Articles from TnL

Your Programming Language is Stupid
posted: 14, Sep 2025 at 08:30 AM

So many programmers I know have their favorite language, and they really, really want to sell me on the virtues of it. The problem, every time, is that their programming language is stupid, and so is yours. It doesn't matter what it is, it's a stupid one. I know, because there aren't any programming languages that aren't stupid. There's no panacea, no golden balanced ratio. Especially yours.

Aonymity vs Pseudonymity
posted: 14, Sep 2025 at 08:30 AM

Why do we feel worse about something if a parental figure is berating us than if a stranger in the grocery store is? Why does the 12 year old in a video game get so much more insulting than if we were sitting next to each other? Well, we know the answers of most of the inputs, but let's talk about the one question I want focus on here: who knows who is who?

Accounts are not Identities
posted: 31, Aug 2025 at 10:30 AM

I have an account on hundreds of sites. Most of them use my email as my identifier. Do they own my identity online? Does Google own it? Facebook? The government?

AI Code Quality Does Not Matter as a Topic
posted: 31, Aug 2025 at 08:58 AM

AI coding assistants have lots of people discussing lots of perspectives on a lot of topics. I think that's great, even when many of them are a waste of time, because we have to figure out which topics are a waste of time. I posit that the topic of AI Code Quality doesn't matter. It's easy to see where code quality does and doesn't matter, and an AI tool being involved doesn't change anything.

Social Skills are the Only Skills
posted: 07, Aug 2025 at 07:30 PM

Manual labor and "Knowledge Work" get a lot of attention as skilled work, either as artisans or as professionals. I'm here to say that's stupid. Social skills are the only skills that matter. I'm not talking about salepeople skills, though those are related. I'm saying that if you can't work well with others, you have a deficiency that makes you a literal tool, and without a hand to wield you, you are as useless as the stones in the ground.

Pages 1 >