What...what am I missing here? (post X sur les LLMs et le codage)
X post by **Eric S. Raymond** (ESR, author of *The Cathedral and the Bazaar*, co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, ~50 years of coding) — **a frontal counter-testimony to the narrative that "LLMs produce crap code and hallucinate, useless for programming."** His thesis: this **almost never happens to him**, and **not at all anymore over the last two generations** of models he uses ("chat GPT 5.4 and 5.5" under **codex**). The former symptom — a model "going off the rails" as it approaches its context limit — has disappeared: codex now displays a **red warning** prompting the user to **clear the session** instead of spiraling. **Scope of use**: AI applied to **feature changes, refactoring and debugging across 63 projects** in **C, Go, Rust, Python and shell**; documentation writing; **decompiling a DOS binary into readable source**. An established **work routine**: when reopening a project, he first runs the **regression tests**, then starts codex and asks it to **audit the code** (bugs + improvement suggestions). Verdict: LLMs are **"excellent and tremendously empowering"**; their **worst limitation** is **"architectural tunnel vision"** — excellent at generating code to specification, but sometimes **blind to higher-level patterns** — which he takes to be the **job of his "meatbrain."** The strongest, counter-intuitive point: LLMs **do NOT get details and edge cases wrong**; he says he is **worse than them** on this front (despite 50 years of experience), because if a change must **touch five places**, the model **reliably finds all five**, whereas the human fixes four and **spends hours debugging** before finding the forgotten fifth. He then questions the **"downshouters"**: do they live in a **different universe**? Are they using **old, weak models**? Is there a **skill issue** he doesn't see because his **mental habits and communication** fit well with these tools' "handles"? An issue he considers important to settle, since "**billions of dollars would be wasted on misdirected token spend**." His recipe, "very simple": **"Be clear in your thinking, tell the model what you want with precision, and good things happen"** — closing with: "what am I missing here?" To be read as a **pro-LLM counterpoint from a historic figure of open source** to the recurring debate on the (de)valuation of coding agents — echoing the "skill issue" and specification discipline (cf. [[martignole-token-manifesto-2026-07-17]]), and forming a diptych with **Linus Torvalds'** doctrinal pro-AI-tool stance on behalf of the Linux kernel ([[torvalds-llm-outil-kernel-2026-07-14]]).
Eric S. Raymond (ESR, @esrtweet sur X) — développeur · hacker et essayiste américain · **figure historique du mouvement open source**. Né le 4 décembre 1957 à Boston (Massachusetts) ; paralysie cérébrale de naissance · enfance en partie au Venezuela puis en Pennsylvanie. Auteur de l'essai très influent **« The Cathedral and the Bazaar »** (1997, livre 1999) · qui oppose le modèle « cathédrale » (développement centralisé et fermé) au modèle « bazar » (décentralisé et ouvert, à la Linux) ; il a **popularisé le terme « open source »** (contre « free software ») et contribué à convaincre **Netscape** d'ouvrir son code (naissance de Mozilla). **Co-fondateur de l'Open Source Initiative (OSI)** en 1998 · président jusqu'en 2005. A édité le **Jargon File** (*The New Hacker's Dictionary*) · maintenu des projets comme **Fetchmail** · écrit **« The Art of Unix Programming »** (2003). Se revendique **libertarien** · défenseur du port d'armes · ceinture noire de taekwondo ; commente régulièrement tech · politique et open source sur X. Se présente ici comme codeur « très · très bon » avec **~50 ans d'expérience**. (Post X personnel ; date de publication : 2026-07-08 ; date d'ajout à la veille : 2026-07-17.)