[mark_l_watson]

I am retired, so maybe I don’t get a say in this, but as a human who enjoys life in nature and hanging with family and friends, and also in periods of free time constantly exploring technology to understand the tools I use to the best of my abilities:

I find using minimal-capability local models or cheap commercial models like deepseek v4 flash to be the most satisfying because I am a major partner in solving problems or simply trying to better understand the world. I do like access to very strong models a few times a week.

A friend’s son and a young tech friend in town have very different views than I do because they are struggling in a tough job market and want a competitive advantage. I am grateful that I am not in that position.

[DrewADesign]

Being able to set up a local tool chain that costs little more than the electricity to power your video card, I think, could be an important “know how to make a good dev environment” kind of skill once more companies start getting priced out of unsubsidized frontier model services.

But it’s sad that the base developer skill set is so devalued that learning something that would take people a few weeks to train you on is what gets your foot in the door.