Add sleeping giants article

Author: mikepack

_posts/2025-07-14-sleeping-giants.md

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+---
+title: "Sleeping Giants"
+published: true
+date: 2025-07-13
+header:
+  image: /assets/images/articles/headers/sleeping-giants.jpg
+  image_description: "Sleeping Giants"
+categories:
+  - Articles
+tags:
+  - bits
+  - craftsmanship
+  - culture
+  - engineering-principles
+  - mastery
+  - llms
+  - maintenance
+  - technical-debt
+---
+
+Ten years ago, I observed that [greed inhibits software craftsmanship](https://spacebar.dev/archives/2015-04-27-the-software-shokunin/). Today, that’s truer than ever.
+
+Recently, an industry idol claimed the craft itself is dying. That LLMs are steering software development toward languages that are easily generated. Languages not chosen for their elegance or fitness, but for their compatibility with a model’s training set.
+
+Friends of mine feel it too. Their teams are ditching purpose-built languages like Erlang in favor of generic options like Java. Not because they’re better, but because LLMs can churn them out on command.
+
+Some argue that coding isn’t the bottleneck in product development. I agree. But here’s the deeper truth: the world is ravenous for software, and even LLMs won’t be enough to satisfy that hunger.
+
+While the industry gluts itself on code, the craftsman waits.
+
+LLMs will flood the world with net-new code. They’ll subvert human-crafted systems with generative runtimes — inferred, not designed. Sure, we’ll get longer context windows, tighter quantization, and smarter training. Tools will improve. Access will expand.
+
+But here’s the other truth: we treat LLMs like scalpels, but they land like hammers.
+
+In a few years, we’ll be knee-deep in bloated, broken code and deranged prompts praying for salvation. For most, it will be a nightmare to maintain.
+
+As our [culture of credit](https://spacebar.dev/archives/2014-02-22-a-culture-of-credit/) collapses under the weight of this generative mess, the craftsman will still be there, quietly sharpening his tools. Sooner or later, the note will come due on the trade that swapped CPU precision for GPU-powered illusion. And when it does, the craftsman will be prepared to refactor from first principles.