isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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4.6.0-nightly.2026-03-16
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https://yourhead.com/stacks
but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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3d ago
@mrudokas@mastodon.social @manton for 30 years i’ve been lucky that this creative thing i enjoy would also pay the bills. but i think that situation was always an anomaly. AI is inevitable correction.
like musicians and artists, i now have to separate my hobbies from my career.
it’s an uncomfortable adjustment, but i’m trying to be grateful for the 30 years i enjoyed that anomaly, rather than bitter that i’ve reached the end.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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6d ago
@stefanpauwels@mastodon.social @ctietze@mastodon.social @czottmann@norden.social
also: you might find my posts over the past week interesting. i gave Copilot, Codex, and Claude a head-to-head test: the same prompt, same setup/style prompts, and the same project in a clean repot. (Codex used GPT 5.4)
- short prompt
- easy to understand
- simply code. < 100 lines.
- but requires understanding of several overlapping AppKit protocols.
spoiler: none of the above. they all failed to build the feature — even with A LOT of hand-holding.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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6d ago
@stefanpauwels@mastodon.social @ctietze@mastodon.social @czottmann@norden.social
my AI experience: not useless.
👍 good at writing basic unit tests.
👍 good at AppKit (mostly) even in old Obj-C code.
👍 great with web-tech like flutter.
worth Claude's $1200/yr price?
not yet.
i consider working with AI a longer-term investment. i'm optimistic it will become more useful in the not too distant future.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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6d ago
@MLE_online@social.afront.org i’m 0.0062. but for someone probably a couple decades older im calling it a win
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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6d ago
in spite of pretty crappy results from my AI trials the past few weeks, i continue to have panic attack levels of AI FOMO.
it's just… it's a lot. you know?
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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6d ago
@ctietze@mastodon.social @czottmann@norden.social at least for the moment, i've decided to set AI agents aside for a bit.
i've sunk too much time into agents recently and it really hurt my productivity for february a lot.
i just have some serious AI FOMO.
i feel confident that the next 12 months are going to bring some big changes. i mostly just want to make sure i'm ready for it.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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6d ago
@czottmann@norden.social last year, after seeing a talk on Claude, i went all in with agents (cursor and claude mostly).
today, almost a year later, i doubt i've realized gains that outweigh the vast amount of time i've sunk into it.
i'm not saying AI is useless. i just don't have enough uses for what agents can do today.
for me it's an investment for when code quality improves. that time is fast approaching IMHO.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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6d ago
@czottmann@norden.social i didn't mean Claude was basic. i worded it poorly… my bad.
i meant: the lowest common denominator of tools necessary to be competitive, i.e. the table stakes.
there was a time 30 years ago when dev tools were really expensive.
but linux, bsd unix, gcc, etc. democratized dev work so that anyone could play ball. even an open source project with no revenue.
i hate to see the pendulum swinging back towards high barriers to entry.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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6d ago
@czottmann@norden.social it really seems to be the case but i have a huge aversion to paying $1200/yr for basic tooling. especially when this is likely an unsustainable price while they’re trying to pull market share away from the other players with their VC capital.
if the actual profitable price is $200/month then it seems like indie software, open source, and anything else that operates on a shoestring budget is f-ed.
i may cough up the cash — but i’m going to try every other option first.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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6d ago
@cdf1982@iosdev.space i guess i figured the docs — at least the ones that have been around a few years are a solid part of the model already.
but i suspect when the feature is not often used, and the API is crappy and there’s a much simpler deprecated api, then there just isn’t a lot of example code to train the model.
but that was also what made it a good test case.
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@bwebster@mastodon.social wow. yeah, none of the tools i tried knew intrinsically that it needed to do *anything* to the outline view. every tool i’ve tried assumed that the delegate callback was the
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@isaiah@mastodon.social I dunno, I think I'm gonna go ahead and blame your cursed iCloud account somehow.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social wow. yeah, none of the tools i tried knew intrinsically that it needed to do *anything* to the outline view. every tool i’ve tried assumed that the delegate callback was the right place.
currently the latest GPT model is attempting to put the code into the drag destination. it’s an ok way forward , but it has yet to create a build that does anything to the drag image. i’m on my sixth try and the last three builds just crash.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social Huh, I don't think I've actually used this API before! Taking a quick look, is the idea to grab the dragging session, enumerate the items and set your custom image components o
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@bwebster@mastodon.social both the dragging source and dragging destination provide a way to enumerate the drag items. you can either pull the model objects out of the pasteboard (you'll have to put t
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@isaiah@mastodon.social OK, to make sure I understand, is this the idea of what you're looking for? (the custom image is just a very squashed SF symbol)
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social yep. exactly. obviously with a few more details like dragging multiple items. but that’s the basic idea. did Claude give you that?
