Eli Bendersky
Debugging WASM in Chrome DevTools
When I was working on the WASM backend for my Scheme compiler, I ran into several tricky situations with debugging generated WASM code. It turned out that Chrome has a very capable WASM debugger in it
Daily Digest
Why TDD and AI coding tools exploit the same psychological flaws
Drew DeVault draws a provocative parallel between Test-Driven Development cults and GenAI adoption, arguing both exploit developers' psychological need to feel competent while potentially undermining actual code quality.
- TDD's hidden influence on architecture: While ensuring test coverage, TDD shapes codebases to be "testable" rather than well-designed, and provides no guarantee that passing tests verify the right behavior for actual user needs.
- The dopamine trap of development metrics: Both TDD's green test suites and AI's rapid output create addictive feedback loops through coverage percentages, CI badges, and productivity metrics that make developers feel competent regardless of actual code quality.
- AI coding agents as the new performance theater: GenAI tools let mediocre programmers experience the rush of 10x developer productivity, building "cathedrals" quickly that have beautiful test coverage but rotten foundations underneath.
- The psychological cost of shortcuts: Developers chase these tools despite knowing the externalities (environmental costs, job displacement) because the feeling of finally being "great" at programming overrides long-term concerns.
#tdd-psychology#ai-code-generation#developer-productivity-metrics#software-testing-culture#programming-dopamine-loops
View all daily digests →Latest Articles
Sylvain Kerkour
Cryptographic Right Answers: Post Quantum and Rust Edition
There recently has been a lot of noise about quantum computing breakthroughs recently after Google's articles Quantum frontiers may be closer than they appear and Safeguarding cryptocurrency by disclo
Martin Fowler
Fragments: April 21
Last week Thoughtworks released the 34th volume of our Technology Radar. This radar is our biannual survey of our experience of the technology scene, highlighting tools, techniques, platforms, and lan
Drew DeVault
Addressing the harassment
Kiwi Farms is a web forum that facilitates the discussion and harassment of online figures and communities. Their targets are often subject to organized group trolling and stalking, as well as doxing
Coding Horror (Jeff Atwood)
Thank You For Being a Friend
It's been one of those months, and by that, I mean one of the 663 months since I was born. This won't be a long post, because I only have two things to say. First, I'm really glad we re-ordered the GM
Filippo Valsorda
Quantum Computers Are Not a Threat to 128-bit Symmetric Keys
There is no need to update symmetric key sizes as part of the post-quantum transition, due to the details of how Grover's algorithm scales. Most authorities agree.
Alex Kladov (matklad)
256 Lines or Less: Test Case Minimization
256 Lines or Less: Test Case Minimization Apr 20, 2026 Property Based Testing and fuzzing are a deep and science-intensive topic. There are enough advanced techniques there for a couple of PhDs, a PB
Stephen Diehl
A Field Guide to Bugs
A Field Guide to Bugs Software bugs predate software. Edison used the word in an 1878 letter, eighty years before the Harvard moth and sixty before the modern computer. What he named has outlasted him