Julian Gamble

@juliansgamble@techhub.social
65 Followers
107 Following
212 Posts
Devops, Docker and CD. Java Veteran.
Financial Services System Engineering. Author.
Websitehttps://juliangamble.com/
Julian GambleJul 8
vfigJul 5
@NanoRaptor
Julian GambleJun 24
fogusJun 18
As we strive to build computers to pass the Turing Test, we strive to build people who fail it.
Julian GambleJun 17
Niki TonskyJun 12
A bit of common sense for you https://tailscale.com/blog/frequent-reath-security
Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure

Securely connect to anything on the internet with Tailscale. Built on WireGuard®️, Tailscale enables you to make finely configurable connections, secured end-to-end according to zero trust principles, between any resources on any infrastructure.

Julian GambleJun 10
Show threadJack RusherJun 3
@fogus “In 3-8 years we'll have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being. The machine will begin to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be incalculable.”
—Marvin Minsky, 1970
Julian GambleMay 22
Toromino  May 19
COBOL c:
Julian GambleMay 19
ElaMay 15
You might not like it, but this is what peak compiler performance looks like.
Julian GambleMay 17
Show threadTinker ☀️May 14

One big thing, among many many many aspects of the series, that I absolute LOVE...

...is that it *humanizes* fascists.

And I mean that in a terror filled way.

It shows many different people living in and supporting fascism. It shows the sociopathic leaders who will consume their own people to get power. It shows people who try to capitalize on the system to move themselves up the socio-economic ladder. It shows people who are true believers and think they are superior to others and desire a state of order where those others are oppressed or snuffed out. It shows people living privileged lives unaffected (until they're not) by fascist actions on the fringe.

It shows how we can't DISMISS fascists as just "monsters". They are human. Through and through.

Other series have attempted to do this, but they run the very real risk of being fascist apologists or inadvertently showing an idealized world that modern day fascists celebrate (I'm looking at you "Man in the High Castle"!!!)

#Andor is able to humanize fascists WHILE condemning their acts as evil.

Neither a caricature of cartoonish villianry nor an apologist coddling of fascism.

Just masterful.

Julian GambleApr 30
Extinction Rebellion GlobalApr 28
Julian GambleApr 20
“The job of the programmer, I learned, is to forever chase your characteristica universalis, despite knowing it will always elude you, just as it did Leibniz.”
https://mastodon.social/@rileytestut/114337075589759856
Julian GambleMar 27
Mark Wyner Won’t Comply Mar 21

In 1976, Sesame Street had a segment in rotation called “Pinball Number Count.” The music is captivating, hopping between 4/4, 4/3, and 5/4 time signatures. And the animation is bursting with color and life. It has forever lived in my head.

Fun fact 1: the song counts to 12, but there were only 11 segments.

Fun fact 2: the vocals were provided by The Pointer Sisters.

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Number_Count

#SesameStreet #Music #Funk #Jazz #Retro #Soul #Pinball #Animation

Pinball Number Count - Wikipedia

×
Toromino  May 19
COBOL c:
Show threadElias ProbstMay 19
@foxhkron so in 70 years, legacy systems of major banks, insurances or government institutions will run on unmaintainable AI slop and some poor souls will get out of retirement to make some nice cash maintaining those since they're the last ones that understand this mess of AI-generated code...
Show threadEnola KnezevicMay 19
@eliasp @foxhkron You are very optimistic to think that banks, or even humans, will exist in 70 years.
Show threadKäsekuchenMay 20
@eliasp @foxhkron
That's my type of trickle down. Legacy code bases are a blessing.
Show threadTrev May 20
@eliasp @foxhkron banks still run on Mainframes and COBOL for a reason: messing around with that stuff is too great a risk for regression. They can't have fragile systems in finance and there's literally no reason to change the status quo (yet)
Show threadUli Kusterer (Not a kitteh)May 19

@foxhkron Accessibility description (1 of 3):
A post by AStratelates:

It's the 1950s. COBOL promises an English-like syntax that will allow non-specialists to program software systems, 10x productivity and not needing to understand the underlying system.

It's the 1970s. SQL promises natural language queries that managers can write themselves, "just tell the database what you want, not how to get it," and "no more dependency on programmers for data access."

Show threadUli Kusterer (Not a kitteh)May 19

@foxhkron Accessibility Description (2 of 3):

It's the 1990s. Visual Programming tools promise "program without coding," "drag and drop your way to enterprise applications," and "development at the speed of thought."

It's the 2000s. MDA promises "design once, deploy anywhere," "business users can modify the models," and "automatically generate perfect code from UML diagrams."

Show threadUli Kusterer (Not a kitteh)May 19

@foxhkron Accessibility Description (3 of 3):

It's the 2010s. No-Code platforms promise "anyone can build an app,"
"eliminate the middleman between business and technology," and
"goodbye IT department!"