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i just keep pushing with codex to see if will ever come up with a solution. i've turned up it's reasoning to "Extra High" and now it says it's going back to first principles and reading the docs.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
interesting. i didn't expect this.
since it can't actually test a drag/drop vi a CLI, it created a one-off build a fuck-ton of NSLogs in all the drag callbacks and has asked me to run a test, then copy/paste the logged data.
it's what i do too when the AppKit documentation is especially unhelpful.
it's surprising that it's trying to deduce the NSOutlineView behavior since it doesn't intrinsically understand it.
AI is wild.
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So, just in case anyone else wants to try my AI test for themselves, here's the setup. a mac app with a left sidebar — an NSOutlineView subclass. assume the view has a view controller and a class that
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@isaiah@mastodon.social Huh, I don't think I've actually used this API before! Taking a quick look, is the idea to grab the dragging session, enumerate the items and set your custom image components o
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social i chose NSOutlineView as a kind of test of AI's.
it's a corner of AppKit that's hard for me — so i figured it might be hard for it too — and a likely thing i might lean on AI to handle for me.
plus, it changes often between macOS versions. this makes it especially brittle to subclass at all even for tiny things like the drag image.
i figured it might require some extra prompting — but did not expect the actual AI behavior: they're all pretty lost in the weeds.
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So, just in case anyone else wants to try my AI test for themselves, here's the setup. a mac app with a left sidebar — an NSOutlineView subclass. assume the view has a view controller and a class that
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@isaiah@mastodon.social Huh, I don't think I've actually used this API before! Taking a quick look, is the idea to grab the dragging session, enumerate the items and set your custom image components o
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social both the dragging source and dragging destination provide a way to enumerate the drag items.
you can either pull the model objects out of the pasteboard (you'll have to put them there too) in the pasteboard writer.
in my implementation i simply cache the dragged model objects when the drag begins. the dragging enumerator of the draggingItems is always in the same order. that avoids archiving/unarchiving objects to the pasteboard.
but both work well in practice.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
from all the different trials with the agents i can tell you that there are a multitude of ways to skin this cat (who made that saying — what monster skins cats?)
i think the best way is actually to do it in the drag destination, rather than the drag source. but GPT seems to want to try to do it all in the drag source.
the draggingUpdated calls will still keep firing outside the view, and you can override the drag image there so long as you also call super.
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So, just in case anyone else wants to try my AI test for themselves, here's the setup. a mac app with a left sidebar — an NSOutlineView subclass. assume the view has a view controller and a class that
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@isaiah@mastodon.social Huh, I don't think I've actually used this API before! Taking a quick look, is the idea to grab the dragging session, enumerate the items and set your custom image components o
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social source list mode sets some dragging style behavior:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nstableview/draggingdestinationfeedbackstyle-swift.enum/sourcelist
basically it means if you solution will replace the imageProvider then you'll have to cache the default one because there's no way that i know of to recreate the source-list mode image provider.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
i just keep pushing with codex to see if will ever come up with a solution.
i've turned up it's reasoning to "Extra High" and now it says it's going back to first principles and reading the docs.
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spent the weekend working with Codex on GPT 5.4. it's pretty nice — but i still can't get it to do anything complex. even with a ton of handholding, even in Swift (instead of Obj-C), even with a nice
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@isaiah@mastodon.social Yeah, the Pro plan should provide enough to do some complex tasks as long as you're not using it all day long. There's a session token limit (5 hour rolling window, I think) an
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social you'd think.
but… bare in mind that i'm probably holding it wrong. i'm definitely a noob when using agents.
i've used the Copilot Xcode plug-in (with GPT 5 mostly) to write tests. but mostly i give it specific files and it spits out code which i manually copy and paste into place.
this is the first time i've really tried hard to give an agent the whole project and let off the leash with a bit more complex, but i think pretty reasonable, feature request.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
@bigzaphod@mastodon.social yeah! i read your posts this morning and had a micro panic attack about it.
did you do the restore via networked time machine?
