rob pike5d ago

Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).

Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.

Show threadrob pike5d ago

I spent my time trying to make it better. Not just write code, but find better or at least different ways to do so. Simpler, cleaner, more general, more comprehensible.

What's happening today is a complete repudiation of everything I was trying to achieve.

Show threadrob pike
But hey, the industry has spoken. Who am I to question it?
May 11 at 9:10pmWeb
Show threadDougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)5d ago
@robpike
Just like democracy: if the billionaires don't want it, who are we to complain?
Show threadma𝕏pool5d ago

@dougmerritt @robpike

If the world survived Perl, VBA, CORBA, SGML/XML, and Code Generation from UML, it can survive this.

Show threadamen zwa, esq.5d ago

@maxpool

I sure hope our beloved industry survive this wave of self-destruction, mate.

The fundamental difference I observe, at least in my small corner of the world, is that modern AI seems to be eroding the professionalism of the very practitioners of AI. This wasn’t the case with prior technological hypes, from FRP and micro services, back through time, to FORTRAN and ENIAC.

In some ways, AI appears to be validating and encouraging unprofessionalism, the same way today’s political discourse on social media is validating and compounding ignorance.

@dougmerritt @robpike

Show threadPxl Phile5d ago
@maxpool @dougmerritt @robpike your selection of things that survived is ... brutal 😅
Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫5d ago
@maxpool @dougmerritt @robpike
I don't feel like the world completely survived XML. It's just become endemic and most people are in denial about taking precautions to limit infections.
Show threadNeo Ehproque3d ago
@petealexharris @maxpool @dougmerritt @robpike that's true but we're talking about languages now, not COVID
Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫3d ago

@ehproque

People say a mild case of XML isn't so bad, but they don't think about the effects of Long XML on a project.

Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫3d ago

@ehproque

People say a mild case of XML isn't so bad, but they don't think about the effects of Long XML on a project.

Show threadStephen3d ago
@maxpool @dougmerritt @robpike what did Perl do to you!?
Show threadma𝕏pool3d ago

@subtl @dougmerritt @robpike

Moral Injury and growing interest in organic farming.

#organicFarming

Show threadVassil Nikolov | Васил Николов2d ago

Perhaps we should take the first word literally in "unparalleled expressive power" (the first sentence of the last section of the quoted page).

A little like "there is nothing like a biscuit when you are thirsty"...

@maxpool @subtl @dougmerritt @robpike

Show threadPete / Syllopsium2d ago
@subtl @maxpool @dougmerritt @robpike I mean, have you used and seen Perl? :)
Show threadApply The Ripley Doctrine!2d ago

@maxpool @dougmerritt @robpike

"AI" is not just the wrong tool. It's eroding the very fabric of society, and especially the fabric of our industry.

See also: https://www.stvn.sh/writing/programming-still-sucks-fqffhyp

Programming Still Sucks. — Writing

Sorry Peter. — I'm at a birthday party, and while most people here also work in tech, there's always a Guy with a Real Job. You know, a physical job, building some or other thing people need. And this Guy always asks some variant of the same question: aren't you worried AI is taking your job? I glance around and see a few faces turning around toward us, rolling their eyes ever so slightly before returning to their previous conversation. Yes, this question again.

Show threadFeoh5d ago
@robpike We should all be questioning it. At the end of the day we either have to do what the biz-dev ghouls demand of us or find a new line of work, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't raise issues we see just like any other engineering problem.
Show threadLykso5d ago
@robpike Voices in the industry, as in capitalism in general, are weighted by how much wealth they command, and the acquisition of wealth is largely not a merit-based process.
Show threadLykso5d ago
@robpike Ergo, capitalism tends to become ever-more detached from reality, and, if let alone, will destroy itself eventually. That which better comports with reality will remain, and will serve as foundations for whatever comes after. (Hopefully this includes us as a species, let alone high technology, but I suppose nothing is guaranteed.
Show threadthe gripe ibis5d ago
@lykso @robpike it's also really important that the people making the decisions have as little understanding as possible of the product. ideally, it should be something they don't even use. that way they can think of it in purely economic terms.
Show threadLykso5d ago
@thegarbagebird @robpike Even this is more rational than reality, in many cases. These people are quite often a sort of nouveau aristocracy; people lifted up only because of personal connections, with little regard for actual competencies.
Show threadthe gripe ibis5d ago
@lykso @robpike oh absolutely. bonus points if the board brought them in from an outside organisation that is collapsing under their leadership, leaving them with a generous golden parachute on top of the massive signing bonus
Show threadOzzelot 5d ago
@lykso
welp, can it destroy itself faster please, this slow death of it has grown quite annoying
@robpike
Show threadLykso5d ago
@ozzelot @robpike It very well may take life on the planet with it, if we don't build get busy building structures to replace it.
Show threadPaul Healey4d ago
@lykso @robpike Capitalism always tends to fascism, as competition muffles and expropriates the cultural value of cooperation. The result is the exploitation and mass consumption of capital markets. Their injustice and inequality fuel the Nationalist sentiments of fascists ethnic supremacy, which depends on the cult of mob rule financed by the ultra rich! The reason, that colonial Empires are unsustainable and ultra violent is because their industry, military, intensive agriculture and tech superiority depend on the institutional ideologies of exploitation like Capitalism, but end with the totalitarian corruption of markets by celebrity cults of the mob like Fascism.
Show threadGeePawHill5d ago

