Pretty sure writing PROCOMM scripts (Aspect?) was, like, my second or third programming language after BASIC and MS-DOS batch files. I was that nerd in 4th grade 40 years ago reading "Advanced MS-DOS Batch Programming".
Thanks for taking me back on this; fortunately, I grew up in a large city and I didn't need to rack up long-distance phone bills to have a huge population of local BBSs to play door games and suck down text files.
I really miss the old Borland Turbo [*] days, both in terms of the languages and the IDEs. (Turbo BASIC wasn't my first BASIC, but Turbo Pascal and Turbo C were absolutely formative for me.)
VS Code had a little bit of that feel, but it's grown so much and added so many features that it's lost it. And the closest thing I've found to the feeling of writing C in the 90s was Arduino sketches a decade ago.
That core issue - the HN audience thinking solo or very small team, not large team or enterprise - permeates so much commentary and analysis here. You're spot on.
I also take a lot of the guidance from influencers with a grain of salt for that reason. What works for the solo dev on greenfield projects rarely scales to the enterprise 1:1. Brownfield. Security policies. Enterprise controls. Legacy systems.
There is usually a kernel of value that has to be extracted and translated to apply what works for the solo AI engineer and what works for the team.
He says he finds it more pleasurable, not that we should be doing it all the time. And he definitely doesn't say anything about capitalism. There are lots of things that are pleasurable but we can't do all the time, and there are lots of things we need to do but aren't pleasurable. Both exist.
I have always wondered why awnings and similar covers aren't used more to shade buildings and keep them cool. It seems like the investment should pay itself off in reduced energy expenditures relatively rapidly.
Small ones like this may be fine, but buildings (especially old ones) may have surprisingly small margin for extra wind load laterally. What seems like a cheap option could require an expensive structural analysis, or an even more expensive later repair.
Awnings used to be everywhere on brick buildings with no wind load problem. You can still see where awnings were meant to go on many old (early twentieth century) buildings. Air conditioning, not wind load, killed the awning.
https://thecraftsmanblog.com/why-dont-we-use-awnings-anymore...
FWIW I have seen wind damage to a brick building, but with a shade sail, which while having a similar purpose is typically larger than a typical awning (although an awning on every window might approach the same load).
I think a lot of folks - myself included - canceled our Hey subscriptions years ago when DHH said some other unfortunate things.
I don't have to agree with everyone on everything, not even people I do business with. But I do try to limit supporting people who have actively advocated for things that harm my family. Say what you will about Apple (where I transitioned), but they're the "least evil" option from my perspective.
Others are of course welcome to their own perspectives and choices.
Thanks for taking me back on this; fortunately, I grew up in a large city and I didn't need to rack up long-distance phone bills to have a huge population of local BBSs to play door games and suck down text files.
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