> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Date:: 2025-08-26 > Tags:: #warp > WeftLinks:: [[Reinventing the Wheel]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > Craft offers a way of thinking critically about the increasing reliance on AI in software programming. ### Highlights On 26 August 2025, we had a follow up conversation from our previous discussion, [[ChatGPT - A craft perspective]] The growing adoption of AI in computer programming has sparked concerns about job displacement and a potential decline in coding quality. In response, an artisanal programming movement has emerged, advocating for manual coding as a more reliable and accountable approach to software development. This sentiment echoes the historical anxieties of the Industrial Revolution, when mechanical looms supplanted the livelihoods of village hand weavers. Despite the efficiency gains of industrialisation, it also highlighted the intrinsic value of handcrafted goods. Can a similar dynamic unfold in the more abstract realm of coding? While it is tempting to automatically take the side of manual process, it is important to consider the practical issues faced by software developers as they try to keep up with ever more complex code. --- We had presentations from Daisy Watt and Vikas Gorur (see bios below) Daisy told the story of leaning to code during COVID. She became increasingly concerned with the human cost of software: >I had lots of friends that were impacted by the robo debt here in Australia, which was like faulty automated systems, which literally cost people their lives, as well as the criticisms around the faulty and bio spatial recognition tech going on in The UK and stuff like that. So I kind of felt strongly that we needed people in the human space to help, like, shepherd this. While surprised to be in the world of coding, there was a connection back to weaving. > [I was ] a weaver who played these strings and fabric and pattern for a living for the majority of my life. Now I was sitting in this chair maintaining, you know, critical systems. [This] labor gave me deep respect about their true I kind of respect of coding in, you know, the same way that weaving does with cloth. Vikas differentiated software from craft as a form of industrial design >To me, software is a form of mass produced industrial design. That is the closest, analog I can think of because so it's more like an espresso machine. Right? Because software is written for the consumption of, many users. Of course, it costs nothing to make copies of software, but it is still meant for you know, it's not like a handmade mug that is made for one person. The craft dimension was evident in the internal judgements about code. > And programmers do have extremely heated debates about, should I use four spaces to indent or should I use eight spaces? Should I use tabs or spaces? And, you know, these are signals I would use when interviewing someone. If I if I watch someone coding, I can pick up on things, which I'm sure it's true for all craft. Like, I'm sure a master woodworker can can tell by the way someone holds a saw that they don't know what what they're doing. However, coding doesn't offer the same real world checks as craft. >The medium is infinitely malleable in a way that no other medium is. And that gives you a lot of freedom, but it also makes possible certain kind of mistakes that you would never make in any other craft. But I'd like to think of it as if you were designing a machine, you would never, in your drawings, draw something like a shaft that goes through the spokes of a wheel. But programmers do it all the time. The focus is on the user. > as a builder of software, you only have to wrestle with the hard problems, such as if I'm building a music player, should it have an equalizer feature? Vikas welcomes AI as a way of avoiding drudgery. > I think I gain a lot because I've been doing this for twenty five years. I don't like, just doing the same frustrating thing over and over again does not bring me any joy. It also opens up the opportunity to actually build more. Like, I'm finishing more side project that I ever did. I did I did a little thing in the house where I hooked up a tiny computer to a with a tiny receipt printer, and I made what I call a Telex machine so that I can send my wife telegrams during the day, and it prints. But sometimes, it is important to code manually. >There are times so so when I want to learn something, you know, there are, like, exercises I wanna do only in order to learn. I still turn off all AI and write code by hand precisely because of that reason. Because it is purely enjoyment for me and because the purpose of it is for me to learn. It's not I'm not building utilitarian anything for anybody else to use. Daisy sees a parallel between AI coding and fast fashion. >I kind of see this parallel between, you know, fast fashion and slow fashion and, craft sorry, regular coding and AI coding. You know, we like, AI generates us kind of, like, fast fashion quick code that sometimes is associated as being kind of, like, cheap. And we don't really know what it's made of and whether it will really hold up robustly. Vikas sees the increasing abstraction in programming as a historical process. > there was a time in the sixties or seventies where you couldn't write any software unless you intimately knew the hardware of the machine that you were working with. You had to know. You have to stand in front of it, and it had these many bits in of memory and how like, you need to you needed to know a lot of the physicality of that machine. But over time, we built up these levels of