daniFeb 4
Liza Daly

My mom (in her 70s) is always asking me questions about AI, so last time I was home I showed her how Claude Code works so we could vibecode a Wordle clone together. I also showed how I would normally write code in an editor to make a few final tweaks.

When we were done she said, โ€œI had no idea what you did for a living was so boring.โ€

Feb 4 at 1:36pmWeb
Show threadShannon Quinn Feb 4
@liza I laughed out loud in a coffee shop when I read this and got some annoyed looks. Worth it ๐Ÿคฃ
Show threadLiza DalyFeb 4
@magsol Ha, thanks!
Show threadChris LFeb 4
@liza @magsol ha thatโ€™s good. Never met a really good programmer that doesnโ€™t take satisfaction in lining up comments or equally nitpicky yet satisfying tasks. Some might say itโ€™s boring, but look, the comment for each element in the object starts at the same place so it looks better; the import order follows a logic now so you can telll framework imports vs. app specific imports.
Show threadNiek van de PasFeb 5
@jayalane The import classification is something I wish popular linter would implement. Especially in a language like python where any non-trivial file has like 9 stdlib imports (sys, os, json, pathlib, re, timeโ€ฆ)
Show threadChris LFeb 5
@niekvdpas on the fun aspect of these things, one of my small pleasures in Go is adding a module import into a go file in a random order and then watching something in my emacs / lsp / gofumpt setup snap it into the proper spot alphabetically. For python, when I am not using code that does weird stuff (eg monkey patching), I go "system modules, pip installable modules, modules from the local repository" order.
Show threadEric NormandeauFeb 4
@magsol @liza Damn, so did I in my office. What a line! Mom for the KO!
Show threadSteve PurcellFeb 4
@liza she gets it
Show threadScott Wright ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€โšง๏ธFeb 4
@sanityinc funny , I was gonna say some people just donโ€™t get it. @liza
Show threadSteve PurcellFeb 4
@jswright61 @liza I mean, both are true!
Show threadJackie CohenFeb 4
@liza This is absolutely iconic.
Show threadTheFwGuy ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ––Feb 4
@liza It is what differentiate us (developers) form the rest of the humanity ๐Ÿ˜€
A normal person will never understand what it means to be in the flow or found a bug in the logic of a code - pure heaven for us, boring like hell for the rest of humanity.
Sure AI will degrade our joy
Show threadmirabilosFeb 4
@liza ugh, donโ€™t do such slop.
Show threadNeil MoffattFeb 4

@liza Let's all buy into the mind atrophying outsourcing of our cognitive faculties.

Herd behaviour readily takes that path when critical thinking has eroded far enough ...

Show threadJohn SiracusaFeb 4
@liza My parents also recently asked me to explain โ€œAIโ€ to them. Apparently itโ€™s just penetrated the Boomer bubble.
Show threadLa GuiriFeb 4

@siracusa @liza my mother is extremely technophobic in the sense that she's afraid of "breaking" something. I defined AI as "plagiarising the whole Internet in order to make bad quality summaries" and she knew what i was talking about.

My father said "I don't want a new laptop because it will have AI".

Show threadLiza DalyFeb 4
@siracusa She's pretty technical and likes science stuff, so she was specifically interested in how it applied to software development. Then she discovered she was not actually interested in software development.
Show threadJeff GriggFeb 5

@liza @siracusa

My first thought as to what my response would be:

"Well yes, of course. If you had just asked, I would have told you.

"And when bureaucratic organizations and/or command-and-control management gets involved, it's many times worse."

๐Ÿ˜ฑ

๐Ÿ˜ข

Show threadkaschuFeb 4
@siracusa @liza Oh, the Boomers! They reallyโ€ฆ wait, uh, oh right, they built the internet.โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹โ€‹ ๐Ÿ˜œ
Show threadSteggyFeb 4
@liza thatโ€™s hilarious. When I used to have trouble falling asleep I would often have @paco tell me something he did at work. ๐Ÿ’ค๐Ÿ’ค๐Ÿ’ค
Show threadJanne OjaniemiFeb 4
@liza
Show threadJPeckFeb 4
@liza ๐Ÿ˜‚ burn
Show threadCap YbarraFeb 4
@liza shocking. next you'll tell me you stood in front of the oven stirring an empty pot pretending to be a chef and she didn't find that compelling either
Show threadRonanFeb 4
@liza brilliant, so funny
Show threadTheo HonohanFeb 4

@liza I think this is maybe a bit like showing a single stanza to someone who's unfamiliar with the idea of poetry. There's a lot going on that someone just can't pick up right away. It's also possibly a verdict on Wordle โ€“ which is technically very boring but has a satisfying, polished mechanic: discrete things slotting precisely into place, like a crossword.

Computing is an acquired taste. Take the popularity of custom keyboards: something tedious and utilitarian becomes totally fetishized.

Show threadMichael LysonsFeb 4
@liza ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚
Show threadYurii / ะฎั€ะฐ ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆFeb 5

@liza skill issue of the people who need to go outside their heads for fun.

Obviously a joke. All the best to your mom.

Show threadJoe GanleyFeb 5
@liza I had a similar experience with my daughter when she was a teen, except her punchline was, "Can you explain why you think this is fun?"