The more I use GenAI coding tools, the more I am convinced keeping to "traditional" software engineering practices is what works most productive here. As in 10x more productive. E.g.

- Small changes
- Test that the change works before moving on
- (unit) tests wherever you can Amusing how error-prone all of these models are

I catch how often it generates buggy code thanks to testing and adding unit tests (I have it usually generate tests and then I tweak for my test cases)

Don't know how people are productive who let it run loose tbh

One interesting I’m seeing with GenAI coding tools:

The MASSIVELY help technical founders at small and mid-sized startups prototype, challenge dev team, and ship products faster.

A recent example I’ve seen (cont’d): Founder: “here’s a product idea we should do.”

Dev team: “Ok. We’ll build a prototype. It will be ~2 weeks.” 1 month later there’s a prototype. Another 2 months to ship to customers.

Now: founder builds prototype in ~4 hours, shows to dev team. Team builds a more prod ready one in a week and ships to customers!

YouTube helpfully shows what other videos people watch who stop by at The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast YouTube channel

This is either a bug, or @ThePrimeagen managed to hack YouTube (not implausible) or he went back in time to upload a video in 1970

Or.... OH WAIT I KNOW If you know why this says 55 years ago don't say a thing!!

(if you know you know)

Interesting:

Meta created React Native. It’s used (with components at least) in their flagship apps: Facebook (iOS, Android), Instagram (Meta Quest), Messenger (desktop).

Google created Flutter. And yet none of their flagship apps use it (Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Calendar). The only flagship Meta app not using React Native is WhatsApp.

Google does build a lot of smaller apps with Flutter.

Just odd that Flutter can be used as modules (for a few screens) but Google, for some reason, doesn’t do with major apps.

Food for thought.

Record revenue (on track for $156B), record profits (on track for $55B), fresh enough memories from firing 25% of staff... and Meta is at it, again.

Ruthless business rationale, as the goal is not cost savings, but firing the old, hiring the new.

Good luck to everyone at Meta. Source:

Hard to believe that ~2 years ago, Meta had not done any mass layoffs throughout its entire history (2004-2022)

Now it looks to become an annual tradition. What a change.bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

This release is a big deal because:

1. It's the second major agentic coding workflow released with public access. (First one was Devin)

2. Pricing. Unlike Devin that charges $500/month right now. Copilot Workspace Preview is free.

3. GH integration. A big sell+onboarding win!

https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1878578314115473577

This is how Copilot Workspace works. Covered 8 months ago in @Pragmatic_Eng at

I personally think it's a clever workflow that aims to make devs more productive (and not replace them, like tools like Devin advertise themselves to the business) newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-pulse-92

Fascinating to see how different games development is to e.g. SaaS development (or anything backend or frontend development).

"Job well done" means something very different in both cases. And both dev lifecycle and what "great" means is very different between one another. This reflection comes after talking with best-selling game developer @JonasTyroller and asking if they do unit tests or code reviews.

They do neither.

It's not what makes a smash hit game with a tiny team (that his latest game is!)

What happens if a company’s engineering team suddenly becomes a LOT more productive: more story points shipped, self-reported 20-50% productivity increases after using GenAI tools (that the company pays for.) No HC change.

BUT

Revenue stays FLAT despite all this

What then? Hints as to why revenue might stay flat:

Competitors are doing the same and their productivity increased by just as much. And customers don’t care about how you do against your old self; they care about how you do against competition!

Imagine having a $300K+ year job at Apple. Then notice Apple matches charity donations up to $10K/year and deciding… you want that additional $10K/yr. So you defraud Apple with a fake charity to funnel the matching contribution back to you.

6 ex-employees did this. Just… wow: Full article and details:

What a way to throw away your corporate career, for practically nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I assumed someone smart enough to get into Apple would not be dumb enough to commit such fraud.nbclosangeles.com/news/national-…

Talk about a board turning a company into nothing.

Bench raised a $60M Series C in 2021 - then board pushed out the founder CEO, to bring in a professional CEO.

The company is shutting down 3 years later. Not even a fire sale.

Customers, employees, investors left with nothing.

https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1872746338351497313

A rare glimpse of how brutal internal politics within a scaleup can be.

In the end, investors control the board. Board members can override the founder if investors get more power than the founder.

Bench could be a warning example why this is a terrible idea - for investors!!

I see so much FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about the future of sw engineering, mostly from non-devs. Along the lines of “soon anyone can spin off AI agents in bulk that act as hundreds of devs.”

A false premise. Just open your airline app that is built by ~hundreds of devs. Good software is far more nuanced than just how many devs work on it.

Skype hired good devs and won the video calling desktop market. It got to 1,000+ devs and then… this startup with 50 devs washed the floor with them for mobile chat + calls. It was called WhatsApp.

