iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I like conventional commits. At $work we don't use them for semver automation, but rather for other kinds of red tape related to version & deployment management. And it does helps the humans Good commit messages take a discipline & craftsmanship that many have never learned, myself included.

000

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 23h

If you are a vibe-coder, you depend on the latest and greatest SOTA models to unblock work and cleanup the mess made by the previous model. The solution is to learn programming and stop listening to influencers suffering from AI psychosis. #ai #vibecoding #llm

051

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 23h

New LLMs announced and I ... couldn't care less. If you're not a vibe-coder, truth is that you can have a productive workflow that depends more on your harness configuration, with newer models only competing for token efficiency, in a race to the bottom, where they belong.

131

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 23h

Agentic programming started being viable at Opus 4 / GPT 5. We've had a year of experience with it, not a lot, but things are moving fast. Where are the great apps built with it? Great games? Do you have anything to show for it, other than personal utilities? Why not?

120

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 29/09/2026

Actually yes, unless we're using Java libraries, and unfortunately we do. Case in point: Logback.

010

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 29/09/2026

Having runtime surprises that don't manifest when running on the JVM is a serious UX issue. IMO this is its biggest roadblock to wider adoption. Other issues don't matter as much (e.g., slow compilation is irrelevant given people are developing on the JVM, AOT being last step).

130

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 29/09/2026

#GraalVM Native Image is great in principle. Problem is it doesn't mix with runtime reflection well, as #Java and #Kotlin libraries are a minefield of runtime reflection; even with all facilities (reachability metadata repo, tracing agent, good tests) I still bump into issues.

240

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 28/09/2026

I'm always waiting for the x.x.1 release

100

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 28/09/2026

The Web is the ultimate platform because: ‣ Browser is always available, users have no installation requirement; ‣ Browser is the best sandbox; ‣ It can be quite fast. People don't target native apps, as they suck for a myriad reasons, only one of which being the extra effort.

030

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 27/09/2026

English isn't optimal for AI, being too abstract (every word is an abstraction), a bottleneck in the way of achieving real gains. Soon you'll communicate with grunts, barks, chirps, or body language, like showing teeth, chest pounding, touching or grooming yourself. #ai #llm

020

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 27/09/2026

Age of AI is bringing with it some of the dumbest takes imaginable. Newer samples: - Generated code can be assembly; - You no longer need unit tests, or DRY, or abstractions. This is the result of “cargo cult programming”, and of doing stuff based on vibes, which precedes AI.

220

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 23/09/2026

I like #OpenCode because you can just instruct the AI to build you plugins for adding functionality and the experience is pretty good (also, #EffectTS FTW). Here's another simple plugin that adds the Brave Search API as a `websearch` (tool) provider: github.com/alexandru/...

github.com

GitHub - alexandru/opencode-brave-search: OpenCode v2 plugin adding the Brave Search API as a `websearch` (tool) provider

OpenCode v2 plugin adding the Brave Search API as a `websearch` (tool) provider - alexandru/opencode-brave-search

000

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 22/09/2026

My article reached HN 😎 alexn.org/blog/2026/0...

Screenshot of a Hacker News page. Top story: “AI Has No Wisdom and Neither Will You” from alexn.org. It has 178 points, posted by dimonomid 1 hour ago, with 223 comments. Above is the orange Hacker News navigation bar with new, past, comments, ask, show, jobs, and submit links.

040

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 22/09/2026

Ha, I'm yelling and cursing at AI so much that I fear that one of these days I'll blurt out something similar to one of my colleagues

100

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 21/09/2026

My #OpenCode configuration now has a custom plugin that evaluates shell commands for safety via #Jev. It evaluates if shell expressions are within the agent's permissions, according to its configuration & system prompt. github.com/alexandru/...

Code editor showing a JSON configuration file. The snippet defines a "shell-safety" plugin with options like endpoint and model, and configures "Explorer" and "Librarian" agents.

000

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 18/09/2026

“I haven't edited code by hand since…” That's like saying you stopped reading & writing, and that the agent is doing all the writing (and thinking) for you. It's all very novel, but I'm pretty sure that all people going down this path will regret it.

130

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 15/09/2026

On every single HN thread talking Java there's at least one top comment lamenting type erasure. .NET generics reification is only needed b/c of runtime reflection. This doesn't come up in languages with type classes at all. Nobody asks for reification în Rust or Scala.

041

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 15/09/2026

"If you don't pay, you are the product" has stopped making sense for software long ago. Even if you pay, your data is still getting sold. If you don't want to be the product, you need to read the fine print and also prefer Open Source from volunteers (which you should sponsor).

020

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 13/09/2026

This is like how one of the best things you can do for getting better at math is penmanship. A division line for people is the ability to write prose (i.e. to have coherent thoughts, to explain, to convince). And this is caused by how much people read & write. Volume matters.

010

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 13/09/2026

It's 2026, we have AI reading and writing for people, we have powerful voice-to-text engines that work better than ever before, such that we can speak instead of type, and yet, one of the best things you can do for your career is (still) 🥁 ... touch-typing.

100

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 12/09/2026

VS Code is better than Zed in every possible way that matters. I wish it wasn't so. Even the often exaggerated problem of VS Code, being built on top of a browser, is a pro, as its design is better & has more rendering abilities. And Zed sucks at startup too.

101

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 09/09/2026

This is how a setup with delegation to cheaper models looks like, pics show a single session. It was harder to balance back in the days of Haiku 4.5. A dumb model can do damage that the smarter model won't fix, but nowadays, Luna, or DeepSeek are quite capable. #LLM #AI

A table titled "Agents" listing four agents sorted by cost. Orchestrator is the most expensive at $100.04, followed by Explorer at $18.53, Junior at $10.77, and Librarian at $4.06. The table includes token usage and message counts.

