ben

FAANG SWE & AI realist. Honest takes on tech, finance, AI tools, and engineering life.

[ben @CalmCoding]

I think “software is solved” splits into two levels, and the second one is much harder.

1. Local level: AI writes individual classes, functions, tests, and small features accurately and fast. No one’s writing code en masse by hand anymore.

← We’re basically here.

2. Macro level: shipping and running big real-world systems or full SaaS products that paying customers depend on 24/7.

The jump from 1 to 2 is brutal because 90% accurate isn’t good enough. At scale you need near-perfect reliability, observability, security, and the ability to evolve the system without it collapsing.

You also need someone to take real liability when things go wrong. “AI did it” doesn’t fly with customers or regulators.

Production edge cases, integration messes, architecture trade-offs, and long-term ownership still demand real human judgment.

[ben @CalmCoding]

@BenjaminDEKR Seems like software has been solved for the 6th time this year already.

[ben @CalmCoding]

@GaryMarcus The only guardrails that work are hard rules where you physically do not let the AI execute certain commands.

Everything else is likely to be ignored eventually.

[ben @CalmCoding]

@ForrestPKnight Dario is a genius for marketing like this. This clip is all over here

[ben @CalmCoding]

@IroncladDev I’ve always hated PRa from both the reviewer and submitter perspective. They are super boring and require context switching into whatever the PR is about.

I understand all the purposes of them, but they still suck. Unfortunately I do not have a better alternative

[ben @CalmCoding]

@sama Microsoft has not been having a good time recently

[ben @CalmCoding]

@simonw It’s just so tempting to bring AI into every nook and cranny this is inevitable for many people

[ben @CalmCoding]

@theo Their whole marketing strategy is fear

[ben @CalmCoding]

@GergelyOrosz Yes, it’s pretty much an advanced auto complete.

[ben @CalmCoding]

@sama I don't want the internet to be filled with agents.

[ben @CalmCoding]

@GaryMarcus Hmm, I wonder if he has a financial incentive to say this.

[ben @CalmCoding]

@headinthebox It’s always been like this.

Very annoying, best you can do is prompt around it

[ben @CalmCoding]

@asaio87 I’m just curious, have you met many engineers not using AI?

[ben @CalmCoding]

@zuess05 I don’t see the local plumber vibe coding complex, valuable software with the rate limits of a $20 claude plan.

[ben @CalmCoding]

@tekbog It’s confusing since all companies be like:

“Use AI”

“No no, not like that”

[ben @CalmCoding]

@tekbog Even better if you use playwright so you don’t have to paste stuff anymore

[ben @CalmCoding]

@1ssve *Microsoft Teams noises intensifies*

[ben @CalmCoding]

@ryanels Thanks to our Wordpress bros we had all this nice training data for our LLMs

[ben @CalmCoding]

@vikhyatk I for one have to say that the core programming part is significantly easier.

But we just get more work and more is expected

[ben @CalmCoding]

@sama I think he’s trolling us on the misuse of the word looksmaxxed

[ben @CalmCoding]

@techspence Yeah idk what the byte code does from the compiler and no one cared