Package Managers are evil

Link: https://www.gingerbill.org/article/2025/09/08/package-managers-are-evil/

Context

This is a fair take. Absolitely, the left pad example from Theo is one such thing. People just keep on adding packages/libraries without thinking much, in pre-AI days that was the problem. But now, with AI, it can spit out code like anything. No need to worry about managing packages, but eventually it will be producing more code which is a liability. AI produced code might be fragile, very like todo: authentication coming soon, like code. If not tested or reviewed, can’t trust it. He is right on all the points, Golang is batteries included, and clearly defines what a package actually is, its just a folder. You can import anything from the folder. Except only if the functions or structs are capital case (annoying at times, but fine). Having some rule is better than having none. Javascript failed to define a rule, and NPM is a mess. Golang doesn’t have a package manager, it just manages itself. I also find python dependency management like javascript to be honest, but a little better with terms of completeness. Since people can mess up on the web pretty easily, the things to mess up with Python have a less surface area. If you are aware of what happened to PyPI several times, you know what I am talking about, Its common to manipulate a source of truth and people might find themselves in all sorts of trouble, they would have never imagined. With uv I think it is moving to a better place, but still the core of the problem is from the too much of flexibility, which is fine, and needed even. Python doesn’t needs to be like Go.

Week #59

Another productive week, a lot shipped, almost all critical bugs fixed, the launch looks great. Wrote daily for another week about SQLite/SQL. Adding up 24 posts. Read it here. Generating a lot of ideas, getting back to journaling, reading instead of consuming videos and doomscrolling. It is getting better day by day. I have completed my yearly goal of reading 12 books. Still 3 more months to go, would be almost at 15-18 books.

The last programmers

Link: https://www.xipu.li/posts/the-last-programmers

Context

There is so much wisdom in this post, I feel like quoting a lot of things, but the ending nails it “The parts that have always mattered, really. Understanding people”. There I put it, no fuss, no bait, just facts. Maybe we are the last generation of coders that type code by hand, and push to production. We are seeing the hands taken over by AI slop. I call the code slop, it is. If not reviewed by a human, it is garbage, well not entirely but nothing short of saphegetti, legacy, I-don’t-want-to-touch-and-read like code. The author is hinting at the transition from developer happiness to user happiness. I don’t like that but it’s the harsh truth, the hard pill to swallow. No one will be a true nerdy developer anymore, they all would be average vibe coders. Only the best among them will be truly nerds. Will that change from now? I don’t think so, people can use computers now, but in earlier days they don’t use to. People (in India) at least don’t know the proper usage of AI, its actual working, that’s why AI-bros exist. Sadly they would sell these AI as their product but that is I think would be a skill, to steer AI in doing what you want, and for that you need to understand what they want. Pretty long rabbit hole but worth thinking about as a developer.