An odd trend I’m noticing:

A lot more startups (esp AI startups) bragging about how much they work: in terms of well past midnight, 6-7 days per week, 12+ hour days etc.

What is the end game here?

Good job grinding. But it’s v hard to innovate + ship quality sleep deprived… Speaking for myself: yes, when I’m locked on a problem I’ll work more *to get it done.*

But when I regularly pull late nights, my work (+mood, judgement) gets worse, not better.

Best work is (and has been) usually after taking enough rest and being full of energy+motivation.

Automattic - the creator of WordPress, a company raising $950M in VC funding - took a paid WordPress plugin built and owned by another dev and re-published it, making it free.

If you have a business selling a paid WP plugin: Automattic can null it, anytime.

Another new low.

https://twitter.com/youngbloodjoe/status/1860559013563298182

A summary of past events:



I used to be a big Automattic / WordPress fan (my blog used WordPress for many years, and I admire companies investing in open source.)

Automattic has turned into a corporation ignoring open source ethics though, in its bid to take out its biggest rival WP Engine.blog.pragmaticengineer.com/did-automattic…

Worth asking: why would a web infra company acquire a code search startup?

Answer this question, and you get interesting insights on the strategy Vercel is likely pursuing.

https://twitter.com/rauchg/status/1859365672444363037

It's not a one-step answer.

Q: "What does a code search tool need?"

A: "Access to a customer's whole codebase to work well."

What is happening at Sonos is hard to believe.

The company released a new app that is a big regression in reliability, usability and functionality vs the old one.

Sales are falling thanks to the new app.

There is no quick fix.

They want to re-release the old app... but cannot Screenshot from

Talk about a company damaging themselves, thanks to ignoring practices like:

1. Only release a product that has been properly tested (was not the case w Sonos)

2. Have a rollback plan, especially when skipping #1 (also not the case)reddit.com/r/sonos/commen…

Do I have this right:

Major banks skipped due diligence on the deal when providing massive loans to the world's wealthiest person buying Twitter for $44B, assuming they would make a quick buck by selling on these loans.

But they cannot sell it on and make money on it? The full story by WSJ:

It's hard to feel sorry for massive banks that don't make the quick buck they expected to do, because they loaned for an objectively terrible deal? (Twitter was sold for 2-3x the value of Snap, despite fewer users, similar rev)wsj.com/tech/elon-musk…

It's notable that coding assistants like Copilot, Tab9 and many others are available in most IDEs... save for XCode.

This means we have an unlikely "control group" to determine if these AI assistants make a major difference in coding: native iOS devs vs everyone else! Assuming these coding assistants provide a meaningful and long-term productivity boosts: teams doing web and Android development using these tools (e.g. via Jetbtains or GH Copilot) *should* be meaningfully more productive vs iOS folks.

Interesting if we'll see major differences

Outside of coding and customer service, what are areas where GenAI / LLMs result in very clear productivity gains or business gains, without a deterioration in the experience for customers?

These are two areas I currently see as "yeah, GenAI actually works here, not just a fad" Funnily enough, even when Sundar Pichai was asked about GenAI, he seemed to only list these two examples. Two weeks ago he said:

"There are pockets, be it coding, be it in customer service, et cetera, where we are seeing some of those [GenAI] use cases seeing traction"

Here is an EU regulation that surely massively accelerated online businesses:

The right to return any physical goods purchased online within 14 days.

Here’s why (my recent story with a faulty vacuum cleaner that will make me only buy stuff like this online, even from a shop:) I needed a vaccuum cleaner while in Hungary. So I walked into a retailer shop and bought a cordless one.

The vacuum cleaner broke after 7 days (no charge.) Took it back to replace it… but was told that in-store purchases are not eligible for the 14-day return. Only online ones

It's a good reminder that CrowdStrike most likely caused more financial damage to their customers than their annual revenue.

CrowdStrike annual revenue: $3B. "Just" the damage caused to a big customer (Delta): $300-500M.

It is only business sensible Delta sues CS/MS for this.

https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1818240922221731913

Delta (by regulation) needs to stand in for the losses and cover them for passengers.

The interesting parts of the lawsuit will be:

1. What contracts did Delta strike with CS/MS in case of them causing financial damage to their business, like now?

2. What does the judge say?

What happens when a government decides that their banking sector needs proper competition, and mandate a new payment method that is:

1. Instant (unlike bank transfers)

2. Free for consumers, very very cheap for merchants (unlike credit cards)

What Brazil did with Pix:

https://twitter.com/geovanisouza92/status/1818226498077155598

Banks, credit/debit card companies (MasterCard, Visa, AMEX) all hate if and when this would happen.

The economy usually loves it: local businesses spend less on payment fees (previously going to the above) and consumers will spend as much or more.

Other countries also did this.