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A Eulogy for Vim

drewdevault.com

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Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#31

Post by wwweston »

AlexandrB wrote: post #3

> I won’t speculate on how he would have felt about generative AI, but I can say that GenAI is something I care about. It causes a lot of problems for a lot of people. It drives rising energy prices in poor communities, disrupts wildlife and fresh water supplies, increases pollution, and stresses global supply chains. This kind of stuff drives me crazy sometimes. There's is little that's unique to AI here. These are…

There’s a lot of good points in your comment, but fwiw it’s not clear whether they exist to dismiss a complaint or muster focus on the issues.

You’re right to point out that we’re all opted in at multiple levels to tech dependent on mining operations with a terrible human cost. I’d love to see these dangerous mining operations made safer with tech and policy, and you’re quite right that individual opt out is unlikely to have any effect (much less selective opt out from LLMs). Is that the end of the story?

If we’re just here to complain that someone’s marginal harm reduction posture is marginal I’m not sure that’s an effective rebuttal. Collective effort to lay new tracks and untie people off the old ones has more power than complaining someone used their personal trolley switch to shunt to a track with slightly fewer people.

Of course, that goes for people manning their personal switches too. And it’s worthwhile to pause and appreciate the scale and complexity of the problem.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#32

Post by elcapitan »

One of the side effects of AI is definitely that a lot of people have way too much time at their hands which they can now invest in pointless community drama.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#33

Post by omoikane »

The linked reference said:

> The maturity of Vim9 script's modern constructs is now being leveraged by advanced AI development tools. Contributor Yegappan Lakshmanan recently demonstrated the efficacy of these new features through two projects generated using GitHub Copilot

https://www.vim.org/vim-9.2-released.php#:~:text=The%20matur...

I am not sure I understand the author's concern, is he saying that VIM 9.2 is problematic because it enables AI integration due to the maturity of Vim9 script?

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#34

Post by ChrisLTD »

embedding-shape wrote: post #22

> I think it’s more important that we stop collectively pretending that we don’t understand how awful all of this is Lord forbid if people disagree with you. I know Drew's vibe is always "I'm right because I'm the only one with the correct opinions", but it does get tiring after a while. Not to say AI isn't having huge drawbacks being introduced, and aren't exactly worry-free, but why not change your frame of mind fr…

Why should he should say something he doesn't believe? We don't have to agree with him.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#35

Post by djinnish »

School-Cotton wrote: post #6
mikkupikku wrote: post #2

I've long had great respect for Drew, way since way back when he was sircmpwn writing cool calculator software. Great programmer, and an incredibly based individual. Stays true to himself even in the face of overwhelming pressure. I completely disagree with his take on this; battleship vibecoder in vimscript is awesome and important, socially, because vibe coding makes computer programming accessible to the masses. I…

Computer programming has been accessible to the masses for years. All you need is motivation to learn. The only people vibe coding has made programming accessible to is people who don't have such motivation.

You could use this exact same argument about any discipline and/or tool that has been made to support that discipline. A part of me loathes to make the comparison, but is an "audio engineer" any less of a musician than a traditional pianist? Maybe? It probably depends, but music has been made more accessible by the introduction of digital tools.

Regardless of whether or not AI is generally positive or negative, it's just not a compelling argument on it's face.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#36

Post by soperj »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #24
herodoturtle wrote: post #15

> And at a moment when the climate demands immediate action to reduce our footprint on this planet, the AI boom is driving data centers to consume a full 1.5% of the world’s total energy production in order to eliminate the jobs of the poor and replace them with a robot that lies. That sentence jumped out at me.

It's a little wrong. It's probably going to replace middle class jobs more than the jobs of the poor.

The middle class is poor now.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#37

Post by dpatterbee »

embedding-shape wrote: post #22

> I think it’s more important that we stop collectively pretending that we don’t understand how awful all of this is Lord forbid if people disagree with you. I know Drew's vibe is always "I'm right because I'm the only one with the correct opinions", but it does get tiring after a while. Not to say AI isn't having huge drawbacks being introduced, and aren't exactly worry-free, but why not change your frame of mind fr…

I think the point is that regardless of what benefits LLMs are bringing to the table, there are a list of downsides that Drew views as non-negotiables. It doesn't matter what other people are seeing, because he sees a fundamental issue underlying the entire premise.

It does seem like most people completely ignore the obvious harms caused by AI when talking about using LLMs for programming, as though somehow it is disconnected from the other deployments of the technology.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#38

Post by [deleted] »

gundamdoubleO wrote: post #26
mikkupikku wrote: post #2

I've long had great respect for Drew, way since way back when he was sircmpwn writing cool calculator software. Great programmer, and an incredibly based individual. Stays true to himself even in the face of overwhelming pressure. I completely disagree with his take on this; battleship vibecoder in vimscript is awesome and important, socially, because vibe coding makes computer programming accessible to the masses. I…

It does things for them and tells them what to do. Is that really making programming more accessible? I guess in the sense of lowering the barrier to creating stuff. But accessible as in a path to actually start working on things yourself and developing an interest? For most people vibe coding 99% of their lines, I doubt it. And I don't really think that's a problem to be honest, but I don't really buy that it makes…

[deleted]

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#39

Post by elif »

If emacs can live through Stallman's descent into absurd un-asked-for pedophilliac defense positions, not limited to defense of Jeffrey Epstein himself, Vim can survive the simple passing of its creator.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#40

Post by freedomben »

gundamdoubleO wrote: post #26
mikkupikku wrote: post #2

I've long had great respect for Drew, way since way back when he was sircmpwn writing cool calculator software. Great programmer, and an incredibly based individual. Stays true to himself even in the face of overwhelming pressure. I completely disagree with his take on this; battleship vibecoder in vimscript is awesome and important, socially, because vibe coding makes computer programming accessible to the masses. I…

It does things for them and tells them what to do. Is that really making programming more accessible? I guess in the sense of lowering the barrier to creating stuff. But accessible as in a path to actually start working on things yourself and developing an interest? For most people vibe coding 99% of their lines, I doubt it. And I don't really think that's a problem to be honest, but I don't really buy that it makes…

It doesn't have to be used that way, though. I wouldn't disagree that it mostly is used that way, but it can just as easily be used to teach. My wife has proven that well. AI has been the best development ever for her because it can custom tailor the lesson/task to be hyper relevant to exactly what she is trying to do.

Personally I've always preferred a great book to blogs/tutorials/etc, and even still I'd reach for a book if I had the chance on a new programming language or anything. But not everyone learns well that way, and I accept that.

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