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# Dev Digest 137 - AI'm not sure about this

**By:** [Chris Heilmann](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@chris-heilmann)

**Published:** October 14, 2024

Hello fellow developer, this is the 1st "out of the can" edition of 3 as I am on vacation in Greece going "whee are you cute" at donkeys. So, fewer news, but lots of great resources. Enjoy!

## News and Articles

**OpenAI** has been the big topic [winning in the raising money space](https://www.axios.com/2024/10/02/openai-new-funding-round-restructuring), and [announced a lot of new features](https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/01/openais-devday-brings-realtime-api-and-other-treats-for-ai-app-developers/) on their DevDay. **Simon Willison** did a great job [live blogging it](https://simonwillison.net/2024/Oct/1/openai-devday-2024-live-blog/). Meanwhile, **Meta**'s new fancy AI glasses have been [used to dox people in realtime](https://www.404media.co/someone-put-facial-recognition-tech-onto-metas-smart-glasses-to-instantly-dox-strangers/) (more detail [in this document](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iWCqmaOUKhKjcKSktIwC3NNANoFP7vPsRvcbOIup_BA/edit)). **Microsoft** [discontinues HoloLens 2](https://www.uploadvr.com/microsoft-discontinuing-hololens-2/), adds [voice and vision](https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/1/24259187/microsoft-copilot-redesign-vision-voice-features-inflection-ai) to Copilot and [starts paying publishers for content surfaced by it](https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/01/microsoft-starts-paying-publishers-for-content-in-copilot/). **Apple** [removed 60 VPNs](https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/09/25/apple-removes-nearly-60-additional-vpns-from-its-russian-app-store-en-news) from its Russian App Store and [60% of ProductHunt's 1 million users are bots](https://wakatime.com/blog/67-bots-so-many-bots). There is [much drama](https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/27/24256361/wordpress-wp-engine-drama-explained-matt-mullenweg) and a [lawsuit](https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/02/wp-engine-sues-automattic-and-wordpress-co-founder-matt-mullenweg/) about **Wordpress** with [Mullenweg threatening corporate takeover](https://www.therepository.email/mullenweg-threatens-corporate-takeover-of-wp-engine) of WP Engine.

AI is doing well, and also isn't. [Drowning in Slop](https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-generated-content-internet-online-slop-spam.html) describes a thriving underground economy clogging the internet with AI garbage, developers seem to [gain little (if anything) from AI coding assistants](https://www.cio.com/article/3540579/devs-gaining-little-if-anything-from-ai-coding-assistants.html?amp=1), Copilot [makes programmers worse](https://www.darrenhorrocks.co.uk/why-copilot-making-programmers-worse-at-programming/) at programming and coding challenges like **Codeforces** [ban AI generated code](https://favtutor.com/articles/codeforces-bans-ai-code/). A government trial found out that [AI is worse than humans at summarising information](https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/09/03/ai-worse-summarising-information-humans-government-trial/), and researchers start to prefer [running small models on their laptops](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02998-y) instead of using the big players. There is a massive [human cost of AI](https://www.noemamag.com/the-human-cost-of-our-ai-driven-future/) and developers are [getting tired of it](https://www.ontestautomation.com/i-am-tired-of-ai/) and wonder if AI helps us that much [as products aren't getting better](https://news.ycombinator.com/item). Hey, but at least bots can now [read those traffic-image CAPTCHAs](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/09/ai-defeats-traffic-image-captcha-in-another-triumph-of-machine-over-man/). The [2024 Ruby on Rails Community Survey Results](https://railsdeveloper.com/survey/2024/) are out as is [Python 3.13](https://drew.silcock.dev/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-python-3-13/). And [Fair Source](https://fair.io/) is a new-ish idea to [bridge the gap between open source and proprietary licensing](https://www.techspot.com/news/104836-startup-unveils-fair-source-bridge-gap-between-open.html).

## Code and Tools

**Palantir** share [lessons from over a million lines of TypeScript](https://file+.vscode-resource.vscode-cdn.net/Users/chrisheilmann/Downloads/GitHub/devrel/linktitles/digests/(https://www.meticulous.ai/blog/lessons-from-a-decade)), there is [a visual primer on durable JavaScript functions](https://www.inngest.com/blog/durable-functions-a-visual-javascript-primer) and an [intro to command injection vulnerabilities](https://www.nodejs-security.com/blog/introduction-command-injection-vulnerabilities-nodejs-javascript) by **Liran Tal** of **Snyk** who spoke at our Data and Security LIVE day. Writing code for computers is hard, but [it's even harder to write for humans](https://erikbern.com/2024/09/27/its-hard-to-write-code-for-humans.html).

In **JavaScript** land, functional style is a way to [avoid if-else Hell](https://lackofimagination.org/2024/09/avoiding-if-else-hell-the-functional-style/), you can drastically [improve performance by optimising bundle sizes](https://about.codecov.io/blog/improve-web-performance-by-optimizing-javascript-bundle-sizes/), use [Chrome AI to re-write text](https://www.raymondcamden.com/2024/09/26/using-chrome-ai-to-rewrite-text) and do OCR scanning with the [Tesseract OCR engine](https://tesseract.projectnaptha.com/).

