
Make, measure, and manage things @Mailchimp. Also a customer @hnletter.
Bellingham, WA
Joined May 2007
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When I was writing Unreal Engine 1, my time was divided as follows:
- Around 30% went to seriously deep coding on hard problems: assembly language texture mappers, C++ BSP trees, data persistence, object oriented systems design, and networking.
- Around 70% was just typing and refactoring large bodies of code needed for a complete engine feature set. This was not hard, and while I was doing it my mind was mostly on the deeper coding topics, thinking and planning for what's next. It didn't feel much different from vibe coding today, except that it was just me typing code on an IBM Model M keyboard rather than prompting it and reviewing the results.
So, it has always seemed perfectly logical that we would rely on AI for that 70%, once the AI could do it with a similar quality standard as we could, which has never been perfection. It came as no surprise that, after a few years of AI model evolution, it was able to take the reigns on that 70% and free up programmers' time for more valuable tasks.
What's more of a surprise is the emergence of AI as a sort of insta-Carmack able to solve hard technical problems quite cleverly and often cleanly, and that it's able to reason about and work in complex 3D scenes both by operating the tools and by directly understanding the raw data files.
I abandoned assembly language in 1998 when out-of-order CPUs made much simpler C/C++ code faster, and never I missed it. If prompting through architectural documents, concept art, and design plans can transcend typing code and tweaking vertices, that will enable developers to spend their time on higher-level, higher value technical and creative tasks.
What matters is the end product, whether it's a game or an engine. Anything developers can do to try out more ideas and make better software and games faster is a win for everyone.
Like it or not, modern sw engineering is no longer done without LLMs (AI) and will no longer be done without.
Whoever doesn’t want to use AI, no problem: but you won’t be hired at 99.9% of startups+Big Tech+ambitious companies, even today
It’s as part of sw dev as the keyboard
🗞️ if your team is too busy doing their 'normal job' to experiment with AI, you're preparing them to be replaced
ghuntley.com/replaced/
In this post, I guess this's the last time I'll say it. AI use is no longer optional if you wish to be employed. What follows is advice for current employees and hiring managers on how to hire in 2026 to source AI-first candidates.
My keynote at LDX3 New York, "The state of the tech industry in 2026". is out now. Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:53 What changed
12:29 What's not changed
16:14 What broke
22:53 What’s next
And for notes + slides, see: newsletter.pragmaticengineer…
Hope it's useful!
Hear ye, hear ye! We have a Fat Bear Week winner!
This year’s Lord of Lard, Earl of Girth and Commander in Beef is... Bear 89 also known as Backpack!
My eyes were wet from start to finish. I thought of being little in a big world & watching my son's first tries at this mad game. ESPN's Open to the NHL season is beautiful. I didn't expect to cry today-this is stunning. There's nothing like this sport. We at ESPN love the sport as you do. ❤️ Enjoy.
Replying to @GergelyOrosz
In my career, compilers have always generated better code that I ever could have. I find this to be increasingly so with contemporary AIs.
But you know what neither can do better than me?
Knowing what software to write, what shape it should take, and what I want it to do.
The entire history of software engineering has been one of rising levels of abstraction.
This is how it was, how it is now, and how it shall be in the fullness of time.
Some data we recently assembled on entrepreneurship/compute in Europe: eudata.vercel.app.
We hope that one of the useful roles that Stripe can play is in collecting and publishing empirical data pertaining to entrepreneurship and industry in Europe. There's growing appetite to get Europe on a better footing, and cross-sectional comparisons can often shine light on where opportunities lie. If you're interested in this kind of thing, we publish more at stripeeconomics.substack.com.
Made a sketch artist game where you have to draw the character based on witness testimony
neal.fun/unusual-suspects/
If you want evidence that capitalism is a force for good, just visit a grocery store.
My ode to the humble American supermarket, for @WSJFreeEx
HEY what!? HEY yes! The HEY CLI and TUI is out!
Calling all terminal dwellers, automation aficionados, and agents. Get your CLI right here:
github.com/basecamp/hey-cli
The CLI allows you - and your agents - to do almost everything the web, desktop, and mobile apps do. You can compose emails, reply, forward, trash, mark as spam, ignore, label, clip, note, and share. You can create events and to-dos, and even track time. And yes, the HEY Calendar is TUI enabled as well.
And BTW, if you use Omarchy it'll pick up your themes too. There's also a menu bar plugin that'll be installed with the CLI. Check out more here: hey.com/omarchy/
Have at it! More HEY goodness is on the way. Got some good stuff brewing. Not on HEY yet? Now's an especially good time to jump on board at hey.com
So many vendors are NOT getting this
I have one or two agents I use and like. For anyone else: give me an MCP interface to connect these agents to so I can use your service
Unless your a frontier AI lab, I prob don't want to use your agent, sorry
Every marketing team should do this simple test.
At random, ask 100 of your existing customers to describe your product in their own words. No leading the witness.
Then look at how you describe your product on your site.
Don’t dismiss obvious differences by telling yourself, “They basically mean the same thing we do.”
Really look at the specific words. Really consider exactly what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Compare that directly with the words you’re using, the descriptions you’re presenting, the picture you’re painting.
Then stare at the Grand Canyon.
I have come to the sad conclusion that Washington state may be the most embarrassing in the nation.
A once great state has become home to incompetent government, dishonest politicians and ignorance masquerading as righteousness.
My piece in the @thedispatch today. #waleg 1/3
