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 10, 2026
if you get it to work, let me know what you did — especially if you find it works out of the box, without too much handholding.
i can always get some parts to work if i hold the AI's hand a and describe how NSOutlineView's callbacks are a bit unique compared to other things that support NSDraggingDestination protocols and stuff.
but it takes a lot more work describing the feature and handholding than simply writing the code myself.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 09, 2026
i've tried with a variety of AI tools and models with varying success.
you can try in either Swift or Obj-C — i'm agnostic and it doesn't seem to make much of a difference in my testing.
my testing it's handled in code with AppKit (and that's definitely what i'll be doing for production) — so if you'd like to compare apples to apples, then don't use SwiftUI, IB, or some other cludge. just plain vanilla Cocoa/AppKit/Foundation code.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 09, 2026
So, just in case anyone else wants to try my AI test for themselves, here's the setup.
a mac app with a left sidebar — an NSOutlineView subclass. assume the view has a view controller and a class that handles delegate callbacks.
the outline view is set to "SourceList" mode. this is important.
the new feature is to have the default source-list drag-image for reordering rows — but a custom drag-image when the drag leaves the outline view.
that's it. easy peasy, right!!?
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 09, 2026
@mongrelion@fosstodon.org @awax@piaille.fr
to me, i wasn't giving it a difficult feature to add.
if any macOS app wants a custom drag-image for an outline view — you have to implement this stuff. short of using the old deprecated methods, i'm not aware of any way to do this.
my own implementation is two, pretty short functions — <20 lines. it took me less time to implement (a lot less) than it took to describe the feature to the agent.
it requires a deep understanding of AppKit, but it's not rocket science.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 09, 2026
@czottmann@norden.social that's what everyone tells me.
when i did my Claude testing last weekend i didn't really pay attention to which model it was using.
i'm supposed to get access to Open 4 models — but i'm not sure if i was supposed to change that or if it's the default.
i've burned through my tokens now — and hesitant to throw my money down the drain — but my son has an account (which i pay for) so i may go give it a go again with the bleeding edge models/versions.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 09, 2026
spent the weekend working with Codex on GPT 5.4. it's pretty nice — but i still can't get it to do anything complex. even with a ton of handholding, even in Swift (instead of Obj-C), even with a nice project setup document, even with…
still fundamentally fails when i try to do complex things.
the one thing i haven't tried now, is using Claude, in the 100/month tier — which i'm pretty wary of considering how problematic i've found their cheaper tier.
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@awax@piaille.fr @mongrelion@fosstodon.org unfortunately, i can't seem to find any AI agent that can write the code in question. Here are my results with the big three AI's right now:
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@awax@piaille.fr @mongrelion@fosstodon.org Claude: thrashes trying to make it work, keeps changing files. At the end it says it's done but the code won't even compile. GPT 5.1: finishes immediately, a
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 09, 2026
@awax@piaille.fr @mongrelion@fosstodon.org
yep. Codex is like the worst of both worlds.
it's using GPT 5.4 (which i had not tried yet) and it did get some things right. But even after handholding and telling it: you really really have to override the NSOutlineView drag/drop methods — it doesn't. It again assumes that NSOutlineView will forward those to the delegate (it doesn't).
i do have to give it points for caching the default drag image provider, because none of the other AI's did that.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 09, 2026
I've just been setting up the project in Codex today — so I haven't yet had time to fully understand where it went off the rails.
But in GPT 5.1 the misunderstanding from the other two seems to stem from thinking you can use the standard drag and drop protocols inside an NSOutlineView delegate — which you can't.
NSOutlineView overrides the drag and drop behaviors so you have to override those behaviors in an NSOutlineView subclass.
Ironically, I get slightly better results with GPT4o.
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@awax@piaille.fr @mongrelion@fosstodon.org unfortunately, i can't seem to find any AI agent that can write the code in question. Here are my results with the big three AI's right now:
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 09, 2026
@awax@piaille.fr @mongrelion@fosstodon.org
Claude: thrashes trying to make it work, keeps changing files. At the end it says it's done but the code won't even compile.
