Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | brailsafe's commentslogin

Ironically, I find greenfield projects the least stimulating and the most rote, aside from thinking about system design.

I've always much preferred figuring out how to improve or build on existing messy systems and codebases, which is certainly aided by LLMs for big refactoring type stuff, but to be successful at it requires thinking about how some component of a system is already used and the complexity of that. Lots of edge cases and nuances, people problems, relative conservativeness.


Your link references a Business Insider editorial—possibly written by ai—that intentionally misquotes him.

The title of that article is "GitHub CEO delivers stark message to developers: Embrace AI or get out."

and in that article, the quote is:

> "Either you have to embrace the Al, or you get out of your career," Dohmke wrote, citing one of the developers who GitHub interviewed.

but the text in the blog post that BI cited was:

> The developers who found success with AI tools have a strong underlying motivation to prepare for what they anticipate will be an overhaul of their profession. To that end, they relentlessly experiment with various AI tools, even when the tools aren’t consistently helpful. “Either you have to embrace the Al, or you get out of your career” one developer said.

Which honestly seems like poor phrasing on the supposed developer's part, but it wasn't the CEO saying it. Entropy all the way down.

Edit: Nevermind, apparently he did say that in various social media posts. It seems like an intentionally outrageous move that's been pretty typical of CEOs lately, but he did say it. Incidentally, I'm happy I'm so out of touch with other social media that I didn't know lol


He did use it as the opening line in his tweet, making it look like a statement he was making. No quotation marks around it or anything.

https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6660a5bfdcf6c5fbf039f446/...


Ya fair enough, LinkedIn too. I'm happy that I don't check any of those platforms enough to have even considered checking, but he did say it apparently.

This is just laundering editorial through some anonymous phantom; if he didn't offer any qualification or pushback, he's effectively endorsing the opinions being expressed. At the end of the article he also talks about devs being mere humans being reluctant to change and how "that's okay". This is very typical C-suite therapy speak. There's no need to unpack _why_ the skepticism exists, it just needs to be worked around until the inevitable truth™ is accepted.

Seems like their comment engages a curious person to wonder how likely it might be. That's as much value as I generally expect to get from any comment.

> Macos has no support for a second monitor

This is factually inaccurate. It's perhaps true on the Air and base model Pro, but not the others.

I hate on Apple's bs all the time, but it seems like the reality in your situation is that you got nearly the cheapest mac laptop 5 years ago, with a shitty screen, bumped the ram, and you're doing just fine still, except for some esoteric limitations that I just factored into my budget when buying one recently and aren't blocked by, namely external monitor support without MST.

I didn't get that computer at that time because of some of those limitations, sticking with my prior intel 13" until last year, until I finally convinced myself it was time. Doesn't mean they aren't worth complaining about though, I think 5 years on an Air is pretty good, they've always favored mobile utility over stationary excellence


> I didn't get that computer at that time

Meant to say that I didn't get the lower specced M series around the time you did even though I was generally still sticking with the base models, because of the constraints you mentioned, opting to just wait until it was more feasible to spend more later on and continue suffering


I mean, that's the reason I got the late-2020 MBA M1 16GB in September 2022, instead of going for M2 24GB 512GB for twice the price, because M2 downgraded the 256GB SSD, so, you'd have to get 512GB to get the same performance as M1 256GB, and then might as well max out the RAM at 24GB, too, and now suddenly you're paying 2x for the base model with max RAM compared to the maxed-out base M1 MBA.

So, if you agree with the constraints I've mentioned, how are they inaccurate? The early-2020 Intel MacBook Air does support dual external monitors, it's an M1 regression where it's no longer supported, and it took them until M4 to finally fix the regression, it's present in every MBA until then, and in several MBP models, too.


I agree with the criticism of the pricing ladder, and shared related sentiments in similar comments throughout the years about other issues, but I've simply never purchased an Air because it's not a developer laptop if those are your constraints. Earlier Pros had multi-monitor support, just not the Air. It's a way more capable laptop in other ways than it was before even with the regression, so it required a harder decision.

It was only in 2024 that the gap between the computer I did have became significantly noticeable enough, and the configuration became more tolerable in their stupid pricing ladder to accept it. Because the money was also finally there on my side, the 4.5k CAD I paid was actually relatively fine, when you consider that it's relatively cheap within the scope of investments in professional tools.

In prior years, I had a 14" M2 Pro, M3 Pro, sitting in my cart with minimum 32gb of ram, but it felt too highly priced for what it was. Then in 2024 I got a 16" 48gb Pro. Even though I'd prefer 64, it had the right balance for me in my overall budget for my only physical tool investment (rather than focusing on the specific upgrade costs). "Can I spend ~4.5k CAD on this tool and be happier than I was doing my work?", the answer was yes, and it's been great, but I'm not sure I'd have been as happy with it earlier.


