Sensationalist

Posted Sep 3, 2025 6:49 UTC (Wed) by Vorpal (guest, #136011)
Parent article: The hidden vulnerabilities of open source (FastCode)

I'm very doubtful about this. I have access to AI via work, and have experimented with it a bit. On one hand, the "smarter tab complete" is sometimes useful (especially since I have RSI in both wrists, anything that saves typing is great). Yeah it makes things up, but I know what I want, and don't use the suggestion when it is not useful.

On the other hand, when it comes to larger "agentic" edits, I'm less positive. The only thing I have found it to do reliably is simple refactoring ("extract each widget init code into a separate function", "convert this chain of if-else into a switch statement", ...). But, it is very slow at doing it, and I still need to carefully review what it did. So I don't actually save any time (quite the opposite). I save some key presses and mouse clicks yes (which with RSI is still attractive), but overall it is slower.

So, to tie it back to this sensationalist quote: using AI will not make it easier to do xz attacks. It will make it easier to create spam PRs to take up the time of reviewers though. So at most you can mount a DOS attack with it. As it currently stands at least. (And I don't think the singularity is around thr corner.)

Sensationalist

Posted Sep 3, 2025 8:47 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

> especially since I have RSI in both wrists, anything that saves typing is great

Sorry to do an ad on lwn, but I use Logitech Ergonomic kit. Take a look at the K860 keyboard if you haven't already, you can get a cheap Perrix, the Rolls Royce used to be Maltron. And the Ergo M575 trackball. I have shoulder problems, and while these take some getting used to, they're brilliant. Typing now, my left wrist is hardly moving at all, and is straight not twisted! (As a guitarist, I'm a six-fingered typist - proper four fingers on the left, hunt and peck with two on the right :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Sensationalist

Posted Sep 4, 2025 18:17 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

For RSI there are several wrist supports, some just a velcro fixed strip with a hole to put the thumb in. I has a very mild case once, got suggested to try this, and it works like magic. I was extremely skeptic.

Sensationalist

Posted Sep 5, 2025 12:28 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

As a decades-long Maltron user who also uses a Glove80 fairly often, I am extremely tempted by the Svalboard, a revived DataHand which goes to absolutely ridiculous lengths to minimize finger movement while allowing you to keep the finger movements almost identical to those you are used to on a more conventional QWERTY keyboard. My only worry is that the movements needed on this wonderfully mad contraption are so small that I'm a bit concerned that I might introduce vast numbers of unwanted keystrokes...