Dzwdz calls the extinction thesis "extremely far-fetched"
3 Sep 22 2:38 PM · 1d ago · 4 comments · 1 source · development 3 of 11
A high-scoring comment by dzwdz challenged the core thesis directly, asking whether the essay really claims all programmers will abandon direct file editing, including hobbyists and sysadmins who need to edit config files on broken systems. The comment invoked the practical barriers to such a shift.
“That's extremely far-fetched, sorry. Is the thesis here that *literally all programmers* will switch to only interfacing with files indirectly, using LLMs?”
dzwdzawal Essayist / Lobsters userdzwdz Lobsters commenterandyc Lobsters commenterrobalex Lobsters commentermcherm Lobsters commenter
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What people said 4 voices · verbatim
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> It's not far-fetched to assume that maintenance of plain-text editors and the ecosystem surrounding them will stop. That's extremely far-fetched, sorry. Is the thesis here that *literally all programmers* will switch to only interfacing with files indirectly, using LLMs? Including hobbyists, who might be working on low-level stuff? That…
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I don't get the argument. Even if only software engineer edit plaintext file, then the one using them are the one with the ability to maintain software to edit them. It doesn't take a team of 2000 engineer to create a good text file editor. It take only a few dedicated enthusiast. If the world has enough such enthusiast to run a modern browser…
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But I've absolutely heard the phrase "plaintext markdown" etc. many times before.
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> By plain-text files, I mean notes.txt/md/ini/json/etc. Only one of those is plain text. Plain text means _unstructured_ text, not just non-binary. At least, that's been my impression across the globe the last >25 years in software.
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