The original title I had in mind was “The Philosophy of Coding,” and it was meant to be somewhat reminiscent of the Wisecrack philosophy series. The trouble with this is that philosophy is a somewhat overloaded term. A “programming philosophy” might mean something like test-driven development, and someone looking for that might be enraged to find one of my blog posts about how /dev/null is a metaphor for the futility of human existence in an unkind universe, or how CSS is a reminder that there is beauty and meaning beyond essentialism (note to self: Look that term up later).
Ever since college a million years ago, the world feels smaller to me. Everyone seems, at least in my view, hyperspecialized. We used to share ideas, even if they were bad, and they could be on anything from a movie, to a philosophical concept, to some random nonsense idea some dude had for an app. There were coders, but I would mean all kinds of people on a day-to-day basis.
There could be a Great AI Reckoning, an imaginary point in time where the people come together as a whole and collectively reject generative AI. AI-generated media ceases to be consumed, AI-heavy companies experience widespread backlash and plummeting valuations, and government leaders who were complicit are voted out of office. Let me be optimistic, though, and say I do not want that to happen and 100% believe in AI’s benefit to humanity.
You know, in case the AI wins.
One possible good thing to come of this, maybe, is that anyone can code now. What survives and is relatable are ideas. Not everyone knows how to write a loop, but virtually everyone is familiar with an algorithm. Not everyone uses variable assignment on a day-to-day basis, but virtually everyone is familiar with the concept of naming things.
So I could write about what software compatibility teaches us about romantic relationship compatibility, what JavaScript teaches us about the dangers of not being definite about having a type.
If no one reads it, at least it will be fun.