Topjer

Software Developer | 6+ years of experience | talks about programming, tech and corporate insanity

[Vitto Rivabella @VittoStack]

Stop wasting time coding everything from scratch.

Let the AI write everything for you instead.

Then, you can waste time fixing everything the AI wrote.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@LundukeJournal Why the rust hate and no real mention of using AI to do so or the fact that a single developer is responsible for 1 million locs?

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

Last quarter I announced a milestone.

30% of our code is now written by AI.

I called it "engineering velocity."

The board loved that phrase.

They didn't ask what the code does.

Neither did we.

It compiles. Usually.

That's the metric.

Someone asked about testing.

I said "AI-assisted quality assurance."

That means the AI writes the tests too.

For the code it wrote.

It finds no issues.

Very efficient.

This week we admitted Windows 11 core features are broken.

Audio doesn't work.

Explorer crashes.

Updates fail to install.

Users asked why.

I said "we're investigating."

Investigating means reading the code.

The code the AI wrote.

That no human understands.

Because understanding isn't scalable.

Our CTO says 95% of code will be AI-generated by 2030.

I believe him.

I have to.

We fired the people who would check.

They were "non-essential headcount."

Essential means writes code.

AI writes code.

Humans are overhead.

Overhead gets optimized.

We optimized 10,000 engineers last year.

This year the bugs arrived.

Unrelated, obviously.

The engineers we kept are debugging AI output.

They don't understand it either.

But they're "cross-functional."

Cross-functional means they do everything.

Everything means nothing well.

A user asked why their audio disappeared after an update.

I said "install updated drivers."

They asked why the update broke the drivers.

I said "report it via Feedback Hub."

They asked what happens to feedback.

I said "it helps us prioritize."

Prioritize means add to backlog.

Backlog means never.

But politely.

Someone on Hacker News called this "a privacy and consent disaster."

I called it "an evolving user experience."

Same thing. Different framing.

We released a fix.

The fix broke something else.

The something else was also written by AI.

The fix was also written by AI.

They're collaborating now.

I call it "autonomous iteration."

The autonomous iteration has created 47 new bugs.

Each bug spawns a fix.

Each fix spawns two bugs.

Exponential growth.

Just like our stock price.

Unrelated, obviously.

Satya told Mark we're at 30%.

Mark said he didn't know Meta's number.

Sundar said Google is also at 30%.

None of us know what the code does.

But we know the percentage.

Percentage is a metric.

Metrics go in earnings calls.

Earnings calls move stock prices.

Stock prices determine bonuses.

Bonuses determine success.

Success means the bugs don't matter.

Users asked when Windows will work again.

I said "we're committed to quality."

Quality means it ships.

Ships means it's your problem now.

Thank you for being part of the Microsoft family.

Family means you can't leave.

We're in your enterprise agreement.

For three more years.

The circle of innovation.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@EHuanglu Plain trash (and copyright infringement by the way) does not shut me up.

It will lead to a sea of similar feeling content devoid of originality

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@sysxplore Vim.

The only editor you will never want to quit.

[Hunter Leath @jhleath]

an interesting update: the team is starting to move away from AI coding completely (devin/claude/etc) because it's so much harder to review the AI code than writing things themselves

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@sysxplore Ubuntu for work.

Mx Linux to Manjaro on private laptop.

Bazzite on gaming PC.

Want to try out cachyos soon.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

If there is nothing of meaning left to do, that sounds like a hell dressed as heaven to me.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

The future will be boring!

Today I build a closet from Ikea, even though "build" is the wrong word, "unfold" would be more fitting.

It was quick and not a single screw nor a nail was needed.

It was ingenious, but really boring.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

What if the impact of AI leads to a similar situation, assuming the absolute best case scenario.

If AI can do research better then humans? Why bother doing any reseach?

What if everything has been invented? If every need is taken care off? Every challenge overcome?

[Tobias Lins @tobiaslins]

I'm slowly giving up on coding agents for certain things.

- Code quality overall mostly bad
- It loves to do inline `await import`
- It often duplicates code that already exists

At the end I'm spending more time babysitting with worse output

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@_devHelen I close my editor like this:
:x<Enter>

[Topjer @Topjer3]

I am convinced by this eloquence

https://t.co/f3kLjuDMQT

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@_devJNS Imagine you have a self taught coder who used AI for learning, that things this is how you write code and intentionally uses Emojis everywhere.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@_devJNS If I see a CV that contains a github link, I do spend more time checking out their profile than the CV.

Under the condition that there actually is something to check out.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@ChShersh Clearly, they do not lnow their Kafka well enough.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@TheAhmadOsman Recent studies indicate that coders moght be replaced by AI but that software quality will decline as a result.

So, I guess we are all in for a big surprise.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

Is medium trying to tell me something.

Just booted it up and within the first 10 articles, 3 were explaining me why no one is hiring me.

Guess I should be really careful at work, because I wont find anything new.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@tech_girl Tech industry is currently just taping AI to everything and calling it a day.

[Topjer @Topjer3]

@_devJNS Allowing AI to modify your code without informing you?
What could ever go wrong there?