GPT 5.1: finishes immediately, and at least the code compiles, but it doesn't work at all. i've attempted to guide it to the problems, but it never gets anywhere. it fundamentally doesn't understand the API.
Codex: takes a long time to analyze things. finishes quickly. Added 78 lines 😳🙀 (about 50 more than needed). And… nope. Doesn't work.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 09, 2026
@awax@piaille.fr @mongrelion@fosstodon.org
unfortunately, i can't seem to find any AI agent that can write the code in question.
Here are my results with the big three AI's right now:
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 06, 2026
Just found out (via Daily Show) that Mychal Threets, who i’ve been following on Instagram forever, is going to be the new host of Reading Rainbow.
I know it’s “just” a kid show, but I can’t imagine how daunting it must be to follow LeVar… those are BIG shoes to fill. The biggest.
But I’m here to tell you: they 100% picked the right guy. He’s a positive force of nature. If you can imagine LeVars love of books, Mr. Rogers’ unflinching inclusiveness, and Bob Ross’ hair — that’s the new guy.
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@bwebster@mastodon.social every time i try a bigger task i hit roadblocks: - i asked claude (with a detailed plan) to identify missing tests. result: obviously bad suggestions. - i asked copilot and c
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@bwebster@mastodon.social i did learn something new today though. the Xcode plug-in for Copilot always looks at your frontmost open file as context to any one-off question (agent mode is different wit
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@isaiah@mastodon.social So when you say you have the "basic" Claude plan, is that the free plan, or the $20 Pro plan? If you're up for dropping a Jackson experimenting, it really seems like Claude Cod
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 06, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social paid plan, but $20. it’s enough for a few small experiments, but not any major real use.
i think i’m going to have a hard time throwing $100 at something that has behaved so poorly… but i think i’m most just bitter and envious that so many other folks are having great success. last night i rage quit and cancelled the subscription.
ill get over it in a day or two. in the meantime im going to give Codex a try first.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 06, 2026
Related to this post: https://mastodon.social/@isaiah/116177834415022567
If you have work for a green but enthusiastic young dev, let me know. I have a son that has time for more work than I can give him.
He's comfortable in C, C++, Python, JS, and similar. He's done some real CUDA coding and is good at GPU related stuff.
But I can also vouch for his code in R, HTML, SQL, and several game engines — just to name a few.
Resumé upon request.
Reposts appreciated.
#getfedihired #jobs #dev
Quoting
better than AI, hire an intern!
i told my son to go build a new documentation site based on our current one.
he dutifully took notes on all my quickly dictated req's. i'll probably see pull requests this weekend.
- you don't have to re-tell them the same context over and over.
- they work independently for days at a time.
- they tell you when they get stuck
- they never hallucinate
they'll even take out the trash and do the dishes (if your intern is your kid). 🙂
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@bwebster@mastodon.social the copilot tools built on top of github claim to be able to analyze an entire project, but… 1. your code needs to be on github (i use gitlab mostly) 2. after it does this, y
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@isaiah@mastodon.social So is this like the CLI version of Copilot you're using locally? When it shows you an implementation plan for what you're asking, does the plan seem OK, but then the actual imp
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@bwebster@mastodon.social every time i try a bigger task i hit roadblocks: - i asked claude (with a detailed plan) to identify missing tests. result: obviously bad suggestions. - i asked copilot and c
Current reply
isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 06, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social i did learn something new today though.
the Xcode plug-in for Copilot always looks at your frontmost open file as context to any one-off question (agent mode is different with the usual planning/executing stages)
but the plug-in can also feed it every other tab you have open.
so limiting the tabs might help improve things.
but i have no similar excuse for claude — where i feed it specific things from the CLI — usually contained to a single module .
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better than AI, hire an intern! i told my son to go build a new documentation site based on our current one. he dutifully took notes on all my quickly dictated req's. i'll probably see pull requests t
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@isaiah@mastodon.social My son (now a senior in computer science and he's a little sad about it) is helping me build out much of the core Good Potato site. Now to just get him on those dishes...
