Doing less

A lot of automation is about doing less manual labour. People who automate enjoy doing less. This desire lead to new programming languages, advanced IDE-tooling, but recently we've gotten a new type of assistance: AI. Microsoft using Github Copilot, Amazon with CodeWhisperer, and more will follow offering yet another Code predictor using 'open source' models.

But is it the right approach?

Solving problems that I don't have

I mainly write in a language that was developed for developer happiness: ruby. It wasn't designed for optimal performance, but allows code to be readable and easy to write (when you have a certain proficiency in Ruby that is). After having turned CodePilot on and off for a year, I'm really not impressed. It has saved me typing strings that I might have otherwise copied from an earlier test, but with the disadvantage that the resulting text…

Building on sunk assets

I don't know that much about economics, but I do have (a bit of) common sense. In a Harvard Business School article, Clayton Christensen writes about "How Will You Measure Your Life?" It ends with a bit of religion inspired thinking (to which I, even as an atheist, can somewhat relate to (stay true to your principles)), but let's not focus on that. The start of the story is on how to think of investments, and how different thinking about investing is between start-ups (with few assets) and established companies. He takes Blockbuster as an example (an old-style video-rental store in the USA):

> Blockbuster's mistake? To follow a principle that is taught in every fundamental course in finance and economics. That is, in evaluating alternative investments, we should ignore sunk and fixed costs, and instead base decision…