Robert Smallshire
@robert.smallshire.no
Founding Tubetrain 🚀. Building Demonstrable® at Sixty North. Director for lithium explorer Transition Elements. "utterly competent". Geoscience PhD. 330 ppm CO₂. Caver. 🇳🇴🇬🇧
40 years of experience. I don’t deny that there are enormous unanswered questions about the pipeline of programmers and developer education. What we do can be taught, but is will take a decade or more to figure out how. System qualities and constraints are more important than ever.
February 1, 2026 at 10:21 AM
40 years of experience. I don’t deny that there are enormous unanswered questions about the pipeline of programmers and developer education. What we do can be taught, but is will take a decade or more to figure out how. System qualities and constraints are more important than ever.
We've departed the syntax era of software development (how) and entered the specification era (what). I written hardly any syntax for six months now. I've written more specification in English than ever before.
February 1, 2026 at 7:02 AM
We've departed the syntax era of software development (how) and entered the specification era (what). I written hardly any syntax for six months now. I've written more specification in English than ever before.
And yes, I've built very non-trivial apps from scratch and performed deep surgery on apps that were coded in the before times. I've gone out of my way to push these tools hard. They're a force multiplier, so if you know how to build software with discipline they're incredible.
February 1, 2026 at 7:02 AM
And yes, I've built very non-trivial apps from scratch and performed deep surgery on apps that were coded in the before times. I've gone out of my way to push these tools hard. They're a force multiplier, so if you know how to build software with discipline they're incredible.
Rather than writing about on social media, Allen, use your time to build something "non-trivial" with these incredible tools. Use the skills I know you have, thoughtful specs, iterative development, TDD or at least test-first. You can get a _very_ long way; probably all the way for 80% of apps.
February 1, 2026 at 7:02 AM
Rather than writing about on social media, Allen, use your time to build something "non-trivial" with these incredible tools. Use the skills I know you have, thoughtful specs, iterative development, TDD or at least test-first. You can get a _very_ long way; probably all the way for 80% of apps.
Interesting to come back to C++ after over 15 years. While I've been gone they've finally admitted that operating systems exist and provide enough useful OS integration out of the box to make it a half-reasonable platform.
January 26, 2026 at 8:20 AM
Interesting to come back to C++ after over 15 years. While I've been gone they've finally admitted that operating systems exist and provide enough useful OS integration out of the box to make it a half-reasonable platform.
Reposted by Robert Smallshire
This would be a very good week for anyone who has not already abandoned the Mercator projection for maps of the world to do so
January 21, 2026 at 12:52 PM
This would be a very good week for anyone who has not already abandoned the Mercator projection for maps of the world to do so
Reposted by Robert Smallshire
Finally, finally getting off my butt and getting off all possible US goods and services. Some will just take longer than others! www.goeuropean.org
Go European — Discover European products and services
Go European is a community-driven directory bringing you European products and services from across the continent.
www.goeuropean.org
January 20, 2026 at 7:45 AM
Finally, finally getting off my butt and getting off all possible US goods and services. Some will just take longer than others! www.goeuropean.org
Thanks for the tip!
January 20, 2026 at 10:23 AM
Thanks for the tip!
Reposted by Robert Smallshire
First US tech company/service dropped from my life, long overdue: Backblaze. Lets go for Norwegian company Jottcloud instead.
10 minutes work to change my rclone backup script over to use Jotta instead for backups, and hey - a waaay nicer UX in their web console, to boot 🙂🪄
10 minutes work to change my rclone backup script over to use Jotta instead for backups, and hey - a waaay nicer UX in their web console, to boot 🙂🪄
January 20, 2026 at 9:37 AM
First US tech company/service dropped from my life, long overdue: Backblaze. Lets go for Norwegian company Jottcloud instead.
10 minutes work to change my rclone backup script over to use Jotta instead for backups, and hey - a waaay nicer UX in their web console, to boot 🙂🪄
10 minutes work to change my rclone backup script over to use Jotta instead for backups, and hey - a waaay nicer UX in their web console, to boot 🙂🪄
The best use of American AI today would be to help Europe build its own sovereign technologies: operating systems, social media, communications, semiconductors, defence, and yes, more AI. While the subsidies are flowing, let them underwrite a future of genuine technological independence.
January 17, 2026 at 7:22 PM
The best use of American AI today would be to help Europe build its own sovereign technologies: operating systems, social media, communications, semiconductors, defence, and yes, more AI. While the subsidies are flowing, let them underwrite a future of genuine technological independence.
I think we're lucky to have grown up with much of the abstraction ladder, having a pretty good idea in principle (though not necessarily in detail) how computers work from the gate level up to what we use every day via many intermediate layers.
January 12, 2026 at 9:15 PM
I think we're lucky to have grown up with much of the abstraction ladder, having a pretty good idea in principle (though not necessarily in detail) how computers work from the gate level up to what we use every day via many intermediate layers.
