Happy Path Programming #118 Effects of 2025
16 snips
Jan 2, 2026 Bruce and James reflect on the whirlwind of tech changes from 2025, discussing how AI transformed their learning and writing processes. They debate the future of programming books in an AI-driven world and explore the complexities of TypeScript. Insights into AI's impact on open-source contributions and the burdens on maintainers lead to thoughts on effective coding practices. Finally, they highlight the importance of effect systems in programming and how AI can enhance developer experiences.
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AI Reduces Need For Instructional Books
- AI made many traditional instructional programming books largely unnecessary for lookups and examples.
- Bruce Eckel found himself losing energy for writing those books because AI handles much of that work.
Learning Rust Faster With AI Examples
- Bruce Eckel used AI to accelerate his Rust learning by asking it to create examples.
- He then tried using AI to draft books but hit a wall and lost interest in low-level programming work.
Make Content AI-Consumable
- Publish machine-readable content so others can load it into their AI assistants.
- James Ward suggests providing an MCP server so readers or users can feed knowledge directly to AI.