abstraction that now people who are learning to code today won't even know half the things Daisy said about the pixels and the transistors. A new developer, Callum Allpass, describes how important AI has been to him. >I wouldn't know how to write the first line of of the code myself. So I guess for me, I've felt that benefit of having AI assistance. But I've also felt that, at the same time, some some disappointment in not a feeling that I have the the mastery of of the craft of coding or knowing exactly how to, yeah, how to how to implement it implement it myself. Vikas commends the Obsidian platform as a craft-like community of programmers. > As well, I'm a very happy user of Obsidian. It's one of the examples I give always of, like, delightful software. I think the the company that makes it, it feels very artisanal to me. They they don't take venture capital investment. The takeaways from our conversation are: - Craft is an important space for programmers to reflect on the changes to their work brought by AI. - Manual coding promises more resilience and accountability, but it can also be laborious and accessible only to a few. - No matter how sophisticated AI becomes, the developer will still need to consider the interests of humans. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RGBAExzYXcM?si=94rmCseH1FkNnrFa" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> **Vikas Gorur** started programming at the age of fifteen and has been doing it for twenty-four years now. He is a history buff in general and specifically the history of computing and the evolution of programming as a craft. Professionally, he’s been through the founding to acquisition startup cycle twice, most recently as the head of engineering at Airbase, a B2B startup. He also worked as a software engineer at Twitter (2013-16), back when we thought social media might not be entirely bad for the world. He writes occasionally at [gorur.dev](http://gorur.dev/) **Daisy Watt** is a weaver of 10 years who’s worked as a software engineer for the last 3 years by following the threads of pattern, structure and repetition from loom to code. For her, technology is another kind of craft, its logic rooted in the history of weaving. She has made and sold handwoven textiles for years, freelanced in the fashion and textile industry, and taught digital design and weaving at RMIT University. Heavily involved in the community, she’s helped rescue, restore and is now updating a rare hand-operated Jacquard loom with more modern digital capabilities. She volunteers with Refugees Code Melbourne, teaching creative coding workshops for kids and occasionally helps out at Creative Tech Melbourne too. Her practice reflects on the shared structures of weaving and code and asks how we might hold on to care and human skill in the face of automation. ### Resources - David Heinemeier Hansson - [Transcript for DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Ruby on Rails, Productivity & Parenting | Lex Fridman Podcast #474 - Lex Fridman](https://lexfridman.com/dhh-david-heinemeier-hansson-transcript/) - [Creator of Ruby on Rails Warns AI Coding Tools May Be Eroding Programming Fundamentals](https://ppc.land/creator-of-ruby-on-rails-warns-ai-coding-tools-may-be-eroding-programming-fundamentals/) - Chinese coder village - [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/technology/china-artificial-intelligence-hangzhou.html?smid=nytcore-android-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/technology/china-artificial-intelligence-hangzhou.html?smid=nytcore-android-share)  - Daisy Watt on rescue loom project - [https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/weekendevenings/doomed-loom/105431100](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/weekendevenings/doomed-loom/105431100) - Cory Doctorow on Enshittification - [https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/) - Ward Cunningham on Technical debt - [https://youtu.be/pqeJFYwnkjE](https://youtu.be/pqeJFYwnkjE) - [https://www.agilealliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/IntroductiontotheTechnicalDebtConcept-V-02.pdf](https://www.agilealliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/IntroductiontotheTechnicalDebtConcept-V-02.pdf) - Liam Proven on hand-crafted software - [https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/the_future_of_software_part_one/](https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/the_future_of_software_part_one/) - [https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/the_future_of_software_part_2/](https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/the_future_of_software_part_2/) - James Sperring - [https://thecurioustechnologist.substack.com/p/the-first-death-of-software-development](https://thecurioustechnologist.substack.com/p/the-first-death-of-software-development?utm_medium=web) - [https://thecurioustechnologist.substack.com/p/the-25-year-old-architect-problem](https://thecurioustechnologist.substack.com/p/the-25-year-old-architect-problem) -  Nikhil Suresh on AI - [https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/) - Christo Buschek & Jer Thorp  - Knowing Machines project - [https://knowingmachines.org/models-all-the-way](https://knowingmachines.org/models-all-the-way) - Ed Zitron on Shareholder Supremacy - [https://www.wheresyoured.at/tss/](https://www.wheresyoured.at/tss/) - Amelia Wattenberger on the Fish Eye Lens as a way to design/code interfaces - Human-in-the-loop advocacy from IBM [https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/human-in-the-loop](https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/human-in-the-loop)**