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 06, 2026
@superpixels@mastodon.social yeah — my older son just graduated in Dec. he's pretty sad about the state of things. i'm glad i have plenty of work for him — and his rate is very reasonable: paying the student loans.
my younger kid currently has a triple major: Math, CSE, CS
i think he's probably just drop CS — his plan is a Math PhD — but the CS requirements are basically fulfilled by the other two degrees.
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@bwebster@mastodon.social but if it needs to include 3 protocols and 5 categories, scattered across a few modules… just to understand what's going on… it just doesn't seem to have any sort of facility
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@bwebster@mastodon.social the copilot tools built on top of github claim to be able to analyze an entire project, but… 1. your code needs to be on github (i use gitlab mostly) 2. after it does this, y
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@isaiah@mastodon.social So is this like the CLI version of Copilot you're using locally? When it shows you an implementation plan for what you're asking, does the plan seem OK, but then the actual imp
Current reply
isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 06, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social every time i try a bigger task i hit roadblocks:
- i asked claude (with a detailed plan) to identify missing tests.
result: obviously bad suggestions.
- i asked copilot and claude (just a one-off question) to find a crasher in drag-and-drop.
claude: ran in circles until it's made dozens of changes, in many files, including basic syntax errors.
copilot: just hangs "Collecting Context".
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@bwebster@mastodon.social but if it needs to include 3 protocols and 5 categories, scattered across a few modules… just to understand what's going on… it just doesn't seem to have any sort of facility
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
@bwebster@mastodon.social the copilot tools built on top of github claim to be able to analyze an entire project, but… 1. your code needs to be on github (i use gitlab mostly) 2. after it does this, y
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@bwebster@mastodon.social
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@bwebster@mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social So is this like the CLI version of Copilot you're using locally? When it shows you an implementation plan for what you're asking, does the plan seem OK, but then the actual imp
Current reply
isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 06, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social but writing unit test file on a single class, or finding one bug seems limited. other devs are doing so much more.
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@bwebster@mastodon.social but if it needs to include 3 protocols and 5 categories, scattered across a few modules… just to understand what's going on… it just doesn't seem to have any sort of facility
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
@bwebster@mastodon.social the copilot tools built on top of github claim to be able to analyze an entire project, but… 1. your code needs to be on github (i use gitlab mostly) 2. after it does this, y
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@bwebster@mastodon.social
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@bwebster@mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social So is this like the CLI version of Copilot you're using locally? When it shows you an implementation plan for what you're asking, does the plan seem OK, but then the actual imp
Current reply
isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 06, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social Copilot has an Xcode plug-in you can use for one-off tasks like bug-fixes, or "write a test for this method"
personally i've found that the most useful (when it works).
i haven't used copilots new agentic tools. it's on my list — but i also want to give some time to Codex.
i've also had success using Claude for building unit tests. this works fine as long as i tell it exactly which files and which methods i'd like test.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
it's been a while, so i thought i'd do a code line count. i know it's meaningless — but just to get a rough estimate on what i'm asking GPT to swallow…
classes: 571
total lines: 284734
```
find . -type f \( -name "*.m" -o -name "*.h" \) -print0 \
| xargs -0 cat \
| wc -l
```
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
better than AI, hire an intern!
i told my son to go build a new documentation site based on our current one.
he dutifully took notes on all my quickly dictated req's. i'll probably see pull requests this weekend.
- you don't have to re-tell them the same context over and over.
- they work independently for days at a time.
- they tell you when they get stuck
- they never hallucinate
they'll even take out the trash and do the dishes (if your intern is your kid). 🙂
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
there are folks online doing stuff like this with very elaborate setups that involve using multiple claude agents to prepare summaries of the existing codebase to give to other agents that…
i'm really temped to go all in on this and build an elaborate setup like this.
but i look back a year ago and all the tooling is vastly different.
i don't really want to expend a whole bunch of effort building out a complex system only to have to reinvent it every six months.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social I do honestly wonder if LLMs fare better with more statically typed languages than more dynamic ones. On the surface it seems plausible, since there is just a lot more informat
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@bwebster@mastodon.social prior to GPT 4, it felt like it really really struggled on Obj-C. or… well… my Obj-C. but since about Jan 2025 it not only gave me correct answers, but it even mimicked my ow
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@bwebster@mastodon.social but if it needs to include 3 protocols and 5 categories, scattered across a few modules… just to understand what's going on… it just doesn't seem to have any sort of facility
Current reply
isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social the copilot tools built on top of github claim to be able to analyze an entire project, but…
1. your code needs to be on github (i use gitlab mostly)
2. after it does this, you can only use that info inside of the github version of copilot. there's not way to bring that context back to the Xcode integration — or even to the web version of Copilot.
i'm still tempted to try it just to see what it will do with 800 header files.
