i also worry but am also shocked how far a single $20 sub gets me on side project. i pay for 3 (cc, codex, gemini) but am almost never going beyond cc, even when im merging several prs a day.

This is really interesting; ive done very high level code maps but the entire project seems wild, it works?

So, small model figures out which files to use based on the code map, and then enriches with snippets, so big model ideally gets preloaded with relevant context / snippets up front?

Where does code map live? Is it one big file?

So, I have a pro@coder/.cache/code-map/context-code-map.json.

I also have a `.tmpl-code-map.jsonl` in the same folder so all of my tasks can add to it, and then it gets merged into context-code-map.json.

I keep mtime, but I also compute a blake3 hash, so if mtime does not match, but it is just a "git restore," I do not redo the code map for that file. So it is very incremental.

Then the trick is, when sending the code map to AI, I serialize it in a nice, simple markdown format.

- path/to/file.rs - summary: ... - when to use: ... - public types: .., .., .. - public functions: .., .., ..

- ...

So the AI does not have to interpret JSON, just clean, structured markdown.

Funny, I worked on this addition to my tool for a week, planning everything, but even today, I am surprised by how well it works.

I have zero sed/grep in my workflow. Just this.

My prompt is pro@coder/coder-prompt.md, the first part is YAML for the globs, and the second part is my prompt.

There is a TUI, but all input and output are files, and the TUI is just there to run it and see the status.

This isnt unique to top AI researchers. Top talent has a long history of being averse to authoritarian/despotism at least in part because, by near definition, it must suppress truth. You cant build the future effectively with that approach.

It does. But then, it's how i talk to myself. More generally, it's how i talk to people i trust the most. I swear curse and insult, it seems to shock people if they see me do it (to the llm). If i ask claude or chatgpt to summarize the tone and demeanor of my interactions, however, it replies "playful" which is how im actually using the "insults".

Politeness requires a level of cultural intuition to translate into effective action at best, and is passive aggressive at worst. I insult my llm, and myself, constantly while coding. It's direct, and fun. When the llm insults me back it is even more fun.

With my colleagues i (try to) go back to being polite and die a little inside. its more fun to be myself. maybe its also why i enjoy ai coding more than some of my peers seem to.

More likely im just getting old.

1. Best part of this (satirical) post is, the service they offer isn't really needed. LLM's can do this already for small projects, and soon likely will for large ones too. You don't need a company to do this, we all have the LLM tooling to do it. Critical we're all spending time thinking about what that means in a thoughtful way.

2. For the sake of argument assume 1 is completely true and feasible now and / or in the near term. If LLM generated code is also non copyrightable... but even if it is... if you can just make a copyleft version via the same manner... what will the licenses even mean any longer?

I believe the latter was key and democratization of the armed forced was at least one reason the dictators (Julius etc) were able to maintain loyalty of their troops as they eliminated the republic as such. Im not super well read here though.

Higher level, Fukuyamas political order series does a great deep dive into these kinds of topics, really blew my mind, and made many archaic seeming political structures make far more intuitive sense to me afterwards.

I’ll have to give those a read. For others, I’ve linked their wiki pages below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Political_Order

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Order_and_Political_...

Yeah once a given senator commanded AND paid the local full time legions for a given region, their loyalty followed.

By that time too the men serving in the legions were increasingly locals and not Roman or even from Italy.

Right but LLM companies are building frontier models with frontier talent while trying to sock up demand with a loss leader strategy, on top of an historic infrastructure build out.

Being able to coat efficiently run frontier models is i think, not a high priced endeavor for an org (compared to an individual).

IMO the proposition is little fishy, but its not totally without merit and imo deserves investigation. If we are all worried about our jobs, even via building custom for sale software, there is likely something there that may obviate the need at least for end user applications. Again, im deeply skeptical, but it is interesting.

> Being able to coat efficiently run frontier models is i think, not a high priced endeavor for an org

Running proprietary model would make you subject to whatever ToS the LLM companies choose on a particular day, and what you can produce with them, which circles back to the raison d'etre for the GPL and GNU.