@robpike A profound grief I feel.

I retired this year, creating considerable financial stress, but I just don't want to be associated with this trade these days.

And yes, it's been coming for some time, and the LLM craze isn't really the root cause. For me, at least, it's the tipping point.

Anyway. Just a note to say that I feel your pain. About the only bright side I can offer: we lived through the golden age of computing, created amazing things, found many friends, and felt great joy.

Show threadThe Witch of Crow Briar5d ago
@GeePawHill @robpike one of the best, most succinct ways I’ve seen it put is “Big Tech is the new Big Tobacco”.
Show threadDavid Beazley5d ago
@GeePawHill @robpike I share similar feelings. I don't feel like retiring, but I don't want anything to do with any of this. Maybe I did something that mattered to someone at one time, but who knows now?
Show threadRandom Geek5d ago

@dabeaz @GeePawHill @robpike y’all know all the pains. The tech domain has been increasingly uncomfortable over the last 10-15 years, with the generative and agentic push marking where things got unrecognizable.

I like code and solving problems. I can live without code if I must, but I don’t see problems being solved either.

I’m not currently interested in what they’re making, why they’re making it, or how they’re making it. That’s a sad state of affairs for this brain.

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 5d ago

@randomgeek @dabeaz @GeePawHill @robpike

I.T. has become the sweatshop.

We need to discover the "knitting" of the technical domain, whether it be #permacomputing, #retrocomputing, or just all-around #HumbleTech.

Cottage Industry will save tech. (Hope!!)

Show threadDavid Beazley5d ago

@randomgeek @GeePawHill @robpike Definitely agree on the last 10-15 years. Honestly, I probably fell out of most of it about 10 years ago, but managed to carve out a little niche for myself doing some advanced CS topics for awhile. That's pretty much run it's course at this point though.

I loved the struggle of solving problems and challenging myself. Just not getting it with the current stuff. I dunno--maybe there's something there, but I don't care.

Show threadHarry Karadimas4d ago
@dabeaz @randomgeek @GeePawHill @robpike Hi David, for sure I appreciated your writings, and especially the series on generators and concurrency in Python, enlightening and entertaining at the same time !
Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 5d ago

@GeePawHill @robpike

Happy are those who can retire now. No ill-will or resentment meant by that. I'm not retired, but most definitely retired from I.T.

I hope that those who can remain can put their foot down and stop the madness, somehow.

Show threadBruce Elrick5d ago
@GeePawHill @robpike
I left my last job over two years ago and feel the same way. I'm not really ready to retire but I struggle to want to work for a corporation in this world.
Show threadTheuni5d ago

@robpike (from a DE perspective - and we're always 10 years behind) I'm only 27 years into the industry (give a few years as a teen stumbling around ... well, maybe I STILL am) and just sat in a political/economical conservative AI booyaa-whatever-it-was last Friday due to impact on my state in the near future and the opportunity for some embodied experience.

I feel we're screwed in so many ways it's unfathomable. The anti-intellectualism, the pure not-even-thinly-veiled greed in the "SQUIGGLY LINE MUST GO UP" sense gave me an impressive physical reaction. My wearable told me a 65 pulse, so it must have been adrenaline I guess sitting in the middle of old greedy men.

I'm not even against ML technology - but why 'o why do we have to pervert EVERYTHING.

If you like, take my comisery.

