Gary Bernhardt

Execute Program (learn programming tools quickly); Destroy All Software (dense programming screencasts); formerly Deconstruct conference.

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

evergreen controversial opinion: it is good to care about the quality of your work

[Macroblock @sainimatic]

in 2000 years if we're still here these will be in a museum as a testament to how profoundly diseased our society had become

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

@stepheaw "All humans are good at system design; you just have to tell them how to do it first."

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

LLMs are good at finding exploits and bad at system design, which captures their general strengths/weaknesses: good at relentless repetition of bounded tasks; bad at holistic understanding. Good at producing working code (including exploits); bad at knowing what is "good".

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

we may be fucked but at least 4

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

@ChrisPeikert this is art

[Chris Peikert @ChrisPeikert]

Nathan: Do you see why this is funny?

Elizabeth: Because all these certificates have to be revoked?

Nathan: Yes. But do you understand why 4 is a terrible secret key?

Elizabeth: Well... it's equally likely as any other value drawn from the uniform distribution.

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

When an LLM says:

"Don't turn assumptions implicit in an everyday scenario into explicit input restrictions"

I have some intuition for how it got there instead of just writing:

"Don't state obvious assumptions about inputs"

and that scares me a bit.

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

two cardinal sins of UI designed for experts: defeating muscle memory and typing speed

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

the AI era has brought a new world of pain regarding "do I need to hit shift+enter or alt+enter to insert a newline", where choosing the wrong one often submits the text instead of inserting the newline, and I am genuinely mad about this in real life

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

I've been back on codex this week for reasons, and it makes me miss pi. Pi is simple, has very little UI jank, and it doesn't tell me to "visit the community forum" and other nonsense. It waits for me, then does exactly what I said, which is how terminal tools should work.

[Lisan al Gaib @scaling01]

GPT-6.1-Sol reasoning traces

totally legible, nothing to worry about

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

@GIGACHURCH That was the point of the tweet.

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

all intelligence, no discernment

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

@theMosaad In many cases they're explicitly talking about everyone...

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

This is my experience too. It's a huge, obvious effect. Now put this alongside the utterly confident claims that "AI writes better code than you ever did." https://t.co/f7Qw9roc4F

[Simon Eskildsen @Sirupsen]

models do not produce simplicity. they hedge, for completeness.

that's your value. the lack of this skill is called AI slop.

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

I always listen to the confident, loud declarations about the future of programming (don't want to get left behind)! That's why I always start with a UML diagram, then let tooling generate aspect-oriented WS-* services, with the data stored in a network database.

blockchain

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

the hottest possible take: things are not simply good or simply bad

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

@netnostalgic yeah at first

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

I fully appreciate the feeling, and I feel it too, but which "value"?

"What will someone pay me a wage to do?"

"What do I enjoy doing?"

"What will improve other people's lives?"

"What will reduce the probability of Dijkstra haunting my home?"

https://t.co/s6Vy8gJQfB

[Cory House @housecor]

I spent 25 years getting good at web dev.

I memorized syntax, browser APIs, accessibility techniques, and performance optimizations, security patterns, and learned dozens of libraries and frameworks.

Now I'm trying to decide what knowledge still has value.

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

this was a valued rug