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@bwebster@mastodon.social more likely: my code is such spaghetti that i've managed to consume all the electricity for several small european countries while melting down a data center.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social I do honestly wonder if LLMs fare better with more statically typed languages than more dynamic ones. On the surface it seems plausible, since there is just a lot more informat
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
@bwebster@mastodon.social prior to GPT 4, it felt like it really really struggled on Obj-C. or… well… my Obj-C. but since about Jan 2025 it not only gave me correct answers, but it even mimicked my ow
Current reply
isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social but if it needs to include 3 protocols and 5 categories, scattered across a few modules… just to understand what's going on… it just doesn't seem to have any sort of facility for that.
with claude it will work on some small group of files and i guess just hallucinate the rest? and then iterates on that — which causes total chaos while burning through credits.
copilot is fine if i manually attach all those files before asking the question — but what a fricken pain in the butt.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social Alternate theory: you’re such a 100x engineer that your galaxy brain architecture cannot be comprehended by mere mortals, or LLMs derived from mere mortals. 🤯
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@bwebster@mastodon.social more likely: my code is such spaghetti that i've managed to consume all the electricity for several small european countries while melting down a data center.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social I do honestly wonder if LLMs fare better with more statically typed languages than more dynamic ones. On the surface it seems plausible, since there is just a lot more informat
Current reply
isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social prior to GPT 4, it felt like it really really struggled on Obj-C. or… well… my Obj-C.
but since about Jan 2025 it not only gave me correct answers, but it even mimicked my own quirky style (more dot-notation, fewer brackets, and extensive use of type annotations and type assertions). i think i posted about it actually. it's wild that it seems mundane today — but that was just barely a year ago.
GPT 5 is even better, especially with bug-fixing.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
it suggested just concatenating all my header files into a single .md file.
which — ok. i mean i can do that. but then i have to update that file every time i change a header???
i'm pretty terse in my .h files — but it's still going to be a HUGE file. it seemed like kind of lame idea — i haven't tried it.
maybe i could have some sort of automatic way of generating the file every day or whatever?
i dunno. it all just feels like a whole lot of make work.
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isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
yes, i have a global copilot coding guidelines file and one specific to the project.
it's essential for plug-in targets because there i have to avoid things like categories on foundation classes or anything else that pollutes the host app's namespace.
but what i don't have is something that tells copilot/claude that i've built a single protocol/category that handles drag and drop for all 10 outline views.
and it doesn't seem to know how to just look through the included headers.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social A few random thoughts (I’ve only used Claude myself). 1. No idea if it just is worse at Objective-C than Swift, I suppose that's possible. My codebase still has some ObjC and i
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@bwebster@mastodon.social it's fine with obj-c (and C and C++) — it just can't get it's head around the architecture without hand holding. model: i've tried various things. strangely i have the best l
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@isaiah@mastodon.social Alternate theory: you’re such a 100x engineer that your galaxy brain architecture cannot be comprehended by mere mortals, or LLMs derived from mere mortals. 🤯
Current reply
isaiah
@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
@bwebster@mastodon.social more likely: my code is such spaghetti that i've managed to consume all the electricity for several small european countries while melting down a data center.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
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Mar 05, 2026
@hypolite @lisyarus@mastodon.gamedev.place
yes. plato, the philosopher.
not the former planet.
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@isaiah@mastodon.social
i'm a software developer. primarily for macOS. primarily in Obj-C. primarily working on https:// yourhead.com/stacks but it hasn't always been that way. i used to write other software, in other languages. and before that i designed microchips.
mastodon.social
@isaiah@mastodon.social
·
Mar 05, 2026
@provuejim@techhub.social it's a 20 year old car… and it gets cold here in the winter… if i didn't have a trickle charger i'd never be able to start it.
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