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@jamesdouma posted on 2026-08-03 that he may 'never look the source again'…

Brief

James Douma (@jamesdouma) says on 2026-08-03 that he might stop inspecting source code entirely, likening the change to his decision nearly 50 years ago to stop reading assembly because he trusted compilers. He frames the current moment as a similar inflection point in trust or delegation away from low-level scrutiny toward relying on tooling or abstractions.

Why it matters

@jamesdouma posted on 2026-08-03 that he may 'never look the source again', signaling a shift in developer habits.

Key details

  • He compares the moment to 'nearly a half century ago' when he stopped examining assembly language because he trusted compilers—now he feels the same trust (or resignation) toward higher-level source.
Source evidence

I might never look the source again. It was nearly a half century ago that I stopped looking at assembly because I trusted the compiler to get it right. This feels like that.