A table titled "Models" listing usage stats for two OpenAI models. Row 1: gpt-5.6-sol with 3.3M input, 243K output, 188.6M total, 187ms/1K, and cost $98.88. Row 2: gpt-5.6-luna-fast with 55.7M input, 2.3M output, 885.3M total, 99ms/1K, and cost $33.37.

010

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 08/09/2026

Much of the shit we have to deal w/ has nothing to do w/ the love of the craft that made us fall in love with programming. When I was a teen & dreaming of programming computers, I was not dreaming of notarizing an app for distribution or fixing flaky tests in CI.

031

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 08/09/2026

I've had my own skepticism or dread regarding LLMs, however, I can now say that w/ LLMs ... programming is more fun. That's because we've been dealing with a lot of shit that's now automate-able. E.g., ever tried publishing a library to Maven Central? If so, does it still work?

120

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 07/09/2026

I'm migrating a big #Scala project to sbt 2.x, and in my setup (VirtioFS, aggressive antivirus) it suffers from a 2x to 10x performance regression. Sol (xhigh) fixed it, Astra (high) did not, while lying that it fixed it twice, ignoring its input (compile in this directory, don't copy to /tmp).

010

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 06/09/2026

Commenting on the latest LLM models, as that's what boring people do... I dislike GPT-6 Astra. Compared with GPT 5.6 Sol, improvements are only marginal, if any, while being significantly more expensive (in my actual use, not benchmarks). AI may have peaked.

120

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 04/09/2026

Many "best practices" that are absolute BS in software development, and I have to suffer from AI slop now following them. Ex: don't use magic strings and numbers. The string is more clear than the name replacing it, it never changes, but if it does, it's just search&replace ffs

040

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 03/09/2026

Tech news is dominated by LLMs these days, but it's same old, same old, and I'm actually more excited about the new #Scala 3.9 LTS 😍 www.scala-lang.org/ne...

scala-lang.org

Scala 3.9 LTS released!

060

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 03/09/2026

Funfix Database — v0.5.2 release. Provides components built on top of RDBMSs. Currently, it provides a very useful "delayed queue". #Java, #Kotlin and #Scala library. Plays well with virtual threads & Scala version is powered by Cats-Effect. github.com/funfix/dat...

github.com

Release v0.5.2 · funfix/database

This patch release improves Scala interoperability, expands Scala documentation, and updates the build and release tooling. Changes OfferOutcome.fromJava now throws IllegalArgumentException when i...

000

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 01/09/2026

No paradigm does modules and components better than OOP. Pick your favorite non-OOP language; admit that its abilities for expressing components, even modules, suck, and any defense you can have rely on hacked-in virtual dispatch tables (poor man's OOP).

020

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 30/08/2026

Funfix Tasks v0.5.0 #Java #Kotlin #Scala This is a library exposing `Task` and `Fiber`, JVM datatypes meant primarily for JVM interop. NOTE: Trying to have scheduled releases for all projects I care about, so polishing up the maintenance infra. github.com/funfix/tas...

github.com

Release v0.5.0 · funfix/tasks

This release changes the asynchronous task API and improves cancellation handling. Breaking changes AsyncFun<T> now receives a single public Continuation<? super T> and returns void. Task.fromAsync...

000

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 28/08/2026

Continuations4s version 0.2.0: just a maintenance release. #Scala #Scala3 This is a micro-library providing continuations, for Scala 3, supported across JVM, WASM and Native, extracted from the Gears library. github.com/funfix/con...

github.com

Release v0.2.0 · funfix/continuations4s

Continuations4s provides low-level delimited continuations for Scala 3 on JVM, Scala.js with WebAssembly JSPI, and Scala Native. Version v0.2.0 is just maintenance release. There are no library sou...

000

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 27/08/2026

Migrated the project at work to #Scala 3. ~600,000 lines of code. Used an AI-driven loop; took a week with continuous interventions from me; superficial changes, few problems discovered. The project already had a codebase preparing for it (no problematic deps, -Xsource:3-cross).

080

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 23/08/2026

Failure to balance delimiters is a common occurrence for me, spoiling project-wide refactorings. Luna is not a dumb model. For modifying a syntax tree, I was expecting delimiters to help instead of causing issues, but I guess that's only true for deterministic tools, not AI.

000

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 23/08/2026

I may change my tune on significant indentation in #Scala 3. I've witnessed GPT 5.6 Luna (high) refactoring code, then struggling to balance the parens & braces, making a complete mess. Understanding & modifying the structure of your program have different challenges...

110

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 21/08/2026

To add in AGENTS.md if you're using GPT models: "- Banned words: seam"

010

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 17/08/2026

In fairness, when you bump up reasoning to max/xhigh, you get overengineered shit straight out of the Clean Code manual.

031

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 17/08/2026

My experience is limited, but IME, Claude Opus 5 is unusable due to its proclivity to generate slop the user hasn't asked for. I used it a little and hated it.

100

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 17/08/2026

The web is filled w/ connoisseurs of the fine differences b/w various LLM models. Story goes that many can't tell good code from bad. Well, I often can't tell the difference (e.g., DSv4 vs Sol vs Terra vs Luna) b/c too often they yield the same shit.

230

Alexandru Nedelcu @alexn.org · 11/08/2026

Wow, TIL, thanks 🥰 serranofp.com/poke-fun/wel...

serranofp.com

Welcome

020