the rapidly dwindling sanity of valve programmers as expressed through code comments

What people said

u8 · 2026-03 · Reference

I've been coding by hand for nearly 20 years. I don't get any rush from generating code with agents. Most of the time I just feel loss. Coding to me has always been the work of a craftsman. I spent years learning syntax, studying APIs, and generally becoming an expert in a language I could then use to exactly express myself. My code became my way of of telling a story. I picked that language not only because it was the right tool for the job, but because I liked the community, I liked the direction of the tool, and I liked writing it. Agents obliterate all of that. Before, source code was like exploring a canyon. Each function, loop, and nested brackets was someone's choice. There was an implicit story to follow. Agentic code is that valley after the glaciers have retreated. A good illustration of what I'm afraid of losing is in those videos cataloging the [the rapidly dwindling sanity of valve programmers as expressed through code comments]( [VIDEO] ). When AI generates your code, you lose that context. You lose that human connection to code that I care so much about. Unfortunately, I don't think the human touch was as high-of-value to other developers as I previously thought. I've realized that for most developers, it was never about the journey, it was about getting to the destination as quickly as possible. We were infected with a plague of idea-guys and didn't even know it. That's okay. There are a billion things in the world where what was once the sole dominion of craf

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bfors · 2024-04 · Reference

Like the author states, the "written in Rust" bonus many projects get does not apply to games. Most of the games I consider to be the most fun are built on an absolute rats nest dumpster fire of code (see: [VIDEO] ). Sometimes bugs even expand game mechanics and make them more fun and expressive. That being said I'll definitely check out Unrelaxing Quacks, it looks great.

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oeiiooeieo · 2021-04 · Joke / meme

Valve's development practices are apparently good for a chuckle. [VIDEO] The devs don't seem like they have enough time to deal with the code they have to write, let alone respond to security issues. (not their fault, of course)

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