Using LLMs at Oxide

A measured, comprehensive, and sensible take. Not surprising from Bryan. This was a nice line:

> it’s just embarrassing — it’s as if the writer is walking around with their intellectual fly open.

I think Oxide didn't include this in the RFD because they exclusively hire senior engineers, but in an organization that contains junior engineers I'd add something specific to help junior engineers understand how they should approach LLM use.

Bryan has 30+ years of challenging software (and now hardware) engineering experience. He memorably said that he's worked on and completed a "hard program" (an OS), which he defines as a program you doubt you can actually get working.

The way Bryan approaches an LLM is super different to how a 2025 junior engineer does so. That junior engineer possibly hasn't programmed without the tantalizing, even desperately tempting option to be assisted by an LLM.

I remember in the very first class I ever took on Web Design the teacher spent an entire semester teaching "first principles" of HTML, CSS and JavaScript by writing it in Notepad.

It was only then did she introduce us to the glory that was Adobe Dreamweaver, which (obviously) increased our productivity tenfold.

DreamWeaver absolutely destroyed the code with all kinds of tags and unnecessary stuff. Especially if you used the visual editor. It was fun for brainstorming but plain notepad with clean understandable code was far far better (and with the browser compatibility issues the only option if you were going to production).

After 25 or so years doing this, I think there are two kinds of developers: craftsmen and practical “does it get the job done” types. I’m the former. The latter seem to be what makes the world go round.

If you've been doing it for that long (about as long as I have), then surely you remember all the times you had to clean up after the "git 'er done" types.

I'm not saying they don't have their place, but without us they would still be making the world go round. Only backwards.

> all the times you had to clean up after the "git 'er done" types

It’s lovely to have the time to do that. This time comes once the other type of engineer has shipped the product and turned the money flow on. Both types have their place.