Comment by hugs

8 days ago

since the rise of agentic coding tools, it feels like we're in a new "eternal september" of people discovering ui end-to-end test automation.

Also the merits of documentation and specs. It’s been eye-opening to see the subset of developers who were almost disdainful about writing documentation for their colleagues but are now tripping over themselves to do so for their clanker.

  • Agents read the docs. People don't. That's the underlying reason.

    • > People don't.

      People falling all over themselves to write docs for their pile-of-linear-algebra-with-a-smiley-face-painted-on-it [0] don't read the docs, no. People who give a shit about writing solid software that doesn't get them paged at three in the damn morning do.

      [0] The face is there to provide social-trustworthiness signals to engage the human pack-bonding instinct, natch.

      3 replies →

  • [flagged]

    • That’s a rather stunning comparison: racism is a problem because it’s unfairly treating sentient beings but a pile of linear algebra is not even sentient, much less your peer. That’s part of why I used the term: “agent” isn’t current because agents have, well, agency and can be held accountable.

      https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/5/26/clankers/

    • Positing an equivalence between a dismissive term for AI bots and a racial slur against black people is, like, super racist.

People are rediscovering everything. Some people have proposed using a more formal language to tell the AI precisely what code to write. That's a compiler.