> the matte screen (fucking finally Apple)

and a slightly better screen in terms of response time, which is nice since ghosting is very present on all of them


Are they still using MicroLED? I can't stand the bloom in dark conditions on my M2, it's horrendous!

It's still MiniLED but I believe there was a subtle change on the M4 series that means it's slightly better about it.

https://9to5mac.com/2024/11/15/apple-quietly-gave-the-m4-mac...


It's mini-LED backlighting, to be pedantic.

I welcome your pedantry. I stand corrected, though I can’t edit the post any longer.

Localized bloom is vastly preferable to the alternative, which is the uniform bloom of a backlit LCD display.

> I'd say I didn't notice speed, it seems to work about the same as any other web app. I don't doubt it's got cool optimizations, but I think they're lost on most people that use it.

We almost forgot that's the point. Speed is good design, the absence of something being in the way. You notice a janky cross platform app, bad electron implementation, or SharePoint, because of how much speed has been taken away instead of how much has been preserved.

It's not the whole of good design though, just a pretty fundamental part.

Sports cars can go fast even though they totally don't need to, their owners aren't necessarily taking them to the track, but if they step on it, they go, it's power.


> Man, that "probably" is doing a ton of heavy lifting.

I think "giving you motivation" isn't the right way to frame it, but "probably" isn't doing heavy lifting. More like providing the affordance that wasn't there because the phone took it away and convinced you that you didn't need. Like a typical drug addiction or pretending you don't need to make friends because you have colleagues.

People are spending the amount of extra time on their phone every day that it takes to raise kids, so if you've never figured out how to allocate that time effectively, it's a good place to start.


> Wild take lol, I was recently unemployed and once I started facing the very real possibility that I'd have to go work at the local sawmill (or UPS) for $20/hr I was

My hot take is that if you're an unemployed software dev now, it could last over a year easily, and it's way better to spend that time actually working at the sawmill or UPS if you're lucky enough to get those jobs. Work on your skills and selectively apply in your off hours, spend conservatively, reduce expenses as much as possible. At the very least, it'll remind you to be humble.


Independent contract work. Form your own LLC and smooth over the employment gap on your CV.

Yep, if you can get it get it

> That's a factor, but the bigger deal is that eligible homeowners ar 50% more likely to vote than eligible renters, and that doesn't even count that many renters are not event eligible to vote!

Even if the data seems to indicate that's true, I do see this statement thrown around a lot without much granularity into the groups counted.

In your link, it's broken down into a few different groups, but in terms of renters vs owners I'm kind of less interested in proportion of people eligible to vote who fit into each broad category, and more interested in normalized categories. How many more people who didn't vote and are renters share a rental unit with someone they're not tied to long-term, or rent alone, compared to people who own alone or own in a long-term committed relationship where both people would be owners and likely to physically vote together, for example.

As in, is there as significant of difference between households of the same structure, income level, age bracket, in terms of voter turnout (a couple sharing the status of renting or sharing the status of owning). I feel like you'd be much more likely to vote if your spouse that you split expenses and responsibilities with also votes, whereas your roommate might not give a damn and it has nothing much to do with you.

Likewise if you own a 1 bedroom condo alone, does that show up as different than someone who rents a 1 bedroom condo alone?


They didn't say 70 year mortgages, they said 70 years to pay off a mortgage, which is still a bit exaggerated (maybe), but would come from the contingent of people who got themselves into variable rate fixed payment mortgages for comically expensive properties, and that had a significant amount of interest remaining before the feds started cranking up interest rates.

If rates go up from 2% to 6+% while you're holding onto a $2m detached house, it's a bad situation to be in.

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2022/11/staff-analytical-notes-2...


> If rates go up from 2% to 6+% while you're holding onto a $2m detached house, it's a bad situation to be in.

I find it mind boggling that banks will lend money to people that cannot sustain a 4% increase to their mortgage rate. Rates have been over 10% in the 80's!


Well, as far as I understand, in Canada we do have relatively conservative lending practices, such that you do need to be able to pass an income stress test of some amount, you're only able to lock in terms of 5-10 years instead of a fixed 30yr, and if you qualify for and choose a 5% down payment you'll have to fork out for CMHC mortgage insurance, so from a lending perspective it's more stable. That said, it's crazier to me that people will take on that liability rather than the fact that lenders will lend it.

As soon as someone hits what they think is a high salary, they'll borrow as much as possible, not thinking they'll ever lose that job or interest rates will increase. This changed a bit in the last 5 years, hopefully for the long-term, so places like Toronto are seeing 90%+ decreases YoY in certain realty segments.

Canadians' household debt numbers are absolutely wild and millenials without wealthy parents are and will continue to experience an increasingly tenuous financial future.

As an example, there's an older guy down the street from me who's long since paid his house off. For property tax assessment purposes, his house is worth $40k CAD, while the land is worth $1.6m CAD. It's just a standard plot in what used to recently be one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country


"Rates have been over 10% in the 80's!"

House prices relative to income were much lower back then.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: