Thread

AI coding has made CI a bottleneck, so we reworked ours to keep up

317 points · 408 comments · julian_digital

xracy · 1790021108 · focus · HN ↗
Maybe I'm alone in this, but as someone who is in tech, I don't know what CI is, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect it to have an expansion within the article the first time you use it...
AI is in the cultural zeitgeist, but you gotta expand most other things at least once.
1. bognition · 1790021239 · focus · HN ↗
  CI -> Continuous Integration
  Its best thought of as the testing systems that are run as part of pull request review / merge to main / build processes.
  1. xracy · 1790029973 · focus · HN ↗
    Thank you
2. handfuloflight · 1790021274 · focus · HN ↗
  So if you don't know what CI is, what does "I am someone in tech", mean? Marques Brownlee probably doesn't know CI is, but he's also in tech. Because if you by mean "I am in tech" that "I am a software engineer", and you don't know what CI is, then boy; I'd be worried for you.
  1. Retric · 1790021961 · focus · HN ↗
    CI is really only significant on the programming side of things. Networking, systems administration, hardware, etc often don’t have that workflow.
    Asmod4n · 1790022148 · focus · HN ↗
    sysadmins CI is hoping the machine still boots after an update. Unless you are lucky you got two identical machines to have a test env.
    to11mtm · 1790026075 · focus · HN ↗
    Also the case of 'learning that someone did updates directly on AWS console instead of terraform and losing 0.5 or more days cleaning up the resulting mess'
    esafak · 1790025437 · focus · HN ↗
    I see you have not discovered infrastructure-as-code (IaC). We have CI for our infra.
    Retric · 1790033265 · focus · HN ↗
    I’m familiar, the issue is IaC only works on a subset of system administration jobs.
    Maintaining systems in a tunnel boring machine is a very different than an internet startup.
  2. xracy · 1790030074 · focus · HN ↗
    I am a Site Reliability Engineer, I have been for close to a decade, and this is not as common an abbreviation as you think it is. Also, my entire job isn't in question because I didn't memorize shorthand for a term that I don't use in my day-to-day.
    Really appreciate getting downvoted to hell for saying "We can't throw readers a simple bone?"
    All I'm asking for is CI(Continuous Integration) in the first paragraph.
    handfuloflight · 1790030643 · focus · HN ↗
    What do you think about this? <a href="https://claude.ai/share/54eef6b8-b702-4f3e-968c-b19184e951f4" rel="nofollow">https://claude.ai/share/54eef6b8-b702-4f3e-968c-b19184e951f4
    xracy · 1790031637 · focus · HN ↗
    I didn't say I don't know what Continuous Integration was. I said I didn't know what "CI" stood for.
    Cannot stress enough, this is like, basic communication/writing that they teach in elementary school.
    But I'm so happy you're able to get off on your feelings of superiority that you always automatically know what those two letters stand for. I hope that translates to meaningful happiness and fulfillment in your life.
    handfuloflight · 1790032086 · focus · HN ↗
    If expecting more from others is what gives someone a sense of superiority, then what is that you're doing with your expectations?
    Next time, Google it or ask ChatGPT. That's what elementary kids do when they don't know something.
    bcrosby95 · 1790091060 · focus · HN ↗
    Will do. I took your advice and asked Claude what it thought and it said you're exhausting.
    handfuloflight · 1790094521 · focus · HN ↗
    You'll be ready for the third grade soon enough!
  3. flohofwoe · 1790059434 · focus · HN ↗
    I mean, "CI" is a complete misnomer. There is usually no "integration" happening while a CI pipeline runs, it's mostly just running a couple of tests.
3. madrox · 1790021812 · focus · HN ↗
  I recommend making a habit of googling or asking AI about terms you run into. As someone who is in tech, you will hear tech jargon your whole career that will not be explained if it's considered standard terminology for the audience being spoken to. It is better to learn to educate yourself than expect others to go out of their way.
  1. xracy · 1790030416 · focus · HN ↗
    It's wild to me that people think asking for
    "Continuous Integration (CI)"
    in the first line of a paragraph of a long article is "going out of your way". It used to be the standard expectation for using shorthand.
    madrox · 1790038332 · focus · HN ↗
    It used to be a standard expectation, but that was before google or AI could have answered your question in less time and typing that your complaint on HN required. Especially when the author is writing a blog post for an audience that knows what CI is.
    Do you want to be right, or do you want to learn?
    xracy · 1790231374 · focus · HN ↗
    It's an authorial expectation that saves everyone from having to search every acronym you use.
    Can I solve it by searching? Yes. Is it faster for the author to type it out once or for the reading public to have to search it up? I don't think that time matches up even if the # of people is "me", but it certainly isn't less time than it takes 2 people to search.
    I feel like I am asking for the bare minimum and everyone on this sight thinks I am asking for the moon.
    This is such entry-level communication/writing skills I am surprised the ai doesn't do it for you...
    Obligatory <a href="https://xkcd.com/169/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/169/
    madrox · 1790899793 · focus · HN ↗
    It isn't that I think you're asking for the moon. I'm trying to impart wisdom from a long career that I think may be useful to you. Unlike the XKCD, neither the blog author nor myself are acting smug that you don't understand CI.
    In general, it is not a good strategy to expect people to make things easy for you. "LMGTFY" has a long history. Rather than get so bothered that you make an HN post and double down in comments, better to develop the muscle memory to look it up and move on. This is about more than just acronyms but all problems life throws your way, which is why I ask: do you want to feel wronged by this blog post not explaining CI, or do you want to learn and move on? No one else in life is on the hook to educate you. If you think this blog post is an offender, try reading an academic journal.
    I'm merely trying to impart advice I wish I heard in my 20s, so take it how you will. I wish you luck in your career.
    ben0x539 · 1790047094 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think it would occur to me to write out Continuous Integration because it's basically a nonsense term if you don't know what it means anyway, it's not any less opaque than just CI. The problem isn't the shorthand here, but yeah it's probably good to spell it out anyway so when someone googles it they have more confidence they've found the right thing.
4. ad_fontes · 1790022174 · focus · HN ↗
  Man, what a weird thing to complain about.
  Most days I feel like I must be the dumbest person on HN. I don't understand what 80%+ of submissions are about. But if it sounds interesting, I'll dig into it a bit and learn a few things along the way.
  1. [deleted] · 1790022908 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
5. Jcampuzano2 · 1790022305 · focus · HN ↗
  "AI is in the cultural zeitgeist"
  Within the engineering tech sphere, CI/CD have also been terms that have been standard for at least a decade now.
  You would probably be rejected from most interviews at the first stage if you didn't vaguely know what they mean at this point.
  Linears entire product is tailored towards software engineers/engineers in general or people who work alongside engineers, so its not surprise their posts have a bit of assumed knowledge.
  1. xracy · 1790030211 · focus · HN ↗
    I know what a CD (Compact Disk) is.
    (Continuous Integration, and Continuous Deployment, are fine if someone tells me what the letters literally stand for, but sorry for not being so tech-brained that I haven't memorized every possible TLA that's ever been used in tech).
    halfcat · 1790036394 · focus · HN ↗
    > haven’t memorized every possible TLA
    TLA or TLA+?

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