Show threaddavecb 🇨🇦5d ago

@robpike

You wrote:"But hey, the industry has spoken. Who am I to question it?"

In fact, the industry has NOT spoken. Instead it's done a Wylie Coyote, and overuses the first thing it thought of. It's just now looked down...

IMHO, it's an excellent editor for my books and articles already, and is starting to be a good lint. With all lint's problems (;-))

Think of ways to make code "simpler, cleaner, more general, more comprehensible".

One of my experiments is at https://leaflessca.wordpress.com/2026/04/30/a-prompt-for-hunting-bugs-in-claude-haiku/

One that I've debugged for writing is in my repo at https://codeberg.org/davecb/Prompts/src/branch/main/developmental_edit.txt

A Prompt for Hunting Bugs in Claude Haiku

I asked claude for a prompt to use just labelled-as-bad data from bug reports to review some code. It replied You are a Go code reviewer specializing in identifying bugs. Your task is to analyze th…

This Blog has No Leaves
Show threadրպհտին ջվգեան ⊽🜁5d ago

@[email protected] i don't have any hopes with industry. only with floss communities, not companies. of course some niche communities are a separate and unknown world for commercial developers, but who cares.

@[email protected]

davecb 🇨🇦 (@[email protected])

292 Posts, 99 Following, 103 Followers · Dave Collier-Brown, once of the (late, lamented) Sun Microsystems Systems programmer and author Nom de Guerre: DCB

Hachyderm.io
Show threadslash5d ago

@robpike I'm just happy to be at the end of my career. I can't imagine having to job-hunt in a time where installing software on your phone and being interviewed by an LLM is a requirement.

No one seems to recognize that LLMs create technical debt *at scale*.

Show thread☮ ♥ ♬ 🧑‍💻5d ago

@robpike there has been a-lot of optimistic AI in the experiment / spend cycle; The total dollar cost to Industry is not so rosy.

<https://theregister.com/software/2026/04/28/locked-stocked-and-losing-budget-ai-vendor-lock-in-bites/5229050>

Locked, stocked, and losing budget: AI vendor lock-in bites

Opinion: Execs in the C-suite thought they could swap models in a week. They were hallucinating

theregister
Show threadkeithzg5d ago
@robpike It's far from the only problem with capitalism, but certainly one of 'em is that any longterm for-profit endeavour will, at some point or another, self-cannibalize for some wishful thinking of short-term profits.

But I'm personally heartened by how the actual people involved skew far *more* against the malpractice the industry has abruptly standardized on. The big corps have *always* had fundamental pathologies stemming from the nature of such organizations in our socio-economic system, and that becoming painfully clear for more people may have positive affects that reverberate for a long time, even as the costs of the LLM mania inevitably do too.
Show threadspnw5d ago
@robpike Your work has inspired so many of us, and I trust it will continue to do so long into the dark night that's fallen upon the computing world. Godspeed.
Show threadBook5d ago

@robpike you, and others like you, are exactly the ones to question it, gramps. You, and the academics and the ethicists and professors and unions and legislators.

And we should listen.

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 5d ago

@robpike

Respectfully, gingerly, I must say that riding out the hellstorm the Soulless Ones have wrought on the world and then retiring when it gets to be utterly unbearable isn't the optimal outcome for anyone.

I wish we could have all said something and particularly done something when we all saw this going positively Babylonian a decade and a half ago.

I'm absolutely not pointing the finger at anyone or trying to say "you should'a done more," but I say to all of us, "we should have done more."

The roadmap is not hard to grasp.

  • Live below your means
  • Fight for everything noble and virtuous
  • Have the reserves so you can tell your bosses to shove it when they ask for unethical things

@book

Show threadSaphira Lohikäärmekettunen 🔜 GPN 5d ago

@robpike I cannot express how happy I am that you are on the same side here as I am .. and how sorry I am for you to suffer through this as well

I'm in this industry not nearly as long, but also just always hoped it would lead to the betterment of humanity and not ... this

Show threadXANTRONIX5d ago
@robpike The counter revolution is underway. Those of us who still remember how computers can be playgrounds of exploration unto themselves, and not just means to extraction and rent seeking, will have had our fill of the contradictions, doublespeak, and outright lies. The kids with their weird hair and 9front on their ThinkPads grow relentlessly restless. Those that value autonomy, joy, artistry, and craftsmanship, will ultimately win. Far too much of our collective future is at stake.