I worked in C++ from 1995 to 2010, then in Python from 2010 to 2025. I've been building complex native application in C++ again recently, almost entirely mediated by AI. It's hard to leave a 100x performance gain on the table when the dev- experience of interpreted versus native code is eliminated.
January 10, 2026 at 11:29 AM
I worked in C++ from 1995 to 2010, then in Python from 2010 to 2025. I've been building complex native application in C++ again recently, almost entirely mediated by AI. It's hard to leave a 100x performance gain on the table when the dev- experience of interpreted versus native code is eliminated.
Yes, but precious little of what goes on in the computing industry is science, with or without AI. LLMs (and their weights) are hugely complex quasi-natural artefacts which are amenable to scientific study.
December 29, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Yes, but precious little of what goes on in the computing industry is science, with or without AI. LLMs (and their weights) are hugely complex quasi-natural artefacts which are amenable to scientific study.
Well, at least it finally has chance to become a science.
December 29, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Well, at least it finally has chance to become a science.
One Earth radius of cycling in 2025 achieved. For the other geo-pedants out there, a distance slightly greater than that from the summit of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, which at 6384.4 km is the furthest point from the centre of the Earth. 🌍 🚴♂️
December 29, 2025 at 2:45 PM
One Earth radius of cycling in 2025 achieved. For the other geo-pedants out there, a distance slightly greater than that from the summit of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, which at 6384.4 km is the furthest point from the centre of the Earth. 🌍 🚴♂️
"what's really new about it?" 🤯
December 29, 2025 at 10:31 AM
"what's really new about it?" 🤯
It's not another rung on the program representation abstraction ladder. It's a sideways hop into agent management, and likely on to a different and new abstraction ladder.
December 28, 2025 at 9:04 PM
It's not another rung on the program representation abstraction ladder. It's a sideways hop into agent management, and likely on to a different and new abstraction ladder.
This misses what’s happening: a categorical shift from specifying program representations in ever higher-level languages, to delegation. I’m no longer expressing programs; I’m directing an agent that expresses and manipulates programs. The directions themselves are ephemeral.
The entire history of software engineering is one of rising levels of abstraction.
This is as it was, is now, and always shall be.
x.com/karpathy/sta...
This is as it was, is now, and always shall be.
x.com/karpathy/sta...
Andrej Karpathy on X: "I've never felt this much behind as a programmer. The profession is being dramatically refactored as the bits contributed by the programmer are increasingly sparse and between. I have a sense that I could be 10X more powerful if I just properly string together what has become" / X
I've never felt this much behind as a programmer. The profession is being dramatically refactored as the bits contributed by the programmer are increasingly sparse and between. I have a sense that I could be 10X more powerful if I just properly string together what has become
x.com
December 28, 2025 at 9:04 PM
This misses what’s happening: a categorical shift from specifying program representations in ever higher-level languages, to delegation. I’m no longer expressing programs; I’m directing an agent that expresses and manipulates programs. The directions themselves are ephemeral.
Rent a mini excavator.
December 27, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Rent a mini excavator.
Neither is it what I said just now.
December 22, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Neither is it what I said just now.
Fair, but I would argue that little to no financial benefit accrues for the vast majority of book authors. For those authors for whom that is the case, are LLMs a loss? It’s not zero sum, is it?
December 22, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Fair, but I would argue that little to no financial benefit accrues for the vast majority of book authors. For those authors for whom that is the case, are LLMs a loss? It’s not zero sum, is it?
On zero-sum thinking. www.ft.com/content/30a4...
December 19, 2025 at 1:14 PM
On zero-sum thinking. www.ft.com/content/30a4...
One wonders if this will compensate for the jobs lost or not created by the great programmers with Claude Code.
December 19, 2025 at 1:00 PM
One wonders if this will compensate for the jobs lost or not created by the great programmers with Claude Code.
Reposted by Robert Smallshire
Favorite so far
Initial conditions:
m1=82.9 m2=2.7 m3=8.2 (solar masses)
v1x=-6.105 v1y=6.072 v2x=-3.054 v2y=1.677 v3x=-2.638 v3y=-3.927 (km/s)
x1=2.0 y1=-7.0 x2=-5.0 y2=31.0 x3=32.0 y3=10.0 (AU from center)
Music: The Blue Danube Waltz – Strauss
m1=82.9 m2=2.7 m3=8.2 (solar masses)
v1x=-6.105 v1y=6.072 v2x=-3.054 v2y=1.677 v3x=-2.638 v3y=-3.927 (km/s)
x1=2.0 y1=-7.0 x2=-5.0 y2=31.0 x3=32.0 y3=10.0 (AU from center)
Music: The Blue Danube Waltz – Strauss
December 17, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Favorite so far