Re:AI is forcing us to pay off 40 years of technical debt
by dogleash on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @11:07AM
(#50367592)
> The data is already in memory and the source program knows its "shape"
But the receiving program doesn't know the shape. That's the challenge.
Look at things like USB HID and Bluetooth Profiles. A bunch of hardware just works with a bunch of other hardware. The reason for that great interop isn't because USB and Bluetooth are good data transports, it's because they ALSO define purpose specific data formats for those uses cases on top of the generic transport.
But the receiving program doesn't know the shape. That's the challenge.
Look at things like USB HID and Bluetooth Profiles. A bunch of hardware just works with a bunch of other hardware. The reason for that great interop isn't because USB and Bluetooth are good data transports, it's because they ALSO define purpose specific data formats for those uses cases on top of the generic transport.