Mastodawn

"The Structure of Engineering Revolutions" by @johnallsopp https://webdirections.org/blog/the-structure-of-engineering-revolutions/

I feel like I've been waiting half a year for someone to write this essay. This makes more sense out of everything I've been reading, thinking, and feeling for the past few months than just about anything else I've read.

Web Directions Conferences (and more)

Conferences for web and digital professionals, in person and online

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Nolan Lawson Mar 6

"And yet it moves" is exactly the phrase that came to mind to me late last year (https://nolanlawson.com/2025/12/22/how-i-use-ai-agents-to-write-code/), although I didn't know enough about Thomas Kuhn to put it all together. What's been most upsetting to me has been seeing the programming community torn apart by this, by infighting and accusations and just raw blind _rage_ a lot of the time. People are scared and deserve respect and empathy, but of course the internet isn't much good at that, and is much better at contempt, mockery, etc.

How I use AI agents to write code

Yes, this is the umpteenth article about AI and coding that you’ve seen this year. Welcome to 2025. Some people really find LLMs distasteful, and if that’s you, then I would recommend t…

Read the Tea Leaves

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Nolan Lawson Mar 6

The other weird part has been feeling the rift inside myself – the part that's a craftsman mourning the old ways, and the part that can't help but notice what's coming and is both terrified and curious about it.

I used to take code quality *very* seriously – I sweated every semicolon – but now I'm starting to wonder if the slop-slingers are seeing something I don't. That they're playing a completely different game, and there's no sense judging them by the rules of a game they're not playing.

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ǝʌɐp

@nolan I agreed with John's broad strokes, but developers absolutely do elevate those who eschew things like IDEs, garbage collection, and compiled languages. The cult surrounding TempleOS comes to mind. Up until now I think there's been an understanding that most of us use these assistive technologies to collect a paycheck and that that's okay.