[NTLK] Einstein, last call

[DoctorClu]

Speaking as a non-programmer, at least in the Newton world, and I'll 
roll this into the "[NTLK] "All My Hobbies Are Getting Slopped Up, And 
It’s Exhausting" 
<https://lists.newtontalk.net/pipermail/newtontalk/2026-October/004197.html> thread, 
here are my thoughts.

Ai has obviously made some things possible.   True.  And I look at it 
more as a wide search engine or data base.  Only where we would have 
searched for the answer, found it on the internet, learned some code, 
etc, we skip those steps and the Ai does the steps after the research.  
It is an extended tool.


We've always made better and better development tools. Truthfully, Ai is 
an extension of that.

And in every craft, you have had people "hand work" something.  A 
leather belt can be mass produced in a factory by machines in seconds... 
or... you can cut, hand pound, form, and sew one by hand.  And some like 
the latter.   Those that can hand tool something certainly understand 
something from a base level much better.   And that still has value.


Or another example, still amazed that Roger Milne wrote 2000 lines of 
assembly code to bring us the Newton mod player.  That still astounds 
me.   By doing that, he was able to work with Newton hardware requiring 
wayy less system resources.  Beautiful work.


Ai for a lot of artists have been used to make rough drafts, and in 
programming, to test a theory.  What is possible on a given hardware?  
Ai churns out something, it basically works, and programmers then fine 
tune it into something workable.  Or.. Ai churns out something, it 
doesn't work, and the programmer realizes time can be better spent 
somewhere else.


I truthfully went into this message with a little more of a despairing 
tone.  That we currently have wonders flying around us with all changing 
so fast that we don't get to enjoy the triumphs we are experiencing.  
Maybe that is true.

*Michael Sheflin *mentioned how he implemented Arabic in 2008 and all 
that it took to do that, and how It took Claude maybe an hour or two.  
Not so much Claude, but an extensive database of people like Michael 
that worked those items out, providing the structure for Ai to go on.  
Michael's effort, and the effort of every programmer are part of that 
solution now.  And those efforts are still appreciated by myself and 
others in this hobby.


And now those programmers have better tools to find answers to long time 
questions, as Matthias is finding out.  The challenge of this hobby was 
people with skill who lacked time to work on the hobby.  Now we have a 
tool that can help with the time issue.  And I stress again, those that 
look into this hobby, research the hardware and software know the right 
questions to find solutions.


At the end of the day remain the lovers of this hobby.  And we are the 
dreamers.  And Ai tools, much like our growing development toolbox over 
the years, are along for the ride of discovery.




*Eckhart Köppen* eck at 40hz.org 
<mailto:newtontalk%40newtontalk.net?Subject=Re:%20Re%3A%20%5BNTLK%5D%20Einstein%2C%20last%20call&In-Reply-To=%3C20261023204625324329.1d0703fa%4040hz.org%3E>
/Fri Oct 23 10:46:25 PDT 2026/

  * Previous message: [NTLK] Einstein, last call
    <https://lists.newtontalk.net/pipermail/newtontalk/2026-October/004169.html>
  * Next message: [NTLK] Einstein, last call
    <https://lists.newtontalk.net/pipermail/newtontalk/2026-October/004171.html>
  * *Messages sorted by:* [ date ]
    <https://lists.newtontalk.net/pipermail/newtontalk/2026-October/date.html#4170>
    [ thread ]
    <https://lists.newtontalk.net/pipermail/newtontalk/2026-October/thread.html#4170>
    [ subject ]
    <https://lists.newtontalk.net/pipermail/newtontalk/2026-October/subject.html#4170>
    [ author ]
    <https://lists.newtontalk.net/pipermail/newtontalk/2026-October/author.html#4170>


------------------------------------------------------------------------


I've had that discussion in other projects, where writing a good bug
report was as effective as pushing code. The bug report is even more
valuable since that would anyway need to be reviewed and agreed upon,
same with requirements. A pull request might nowadays be even a step
too far, it potentially shortcuts the discussion why it came to life.
Thus the policy I've seen now more and more of no pull requests without
a linked issue.

The software engineer in me is very very happy about this, because is
shifts the effort to producing clear requirements (and I blame the
agile movement to have screwed that up ;). The programmer in me is
unhappy, but is coming to terms with the new reality.

Eckhart