“I am not a programmer” | Teleogistic

The traits of a proficient programmer

Bridging the gap between competence and proficiency

The Non-Programming Programmer

I find it difficult to believe, but the reports keep pouring in via Twitter and email: many candidates who show up for programming job interviews can’t program. At all. Consider this recent email from Mike Lin: The article Why Can’t Programmers... Program? changed the way I did interviews.

A quote from Andrew Quinn

One could say in the first quarter-century of my life, that while I was always fascinated by programming, I could never overcome the guilt of not really knowing whether the …

Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice | Kalzumeus Software

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.

The Most Important Non-Programming Skills for Programmers

Skills for programmers that are so much more important than any language, library, or framework

Ten FOSS Development Fallacies For User Facing Software

This is a list, inspired by the Five Geek Social Fallacies, of common patterns or behaviours that developers of free/open source software (FOSS) fall into when they try to develop software for users who are not technical, or for whom non-technical users would be the most obvious userbase. Hopefully writing these down (which frankly is cathartic more than anything) is helpful to some in recognising these thought patterns and avoiding them when developing software - I’ve got some of my own thoughts on this at the bottom.

On AI Coding and Its Discontents - Cal Newport

Back in January, I received a note from a senior software engineer in Silicon Valley. He described himself as an AI skeptic who became converted ... Read more

We should rethink how we teach people to code | deadSimpleTech

It's fair to say that the tech industry at the moment is not in a good place. Software engineers tend to be detached, demotivated and unwilling to care much about the work they're doing beyond their paycheck. Code quality is poor on the whole, made worse by the current spate of vibe coding and whatever other febrile ideas come out of Sam Altman's brain. Much of the software that we write is either useless or actively hurts people. And the talented, creative people that we most need in the industry are pushed to the margins of it.

Programming is Forgetting: Toward a New Hacker Ethic - Allison Parrish | Open Transcripts

It's easy to interpret any criticism of the hacker ethic—which is what I'm about to do—as a kind of assault.

Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It

In the era of A.I. agents, many Silicon Valley programmers are now barely programming. Instead, what they’re doing is deeply, deeply weird.

Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It

In the era of A.I. agents, many Silicon Valley programmers are now barely programming. Instead, what they’re doing is deeply, deeply weird.

The Local Relational Technologist

Who can we rely on for meaningful software in our communities?