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A Eulogy for Vim

drewdevault.com

81–90 of 151 posts

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#81

> 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…

The cobalt thing is apparently misinformation. You've been misled.

Technology Connections did a great video that goes into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#82
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> defense of Jeffrey Epstein himself Do you have a link for this? What I recall of that whole scenario was that Stallman said something fairly minor regarding Minsky, and the nuance of the words written were lost on the mob and he was accused of saying something worse than that. I'm not aware of him providing any defense of Epstein himself.

"argued in an email thread last week that Marvin Minskey, the late AI pioneer and longtime MIT professor, was unfairly accused of sexual assault and that one of the underage girls in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation likely presented herself as “entirely” willing to have sex" MIT scientist Richard Stallman resigns in the wake of his Jeffrey Epstein remarks https://share.google/L9w5zAnDjbvnrWhex

Yes, that is the Minsky comment I mentioned that apparently renders people illiterate and incapable of understanding what they read.

What Stallman said is "the people who were trafficked, probably did not tell the people they were trafficked to, that they were being trafficked and were there unwillingly."

I don't see how saying that is a "defense of Jeffrey Epstein".

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are a list of downsides that Drew views as non-negotiables Which is all fine and dandy. But why play the "You simply don't understand it as well as I do" rather than something more investigative and curious? Just fuels the whole "holier than thou" vibe Drew been trying to increase seemingly every day. It's a disagreement of opinion, not some "I'm the only smart person who can realize this", which is why it ki…

In fairness he pretty explicitly states that he thinks people do understand it, but are pretending not to to wash their hands of the consequences. I'm definitely not reading it in the same way you are.

It's a difference in values, not understanding. I understand that AI burns tons of power, and I don't care. Drew understands it the same as I, but he does care. The difference is in what people value, and relative to what.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#84
post #39

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.

> defense of Jeffrey Epstein himself Do you have a link for this? What I recall of that whole scenario was that Stallman said something fairly minor regarding Minsky, and the nuance of the words written were lost on the mob and he was accused of saying something worse than that. I'm not aware of him providing any defense of Epstein himself.

here's the quote you didn't want to include

“We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing,” Stallman added. “Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.”

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#85
post #39

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.

> defense of Jeffrey Epstein himself Do you have a link for this? What I recall of that whole scenario was that Stallman said something fairly minor regarding Minsky, and the nuance of the words written were lost on the mob and he was accused of saying something worse than that. I'm not aware of him providing any defense of Epstein himself.

victim blaming is categorically defense of the actual perpetrator.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#86
This is a weird hill to die on. As much as I resonate with many of the concerns, I don't see refusing to use AI as something that will actually help any of those things. Forking a stable version of vim is something I guess, but I don't really see the sky falling with mainline vim or neovim.

Personally the leverage I have as a bit of a cranky graybeard myself is that I understand how software works and I can distinguish between good and bad uses of AI and think critically about how to influence things towards better software. Just declaring AI as unequivocally bad and evil will do nothing more than make me irrelevant. At some point being right is useless without some measure of also being effective.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#87
post #78
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"argued in an email thread last week that Marvin Minskey, the late AI pioneer and longtime MIT professor, was unfairly accused of sexual assault and that one of the underage girls in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation likely presented herself as “entirely” willing to have sex" MIT scientist Richard Stallman resigns in the wake of his Jeffrey Epstein remarks https://share.google/L9w5zAnDjbvnrWhex

I'll explain instead of just adding the easily discoverable quote. He is assigning the blame to Epstein's victims.

How is that assigning the blame to Epstein's victims?

The scenario being described was that Epstein was ordering some of his victims, who were ostensibly employed as masseuses at his resort, to go and offer sex to specific people who were at an event taking place there.

You don't keep a sex trafficking operation going as long as he did if you don't coerce victims in that situation to play along with the story that they are masseuses and that the offer of sex is coming from them.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#88

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…

I disagree, I think the over-reliance in these tools turns AI providers into the final gatekeepers of the profession. And with the raising prices of hardware, I'm afraid AI will make computing as a whole inaccessible to most people.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#89

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…

> an incredibly based individual

This was never the case.

Re: A Eulogy for Vim

#90

I prefer VS Code with Claude Opus 4.6, it makes me more productive during my working hours so I can take more quality time with my family. I know that my point of view is considered .+(cist|phobic) (based on the post). I'm sorry for that.

> I prefer VS Code with Claude Opus 4.6, it makes me more productive during my working hours so I can take more quality time with my family.

That's great you can spend more time with your family, but the code you're writing this way is, by and large, probably crap.

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