The hidden beauty of vibe coding

"It passed all the unit tests, the shape of the code looks right," he said. It's 3.7x more lines of code that performs 2,000 times worse than the actual SQLite. Two thousand times worse for a database is a non-viable product. It's a dumpster fire. Throw it away. All that money you spent on it is worthless."

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/17/ai_businesses_faking_it_reckoning_coming_codestrap/

My job as a senior developer with a team of juniors is to figure out what to write, sketch a PoC as guidance, and then delegate the actual implementation to them. I'm going to look at that, explain misunderstandings or poor style choices, and guide them into implementing something that meets our standards.

I don't think LLMs can do my job yet. But I think we're getting shockingly close to them being able to do the other part. And I'm worried how we're going to get more senior developers.

My wife Deb and I are heartbroken to share the sad news that our old friend Jason Snitker AKA Parmaster has passed away.

Par was one of the sharpest and most elusive minds of the early underground hacking scene. As chronicled in “Underground”, he spent years navigating the emerging digital frontier, connecting with hackers internationally and repeatedly staying ahead of the United States Secret Service during a prolonged investigation in the early 1990s.

His story in “Underground” includes the Citibank investigation that helped trigger the pursuit, as well as his time in custody at Rikers Island, where he found himself playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Par’s life reflected both the intensity of the early hacking world and the very real consequences that came with it. He was part of a generation that explored the edges of a new technological landscape before most of the world even understood it existed.

There will be an online memorial gathering on Feb 28. More details to follow.

The old-school hacking community has lost a true original. Rest in peace, Par. If anyone has stories or memories, please share them here.