist ambition, is a complete dead end.
Their wordsBut there's something that's just not right in the analysis that children are a burden and that if woman chooses to stay at home with the kids, that that some sort of failure mode of feminist ambition. I think that's actually a complete dead end.
- 2 min later
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4:28:02 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Forty hours a week is plenty if you do not piss it away in meetings; the eighty-hour week is fluff labelled work.
Their words40 hours a week is actually a ton if you don't piss it away. Most people do piss it away. They piss it away in meetings. They piss it away on just stuff that doesn't matter when even three hours, four hours of concentrated uninterrupted time every day would move to goals they truly care about way down the field.
- 41 min later
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5:09:15 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
For a web developer Linux is simply better than the Mac: closer to what you deploy on, with phenomenal tooling and a reproducible setup.
Their wordsBut I have come to realize that as a web developer, Linux is just better. Linux is just better. It's closer to what I deploy on. The tooling is actually phenomenal.
- 17 min later
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5:26:25 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
He is a software writer, not a software engineer, and the engineering label flattens what most programmers actually do.
Their wordsAnd I reject that label. I'm not an engineer. Occasionally I dabble in some engineering, but the vast majority of the time, I'm a software writer. I write software for human consumption and for my own delight.
- 10 min later
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5:35:57 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
There is no open source funding crisis: open source has never done better, and anyone who needs money for their software should sell it.
Their wordsThis is also why I reject this notion that open source is in some sort of crisis. That there's a funding crisis that we have to spend more. No, we don't. Open source has never been doing better. Open source has never controlled more domains in software than it has right now.
- 9 min later
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5:45:15 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
Matt Mullenweg's demands on WP Engine violate the letter and spirit of open source licences: you do not get to take a gift back.
Their wordsyou can't show up after you've given the gift of free software to the world and then say, now that you've used that gift, you actually owe me a huge slide of your business because you got too successful using the thing I gave you for free. You don't get to take a gift back.
- 18 min later
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6:02:47 · watch on youtube.com↗
Our reading
The planet is probably getting too hot and CO2 has something to do with it, but whether it can be fixed in time is unknown, and pre-emptive despair helps no one.
Their wordsI happen to believe that it's probably correct that the planet is getting too hot and that CO2 has something to do with it. Whether we have the right measures to fix it in time, if that's even possible or not, is completely up in the air and we don't know.