Christopher Neugebauer

The enforcement mechanism is exactly the same: There’s no *technical means* to prevent someone from being a filthy fucking liar. But there are *social means* to prevent them from contributing: You make sure that if they’re caught, they’re held publicly accountable for all of the rework and mess […]

There’s a meme going around that an Open Source project “can’t” prevent LLM use by contributors because there’s no technical means to enforce this. This is idiotic and shows just how disingenuous slopmongers will be when told they can’t just submit slop.

Did you know there’s also no technical […]

All of programming is the act of making choices that result in software plus some downstream consequences – in both the software, and the humans responsible for those choices being integrated into the codebase.

How you choose to get a piece of code into a codebase comes with different consequences!

RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/116205075329513597

If this succeed in resolving the consequences of AI producing non-understood software, it will certainly result in all of their senior engineers fighting vigilance fatigue

RE: https://social.northbaypython.org/@NorthBayPython/116200846033756876

two people bought tickets yesterday, presumably on the basis of this message

great to know that people care for their conference organisers

why not be the first person to buy one today?

geniunely don't know how to make you all buy tickets faster but I promise the talks will be good https://pretalx.northbaypython.org/nbpy-2026/featured/

please be excited enough to decide to come along soon?

North Bay Python 2026 April 25th – 26th, 2026

#NBPy tickets still on sale

no incentives for buying today except for the satisfaction of knowing your organisers are a tiny bit happier about the state of the conference

and frankly, that should be enough

https://pretix.northbaypython.org/nbpy/nbpy-2026/ #Python

A photo of Robin, a new library commissioner, and Lisa, the commission assistant, signing the oath of office. The photo is overlaid with this quotation from Robin: "Libraries represent so much of what is right in the world at a time when it's hard not to be scared or overwhelmed by all that's wrong. They are a material commitment we make to each other, to inform, connect, inspire, and help us grow into our best selves – at every stage of life."

I remain so chuffed to have joined the Sonoma County Library Commission.

Libraries are the best example of why we have a society in the first place, and why it's worth putting our backs into the work of building a better world. Let's commit to one another.

This is such an end of an era that fresh Python programmers can’t even fathom.

PyPy used to be our hope! No major Python conference that didn’t suggest that they’re gonna fix the GIL and make time go backwards. And yeah, it’s really fast! I suspect the money-backed focus on performance in […]

OH: "You want me to go back to the office? The same thing that killed Ayatollah Khamenei?"

RE: https://mastodon.social/@hotdogsladies/116169059679233653

every day somebody's born who hasn't heard merlin mann's flintstones analogy

They say if you have nothing nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all.

This is why I am not talking about UnitedHealthcare today.

since I'm going viral today…

unbridled contempt in my mentions will be met with a block: I don't have time for your bullshit.

Small joys: the combination of the Fixed Services Charge starting this month, and a bunch of 5-year-amortised costs from the 2020 wildfires means that suddenly our PG&E electric are down 6c/kWh this month.

It might finally make sense to swap our water heater over to a heat pump ?!

@pythonbynight clearly my description of the conference omitted your talk and that is a horrendous error on my part

@brouhaha @glyph

I do not find reading, as an abstract concept, enjoyable: I enjoy/have enjoyed reading specific things, and I enjoy learning things which sometimes occurs by way of reading.

(come to #NBPy and hear me opine about this specific thing for 25-30 minutes; along with several other great speakers on less existential topics: https://pretalx.northbaypython.org/nbpy-2026/featured/ )

RE: https://mastodon.social/@glyph/116172179294783146

"Is there a point to understanding things?" is, I think, the single biggest open question about Software Engineering as a discipline that has opened up over the last 18 months.

I expect it'll be answered in the affirmative, but
a) I don't […]

I misplaced the word "ontology" in my brain earlier today when thinking about a comparison point to epistemology

of course, I was still fairly certain the word existed

@glyph this is definitely an mood

@glyph That piece is an epistemological argument in the same way that yours is, which I feel would not be compelling to people who haven't developed priors that justify a want of understanding. Indeed, that piece acnkowledges that and implies (and almost explicitly says) that understanding as […]

@glyph you're making a lot of points that echo it: your "enculturation" idea in particular is very similar, but it's holding some unstated priors (e.g. that having multiple people understand the code is useful); Naur starts from the point of view of long-term maintenance, at which point […]

I've seen a lot of people talking about the practice of code review in a way that I consider unrealistic lately. So here are my thoughts on what code review is—and isn't—for: https://blog.glyph.im/2026/03/what-is-code-review-for.html

@glyph have you read the naur paper I've recently been ranting about yet?

RE: https://social.northbaypython.org/@NorthBayPython/116166524689893475

Talks! So many talks! So many topics, so many of which are very timely!

@glyph I've seen 3-4 real people on it at least

(I'm sure Vancouver is going to LOVE their 9:07am sunrise on January 2, 2027.)

DID YOU KNOW most of the US west coast is in the middle of its time zone and the correct solution is not permanent DST, it's actually permanent UTC-7:30?

@brettcannon you are going to _hate_ next December

Thought A) "The purpose of a system is what it does" is a fair conclusion for any system that is left significantly unadjusted for a significant amount of time.

Thought B) "Purpose" and "Function" are necessarily different concepts for a system under development or regular iteration of […]