Until all software copyright is dead and buried, there is no need for copyleft to change tack. Otherwise there rising tide may rise high enough to drown GPL, but not proprietary software.

Open source is easier to counterfeit/license-launder/re-implement using LLMs because source code is much lower-hanging fruit, and is understood by more people than closed-source assembly.

I agree with you on non judgement but would push back - if you'll violate your principles for a cush job, they aren't really principles you have.

Even though I strongly agree with the other person about reasons why people wouldn't leave...

I agree even strongly with what you just said: "if you'll violate your principles for a cush job, they aren't really principles you have."

The reality is, I don't think people really understand what a deeply held principle is. It's often a non-negotiable.

And then sometimes you have to question your principles and perhaps let them go. This can happen, for example, when children grow up and become adults. Their parents _should_ do a lot of letting go.

Perhaps folks involved with electronic devices are too used to a black & white decision world. Computer says no or computer says yes, there is no maybe. The real world of principles, morals, emotions, humans etc is filled with maybes and that can become hard to navigate for computers.

Agreed. But in that case, it's no longer a principle because, as you said, it's been let go.

The point above was about prioritizing something above the principle one still keeps.

I work in marketing, nothing black and white about it.

Which policies specifically? Certainly not the income tax on million+ income, seems pretty modest. We moved from TX. Property tax rate is low, no income tax sub million in income, schools are great (and almost all new), roads are fine and transit seeing massive investment. They definitely need to fix budget, but there's _ample_ wealth here to deal with it. I think they'll figure it out.

_Oregon_ has bad policies (10% income tax on all, upwards of 14% on high income earners at 400k); schools are in a rough place, their legacy pension system is a disaster. But Washington seems fine imo. TX and such states will always be a draw while their cost of living is low, if you don't mind the heat and general lack of outdoors (relative to PNW). IMO the weather and housing prices are the main tradeoffs between WA and TX.

You can add in the increasing B&O (revenue) taxes, payroll taxes, data center taxes, and the expansion of the extremely high sales taxes to things that effectively make Washington uncompetitive. The cost of doing business has become unreasonably high and is so badly structured that it creates perverse incentives for how you organize business.

And then you have a litany of new business regulation across every sector of the local economy. My recent favorite, which fortunately did not make it out of this session due to heavy lobbying by tech, was requiring data centers to turn-off power during periods of high electricity demand. It's insane that this is even being seriously considered.

Oregon is also a mess but it has always been a mess.

Texas isn't the only alternative. Turning Washington into California with worse weather even makes California relatively attractive.

>You can add in the increasing B&O (revenue) taxes, payroll taxes, data center taxes, and the expansion of the extremely high sales taxes to things that effectively make Washington uncompetitive.

None of this matters. We have been hearing how California is doing the same shit for years and people are moving out in droves, but turns out California house prices are still high because people are staying there and its still a very good place to live and work on the average, despite way higher cost of living.

So Washington is going to do just fine.

Oregon has some decent things going for it. Multnomah county is rolling out Preschool for All and it's wildly popular. I know lots of people who were going to move, but stayed in Oregon just because they got into the early lottery for it.

This is all a temporary problem. PFA will roll out to everyone, income thresholds can be (and are) renegotiated, and as someone who has a large PFA tax burden, I'm happy to pay for it even if my kids will age out before I get the benefit. I have never met anyone outside of ranting internet commenters who is actually mad about this situation.

Establishing free universal child care as the norm that everyone agrees we have to find a way to provide is the real virtue here. Detractors like you are missing the forest for the trees.

“Long term care tax”

When did blatantly unconstitutional laws become modest?

Why are income brackets unconstitutional?

It's easy to gloss over this assessment but ultimately this needs to be a key decision point for where you choose to work. No matter how well you manage complexity as an IC or a lower tier leader, if your upper tier of leaders don't value it, it won't last. Simplicity IME is not a "tail that wags the dog" concept. It's too easy to stomp out if nobody in power cares.

Except it's not something you can really accurately assess before you start working somewhere.