A new drama in web standards vs.framework development is around **Web Components** , with some stating [that they are okay](https://nolanlawson.com/2024/09/28/web-components-are-okay/), other calling them [not the future](https://dev.to/ryansolid/web-components-are-not-the-future-48bh), others just celebrating them [as the present](https://www.abeautifulsite.net/posts/web-components-are-not-the-future-they-re-the-present/) and yet others stating the obvious that could have cut this short, namely that it is OK that [Web Components are not Framework Components](https://lea.verou.me/blog/2024/wcs-vs-frameworks/). Often when these discussions arise it is about browser support and [an abridged history of Safari showstoppers](https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/history-of-safari-show-stoppers/) shows how often the iOS browser was an issue.

**Some tools for you:**

- [Local File Organizer](https://github.com/NexaAI/nexa-sdk/tree/main/examples/local_file_organization) - on device AI File Management.
- [vuln-regex-detector](https://www.npmjs.com/package/vuln-regex-detector) - find vulnerbilities in regular expressions
- [git-secrets](https://github.com/awslabs/git-secrets) - stops you from committing passwords to a git repository.
- [Sourcebot](https://github.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot) - fast code indexing and search for your codebases.
- [Excalidraw](https://excalidraw.com/) - paint in a squiggly way.
- [Fast Grid](https://github.com/gabrielpetersson/fast-grid) - A 120fps multithreaded web table.

## Cool code demos

[
 ![stop record button switch](https://wearedevelopers.imgix.net/public/magazine/articles/485/images/6703fd1c0a2405e41fc13cdf_stoprecord.gif)
](https://codepen.io/jkantner/pen/yLddYEQ)

[
 ![fluid gradient](https://wearedevelopers.imgix.net/public/magazine/articles/485/images/6703fd1c4b061a7c36a43063_fluid.gif)
](https://nemutas.github.io/fluid-gradient/)

## Talks and Videos

![Stephan Gillich Bringing AI Everywhere](https://wearedevelopers.imgix.net/public/magazine/articles/485/images/6703fd1ccd02e0d2536ccf8c_Stephan-Gillich-Bringing_AI_Everywhere-UGxhbm5pbmdfMjAwMzA0Mg.png?w=720&fit=max&dpr=2&auto=format)

**Stephan Gillich** of Intel answers how we make AI real, accessible and safe, responsibly – together. [Check it out](/videos/1132-bringing-ai-everywhere)!

**Other videos and talk write-ups of note:**

- ‍ **Liuba Gonta and Yuliya Khadasevich** - [GitHub Copilot Beyond the Basics (30m)](/videos/1011-github-copilot-beyond-the-basics-10-ways-to-elevate-your-coding) **‍**
- **Panel -** [Responsible AI in Practice: Real-World Examples and Challenges (30m)](/videos/1104-responsible-ai-in-practice-real-world-examples-and-challenges) **‍**
- **Amanda-Jane Lamont** - [Making of a (TA) Manager: moving to the Dark Side (30m)](/videos/1044-making-of-a-ta-manager-what-i-learnt-after-moving-to-the-dark-side)

## Work and Jobs

**Simon Willison** shares what he learned [serving on the board of the Python Software Foundation](https://simonwillison.net/2024/Sep/18/board-of-the-python-software-foundation/), [Conway's Law](https://www.trevorlasn.com/blog/conways-law) is shaping software architecture more than anything else, [91% of polled Amazon staff](https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/25/amazon_staff_return_office/) is unhappy with return-to-office and 75% ponder jumping ship and their RTO policy [says a lot about remote work culture](https://www.axios.com/2024/09/18/amazon-return-to-office-remote-work). Read about shared [learnings from 7 failed tech interviews](https://blog.dataengineer.io/p/my-learnings-from-7-failed-tech-interviews) and that [mentorship is the underrated perk](https://www.reddit.com/r/ExperiencedDevs/comments/1ffe5zd/mentorship_underrated_perk_of_big_tech/) of working in big tech.

## Procrastination Corner / Wonderful Weird Web

- [Bop Spotter](https://walzr.com/bop-spotter) is [constantly surveilling San Francisco for Good Music](https://www.404media.co/hidden-bopspotter-microphone-is-constantly-surveilling-san-francisco-for-good-music/)
- [Someones grandpa already wrote about Cobol being "Dead"](https://wumpus-cave.net/post/2024/10/2024-10-01-death-of-cobol/index.html)
- [Earth has caught a 'second moon'](https://www.space.com/earth-will-capture-second-moon-sept-2024) and [NASA is developing a new time zone](https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-confirms-its-developing-the-moons-new-time-zone-165345568.html?src=rss&utm_source=tldrnewsletter) for the one we have, so set your watches when traveling there.
- [How to Monetize a Blog](https://modem.io/blog/blog-monetization/) is tongue in cheek but sadly has truth to it.



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