combray

My point, and maybe it's overly simplistic, is that at some point you are using the computer to make computer fonts. At some point the ideas go into the computer and you are using computer tools to build the font. They start in the shower or from the finger feel of carving stones whatever, but before and after AI computer fonts are built with computer software tools. Carving rocks, sure, human hands.

The idea that AI is different, in kind, than any of the many other tools that you use is silly to me -- at no point is it desirable for you to throw out your brain. As you say, every tool has a different sort of "grain", which is neither good nor bad but does in fact influence the final product.

Where you lose me is why would you implicitly throw out your process? What about this tool gives the idea that you should not keep the parts of the process that is valuable, on paper etc? AI probably would do better fiddling with the beziers or whatever, what would be the reason that it's ipso facto a bad idea? Who is saying that?

I'm not sure basically what the other side of your argument was supposed to be.

What sort of human hands make computer fonts? Are you there coding in the ones and zeros on some sort of breadboard, wiring up the data using an oscilloscope and rare earth magnets?

There seems to be this idea that using AI is the same thing as walking away and not touching it. Like that you would just say to the computer, do the thing and then not look at it, read it or edit it in any way. What's the world where you're describing where you wouldn't select and edit and refine? You know, with software as an example, how that works with AI is that you spend all day opting it and refining it and you do it over and over and over and you're guiding it and you're shaping it. So it's not like the computer does it. You're still there. I mean, you're making a typeface. You're not chiseling something into stone. You're making a program of sorts that will make shapes. And I don't know why there would be any world where you would just walk away from your first prompt and call it done.

My wife suddenly died 4 years ago, we had 3 little kids at the time. You need to focus on a) being kind to yourself, whatever that means to you and b) the good things about the change. All change has good parts and bad parts, and it's easy to focus on negative things. Especially with a death since in magnitude they are probably greater than the good things. But if you focus on what you lost you will simply lose the rest of yourself.

I also think that women have a harder time with this than men, possibly because maternal death in childbirth used to be so much more common. But this is just a guess. Certainly until it happens to you its not the sorts of things that you think about too much, and once it does happen you tend to speak to people who are going through the more acute phase of it since they are still actively processing it.

I tested 15 different agents and come up with my own way to range them. Would you hire an agent? Does it spark joy? What is the output quality? It turned into a 61-page deep dive into all the nitty-gritty. From IDE beasts like Cursor and Copilot to CLI warriors like Aider and full-stack champs like Replit and v0, etc – it’s a no-BS breakdown of what these tools can actually do when you throw a real-world web app prompt at ‘em.

All the resulting code is on

So, Who’s Crushing It?

Cursor Background Agent, v0, Warp: These three scored a near-perfect 24/25. Production-ready, polished, and just chef’s kiss. Cursor Agent was like, “Huh, didn’t expect that level of awesome.”

Copilot Agent & Jules: Tight GitHub integration makes ‘em PM-friendly, though they’re still a bit rough around the edges.

Replit: Stupid-easy for casuals. You’re trapped in their ecosystem, but damn, it’s a nice trap.

v0: UI prototyping on steroids. NextJS and Vercel vibes, but don’t expect it to play nice with your existing codebase.

RooCode & Goose: For you tinkerers who wanna swap models like Pokémon cards and run ‘em locally.

Who Flopped?

Windsurf. I wanted to hate it (gut feeling, don’t ask), and it delivered – basic tests, flimsy docs, and a Dockerfile that choked. 13/25, yawn.

Pro Tips:

Software Pros: Cursor + Warp is your power combo. IDE + CLI = dopamine hits for days. Casual Coders: Replit’s your jam. Zero friction, instant hosting. Designers: v0 for quick, slick MVPs. Just embrace the NextJS cult. Tinkerers: RooCode or Goose. Total control, local LLMs, open-source swagger.

The full report’s got the juicy details – screenshots, rants, and all. I will be doing another report on agents at the end of the summer – let me know what’s your go-to coding agent in 2025. Drop your hot takes or grill me on specifics below.

Betting against Oprah with out any information seems foolish. Bo hate from me if you delete this after you listen to her

30*2 + 30 = 90, which is pretty close to 86.

Going the other way

86-30 / 2 = 28 which is close to 30.

The monday roundups from Turing post are great. https://www.turingpost.com/

The repo https://github.com/HappyFunCorp/Webthereum has the original RTF if you just want to pull that down.

This came out in 2005 not 2013, fyi.

I never claimed I was anything other than an engineer.