Developers Losing Control Over Their Tools
10 posts across 7 communities in the last 30 days; 30% from r/sysadmin.
“It sounds like he had already found it the old fashioned way, then the noobs sic'd the LLMs on it, found it, and he told them "hey chill, we knew about this, don't ruin it" and they ruined it.To quote Dr Ian Malcolm:"If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific…”
“I don't treat OSes like costumes, but I don't see the problem with people doing it? Many times it feels like it's people being enthusiastic about Linux, jumping from one distro to the other, and commenting on which one they prefer. Reminds me of how I was "tuning" my Windows…”
“LITERALLY GOT A JOB THIS WAY. Previously guy had COCKED UP the 8 install enormously, and then he left (for other dumb reasons that I went into on a post yesterday) and left behind a broken system. Everyone hated 8 because of it. Literally instructed by my boss to "remove it". It…”
Software developers are voicing frustration with the quality and accessibility of their work tools, specifically mentioning Linux systems with root access. This suggests a loss of control and increased complexity in development workflows.
SOURCES (30)
“> It's unclear from your comment whether you think this is good or bad. You certainly seem to think it is inevitable.I think it is bad, but the consequences are manageable.> someone is making it happenWe're past that point. Open weights plus local inference is…”
“I think there is a deeper point regarding software freedom specifically - if a person is unable to understand the source code of something, then they are less able to modify it. It's why the definition of libre software centers around source code, even though modifying binaries is entirely possible. Despite being able to have a libre vs non-libre disassembler (analogous to proprietary vs open weight AI models), needing to use a tool at all diminishes your own ability to make changes to the code.”
“Except enterprises are staffed and tooled for this. Lol. I get it, you like open source, so do i, but you're just wrong lol. [re: Bitwarden announces Dual License (Published version update in app stores - #41 by grb - Notices - Bitwarden Community Forums)]”
r/shittysysadmin [re: A senior dev overwrote .env and took down website]
“You don't have problems until you have problems. It presents a very convincing-seeming argument at face value.”
“Virgin sublime GUI-maxxer mad they missed the boat. Sorry pal, you can’t join the cult of VIM/terminal users. You just don’t got that dog in you. /s”
“If it’s not supported anymore by the maker, I don’t support it. We find alternatives that are. End of story.”
“Sure, but if Linux can make most of the windows applications work , specially the legacy ones, so can Microsoft. And Microsoft can eat the loss for a generation or two anyways.”
“this has to be a bot post or a kid or something lol. what the hell does "match Linux or MacOS in performance" mean in this context? they need to quit updating the fucking dialog boxes! leave the functional shit alone! nobody needs or wants that shit except for Microsoft's marketing department. accountants and clerks want it to stop changing for the sake of changing. their development is anything but sluggish. it's fucking rapid and reckless. I could bitch about their developmen”
“Free because the thing it does is only worth anything if people can check it themselves. Putting a paywall in front of that turns a demonstration into a claim you have to take on faith, which makes the product worse at its actual job. No ads, no affiliates. It is a funnel and I would rather say so. AdSense works if you already have search traffic and does very little if you do not, so for most people here the free tool is better understood as the argument for the paid thing than as a revenue lin”
“It sounds like he had already found it the old fashioned way, then the noobs sic'd the LLMs on it, found it, and he told them "hey chill, we knew about this, don't ruin it" and they ruined it.To quote Dr Ian Malcolm:"If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for”
“I don't treat OSes like costumes, but I don't see the problem with people doing it? Many times it feels like it's people being enthusiastic about Linux, jumping from one distro to the other, and commenting on which one they prefer. Reminds me of how I was "tuning" my Windows when I was a teenager, installing all kinds of addons that made it "look cool".> Nobody can build anything if the ground keeps shifting.I don't see the ground shifting. Most distros are just a skin on top of a mainstream dis”
“I dont want it to hallucinate and decide to turn on the oven when I'm out on vacation, for example.”
“I have been keeping /etc in source control since we used rcs. You have no clue what you are talking about.”
“As a society? No. As coding monkeys? Yes. Shit is bleak unless you know good system design.”
"open" is fine if it's FOSS. But yeah, fuck em if it's not
“Seems like parent thread spoke from perspective of developer/tech savvy person.But even from end-user perspective, maybe its hard to see change when you compare one year or so, but over somewhat longer period I definitely see improvements. Over say a decade or so, wifi/bluetooth/trackpad support has significantly improved. Over last 5 years, I think gaming has become huge and you can actually use Linux as gaming machine. In last 3 years or so, I think I've seen my 5k display using Thunderbolt wo”
Can’t even write a few sentences without using an llm. Smh
“something more powerful than Dokploy and Coolify [..], but easier to use and with a bit more hand-holding That sounds stupid contradictory. Either more powerful or easier and more guided. Either linux or mac, you know. Anyway, it seems you want to chaperone your users, for docker stuff. So DAPERONE it is.”
“I sort of went the opposite direction. I started on Linux in the late 90s and that community really despises Microsoft, so I did too for a long time. As I got older though, I started to become less idealistic and more pragmatic. My view of Microsoft started to shift around 2007 when they were really pushing PowerShell and I saw how it was a lot like Perl. These days, I view all corporations as money extraction entities who happen to make good tools here and there. Use what makes sense and don”
I dunno about that I kept seeing skills sold as software.
“LITERALLY GOT A JOB THIS WAY. Previously guy had COCKED UP the 8 install enormously, and then he left (for other dumb reasons that I went into on a post yesterday) and left behind a broken system. Everyone hated 8 because of it. Literally instructed by my boss to "remove it". It was an explicit instruction by my new boss in a new job. So I went into the GPOs, configured everything properly, branded the install, and deployed Classic Shell (now Open Shell) with 7-style buttons, and rolle”
“Hey I know this is a little old so forgive me but I feel I have some input on this subject. Setting up a full development environment is scary for sure, but it’s incredibly important. There is a place for things like boot.dev and I’m by no means saying they’re “bad” or anything like that, but they’re quite a few things that you don’t learn that are essential employable skills that you should start picking up asap, probably once your past the basics of your language of choice. They’re are a lot o”
“I am shocked and dismayed that this hasn't been posted here, yet: https://xkcd.com/612/”
“I don't know whether it was funny or not but somehow you are right, Firefox is complex even in development mode in my opinion, Chrome has definitely more user based thanks to internet explorer, Edge is doing fine though.”