It's the 2020s. Vibe Coding promises "just describe what you want in natural language," "no programming knowledge required," and "focus on what your software should do, not how it works."

Show threadLoaferMay 20

@uliwitness @foxhkron Hey it's in English, so this PIC(X) thing, it must draw an X on the screen when I type that.

Oh, and if it's in English did you ever write a letter to someone and they cared excactly where you put the letters?

*mumbling*

Oh you did?

*mumbling*

You stopped writing to them?

Show threadslotosMay 19
@foxhkron Imagine squaring up to a COO and going „focus on what your business should do, not how it works”.
Show threadFish Id WardrobeMay 19
@foxhkron somewhere between COBOL and SQL there were "fourth generation languages" — same deal
Show threadHraban (fiëé visuëlle)May 19
@foxhkron I want HyperCard back.
Show threadAlex, the Hearth FireMay 19
@foxhkron break the cycle, pay teachers more
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimalMay 20
@foxhkron
No silver bullet. – Fred Brooks
Show threadSpace HoboMay 20
@brouhaha @foxhkron Except spreadsheets killed off an entire category of programming.
Show threadargv minus oneMay 20

@spacehobo

Spreadsheets *are* an entire category of programming (albeit one that was not Turing-complete until recently). An entire generation of accountants and other office workers got turned into programmers without ever realizing it.

That's the one instance in history where a “non-programmers can now develop software!” scheme actually worked. But only by turning those non-programmers into programmers.

@brouhaha @foxhkron

Show threadckMay 20
@foxhkron The thing people don't realize is that "just describe what you want without focussing on how it works" is the hardest part of the process and the major reason why software projects fail in the first place.
Show threadJoshua SmallMay 20
@foxhkron I clearly remember the launch of Microsoft Frontpage and the end of web development as a viable career.
Show threadWilliam @ A9May 20
@jsmall @foxhkron yes, but ColdFusion.
Show threadCloudmom ColetteMay 20
@foxhkron y'all I think the rich might hate labor, huge if true
Show threadVincent SparksMay 26
@electrocutie @foxhkron it's like Cory Doctorow says. Nobody hates capitalism more than capitalists.
Show threadKureon May 20
@foxhkron what of those technologies do you use nowadays?
Show threadblaue_FledermausMay 20

@foxhkron
Visual programming seems to recently have found success in audio and image processing.

Lesson is that it takes 30 years for new ideas to take root and find their niche?

(I hope "vibe coding" never takes root)

Show threadWilliam @ A9May 20
@foxhkron when interviewing, always ask leaders how many lines of code they produced that Quarter, about their SQL skills and ask them to diagram an ETL pipeline on the whiteboard.
Show threadJan WalzerMay 20

@foxhkron

We've come full circle when you let the LLM generate Cobol code

Show threadRealGene ☣️May 20
@foxhkron
Now with Alt-Text!
Show threadAccount: ComputersMay 20
@foxhkron It is the boy cries wolf fallacy. It never happened ... until now.

I'm not saying that the contemporary AI is going to be different, given that "prompt engineers" already exist.
Show threadBarijaona RamaholimihasoMay 21
@foxhkron Alternative text for the image:
Screenshot of social media post by Andrew Stratelates “Continuing Anglican” (with handle name @ AStratelates)
It's the 1950s. COBOL promises an English-like syntax that will allow non-specialists to program software systems, 10x productivity and not needing to understand the underlying system. (1/4)
Show threadBarijaona RamaholimihasoMay 21
It's the 1970s. SQL promises natural language queries that managers can write themselves, "just tell the database what you want, not how to get it," and "no more dependency on programmers for data access."
It's the 1990s. Visual Programming tools promise "program without coding," "drag and drop your way to enterprise applications," and "development at the speed of thought." (2/4)
Show threadBarijaona RamaholimihasoMay 21
It's the 2000s. MDA promises "design once, deploy anywhere," "business users can modify the models," and "automatically generate perfect code from UML diagrams."
It's the 2010s. No-Code platforms promise "anyone can build an app," "eliminate the middleman between business and technology," and "goodbye IT department!" (3/4)
Show threadBarijaona RamaholimihasoMay 21
It's the 2020s. Vibe Coding promises "just describe what you want in natural language," "no programming knowledge required," and "focus on what your software should do, not how it works."
7:04 PM - May 17, 2025 (4/4)
Show threadVincent SparksMay 25
@foxhkron It's like I've been saying since Copilot launched. Businesspeople have been trying to automate programmers out of a job since computers were invented. They haven't succeeded yet and they're not about to.
Show threadVincent SparksMay 25
@foxhkron
https://www.commitstrip.com/en/2016/08/25/a-very-comprehensive-and-precise-spec/