David Nelson

Polyglot developer, but C# is my first love. Senior Developer at @GitLab. Ex-@ThoughtWorks. Organizer of @dotnetunboxed. Maintainer of @casperbuild.

[Steve Cleary @aSteveCleary]

Have you ever noticed that GitHub Actions for C# don't always include the errors in the build summary? If so, please comment on or upvote this issue (the C# SDK team needs to see more community demand before they fix it): https://t.co/tu4eItay06

CC @bgrainger @davidfowl

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@patio11 @IsaacKing314 The only thing about this article that would have required days for a professional to do is coming up with all of the syntactical padding and breathless pontification.

[Mo @atmoio]

I’ve been trying to find good analogies for this.

The argument seems to be: “AI is intelligent because it does intelligent-like things, therefore it is cope to say it’s not intelligent.”

Some analogies:

- “The moon is really bright. Therefore it is capable of luminance.” Here of course we expose a manner of speaking. The moon reflects the sun’s light. The models reflect our own intelligence. The moon will never be a star.

- “A snail on the bed of a tow truck is really fast. Look, it’s moving from A to B at 60mph, it’s clearly fast.” But of course the snail is borrowing the truck’s velocity.

Notice how there is no controversy in calling the technology large language models because the term is perfectly apt: a map of language. This points to language as constructed by humans as the true source of magic, and LLMs being algorithms that can traverse this map at light speeds.

Before you think I’m being pedantic, understand that the nature of the words we use is precisely what’s at stake. That the moon *looks* bright is incontrovertible. Insisting however that the moon itself has any concept of inherent luminance is when you start to gaslight people into deranged realities that they will not stand for. Attempting to appropriate ageless conceptions like consciousness and intelligence to corporate technology by playing axiomatic word games is insanity.

Large language models do what they do and this is non-controversial. Personifying it with human-like attributes however is totally uncalled for, when it is easy enough for us to define new words that better capture the phenomenon.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this and I think a good phrase for these technologies can be—hear me out:

“large language models”

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@codeopinion Nothing wrong with a little earned vanity now and then :)

[Tim Ottinger @tottinge]

@DThompsonDev I write all of my code.
Often, I use an AI agent.
But they're not the ones coding, I am.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

If you want to have fun playing with the earliest games of Spiderweb Software, reminder that you can get a nice, new, working copy of Blades of Exile (From 1998!) on itch. Users made tons of cool adventures for it, all still available!

https://t.co/ov8wdQ9dgJ

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@Aaronontheweb That said, I would venture that 90+% of AI users today are in a similar position and just haven’t had their turn yet.

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@Aaronontheweb What a cacophony of failure, including by the author, which he never acknowledges (despite claiming in the comments that he did). The incident was bad enough but he is shooting his recovery prospects in the foot by refusing to taking responsibility.

[rasiim.md @refactorfiend]

i think we overestimate the value of the ability and power to make the big up front broad jump. and we underestimate the value of the insight and patience that shows us when, how, and where to take the next baby step.

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@patio11 This is entirely leaving out the parts of the connotation of the term that are integral to it being used disparagingly.

Such as “the company could have handled this during normal course of business such that it would not have required missing the ballet class but chose not to”.

[ani @anaisbetts]

Cause I named it that 10+ years ago in Squirrel, then I fixed it so you didn't need to, but Discord forked Squirrel from day one then never updated it

[TextForge @TextForgeApp]

Every State actor: "wait, they just... voluntarily root kitted themselves?"

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@spiderwebsoft …and come back to finish them.

Also FWIW, if you released Nethergate for a third time I would buy it for a third time 🙂Still my favorite, despite my love for the unique worlds of Geneforge and Exile (which will always be Exile to me).

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@spiderwebsoft As a customer and fan for nearly all of those 32 years, thank you for the transparency. I was one who bounced off of QW1: yes for the graphics, but also because I couldn’t get invested in the factions (the gameplay changes I was fine with).

One day I’ll need a Spiderweb fix…

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@Aaronontheweb @bertyJobbo And unlike delegating to another developer, taking the time to explain what you want and review the work will not yield any benefits in the future.

[dax @thdxr]

sent this to the team today

everything great comes from being able to delay gratification for as long as possible

and it feels like we're collectively losing our ability to do that

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@shanselman 2 for 1!

[David Nelson @variableirony]

@Aaronontheweb @AutismCapital Same thing they did to TikTok, they couldn’t do anything to them directly so they threatened to sue Apple and Google for allowing it in the stores.

It won’t go anywhere, they have no idea what they are up against. But they will waste a lot of time and energy trying.

[Isaac Levin @isaacrlevin]

Hi everyone! I was informed this morning that I am no longer employed at Sonar. With that, I’m seeking a new role and would appreciate your support. If you hear of any opportunities or just want to catch up, please send me a message or comment below. #OpenToWork

[JimBobSquarePants 🇺🇦 @James_M_South]

From a liability perspective, yes.

The problem is the hype and normalization of a risk profile we usually go out of our way to warn people about.

There is a real unbounded risk with this software which cannot be meaningfully constrained once untrusted input can influence system-level actions.