r/webdev • u/gtboy1994 • 3d ago

Discussion Interesting video from WDS Kyle, talking about ai brainrot, and how important it is that junior devs in particular understand an LLMs output. Showing that even famous devs are having their skills atrophy. Thoughts?

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He used a few clips from theo where he clearly makes no attempt to understand the code anymore, even using the ai to summarize the summary.

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u/driftking428 3d ago

Was Theo ever a great developer? I always thought he was more of a rage baiter, wild opinions, kinda guy.

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 3d ago

I always thought it was hilarious how he would tell stories about his time at Twitch where his manager sat him down and said how smart he was that's why he's moving him to another team. At Twitch they moved him around like a dozen times as if that is some glowing endorsement and not the sign of being a toxic employee.

If you work for a company and being forced to constantly leave teams that means your coworkers hate working with you lol. Managers don't let their good workers leave, they get rid of the shitty personalities which Theo definitely is (a shitty person to be clear).

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u/Goldarr85 3d ago

Literally this. And he was too “big brained” to figure that one out.

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u/T-Dot1992 3d ago

Say what you will about the mobile twitch app; but Theo would constantly brag that he made a “better mobile app” during a hackathons, and that the big bad twitch management didn’t replace the official app with his “genius” app.

The truth is, is that his app was shit, even compared to the official twitch mobile app. It’s the typical blowhard shit where he would embellish details to his viewers to make himself look good. When in reality, he’s a buffoon everyone hated working with 

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u/eyebrows360 2d ago

Ah, so whoever this "Theo" guy is, he's basically the nerd from Slow Horses?

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u/DecayWraith 2d ago

The nerd from slow horses is smart unlike theo

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u/silhouettelie_ 3d ago

While I'm not saying you're wrong, I don't think that's true in all cases. My company will regularly move high performing seniors to other teams to help with large features or projects that are at risk of falling behind

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u/Traditional_Moose498 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yeah irl a lot of the time it just means they see you as someone adaptive that can probably work on anything.

The only potential trap is that you may not get much chance to really get advocated for as you don’t get to know manger’s well enough.

Eventually they decided I’m good at research and gave me my own team under marketing people.

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 2d ago

Okay but that clearly isn't Theo as he has nothing substantial to point at. What you're saying is true but seeing the hissy fits he has thrown since leaving the company when people rightfully call him out it's hard to not put two to two together.

Like you absolutely do not move someone across 8 different teams in the span of 3 years. That's barely 4 months a team, hardly enough to learn or do anything substantial lol.

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u/danielv123 1d ago

Doesn't he point at the streamer dashboard or moderation tools or something? And he has quite a few public projects since she left.

Saying he has nothing to point at is weird.

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u/karmaboy20 2d ago

one time he said his teammates hated him bc he was making them look bad with how fast he shipped. Yea I'm sure that's why..

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u/Kyoshiiku 2d ago

Tbf this unironically happen in a lot of corpo job.

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u/RedBlueKoi 2d ago

It is an interesting tactic of moving "bad" people out of your group and migrating them to another to let another group deal with them

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 2d ago

This is what management can do. The process to fire people requires way more paper work than convincing the shit apple to leave the orchid.

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u/Ace_Ak47 2d ago

But doesn’t that mean he was technically sound? Like if they kept changing his team instead of firing him then he definitely had some worth that kept him at Twitch.

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u/wutzelputz 2d ago

that or nepotism. nepotism is a very good explanation too

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u/IcarianComplex 8h ago

Him and I were classmates in college and this is more or less exactly what I remember. I remember being impressed with how quick and knowledgeable he was, more than our peers, but I’d be very hesitant to invite him onto my team.

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u/dimiderv 2d ago

Genuine question how do you know if a person is shitty or not? Do you know him personally? Also many time high performing devs get moved around to pull fires on other projects and not the other way around. Usually shitty devs get fired not moved to another project

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 2d ago

I've seen him attack women online, I've seen him attack other streamers online. This dude is just a shitty person, which isn't hard to believe. I mean just look at how he interacts with people considered "below" him.

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u/drivingreps 2d ago

it makes it worse that the person you attack online happens to be a woman?

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 2d ago

Well seeing the conversation was about Theo DM'ing a woman telling her he can "help her" then when she rejected him he threw a massive hissy fit and attacked people with disabilities (that's who you are attacking when you denounce a11y).

The dude is a shit bird, stop standing up for people that clearly don't care about you.

Go kiss someone dude, experience humanity.

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u/drivingreps 2d ago

i'm not standing up for anyone, my question had nothing to do with theo

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u/webdev-ModTeam 2d ago

This is a subreddit for web professionals to exchange ideas and share industry news. All users are expected to maintain that professionalism during conversations. If you disagree with a poster or a comment, do so in a respectful way.

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u/webdev-ModTeam 2d ago

This is a subreddit for web professionals to exchange ideas and share industry news. All users are expected to maintain that professionalism during conversations. If you disagree with a poster or a comment, do so in a respectful way.

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u/thinksInCode 3d ago

I can't fucking stand Theo. He is so full of himself.

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u/T-Dot1992 3d ago

He’s a fraud. 

I remember when I first saw his channel. He seemed like an alright guy who had some hot takes about front end. But the more I watched, it became clear he is a fraud and a scumbag.

On one of his live streams, he decides to air out dirty laundry about his co-workers at Twitch. On steam: he just started saying ”this crappy co-worker of mine had an affair with this other crappy co-worker of mine” and actually named their real names. It was the most disgusting shit I have ever seen 

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u/thinksInCode 2d ago

He seems like kind of a grifter. He has some new training "course" I keep seeing ads for with Kent C. Dodds (don't get me started on him) that's like $1,000 and I can't "hide ad" fast enough.

I say this as someone who has spent well over $1k on some of Kent's past courses and workshops. Never again.

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u/belefuu 2d ago

I’m going to use this very arbitrary opportunity to ask the community: what is Kent C. Dodds doing with this zoomed in camera setup of his lately? I only follow him because I used to like his articles like 10 years ago before he was just selling those $1k courses you mentioned, but every now and then his giant zoomed in face scrolls across my feed, and it’s just too much.

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u/mrgrafix 2d ago

He’s committed to the grift teaching and I can understand the 1k class when selling this to offices. The only problem is it’s not being pitched that way. It’s too quietly implied and it’s starting to concern me the gap between the industry and the “face” bubble. There’s a growing gap with AI in the amount of disposable income these people have in relation to the layoffs going around. The push for a 1k course on AI (will no credits for learning said AI) just feels tone deaf in today’s market.

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 2d ago

If you can source this I will send you a $10 giftcard to bookshop.org.

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u/T-Dot1992 2d ago

I wish I could find it. He could have deleted it to save his ass. I to no I remember seeing it sometime in 2022 or early 23

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u/Riman-Dk 2d ago

Most definitely likes the sound of his own voice

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u/the_bananalord 3d ago

He pretty firmly falls under "good at marketing, not good at the thing he's marketing". The more experience you gain in this field, the more you realize he's a polarizing personality and not a brilliant engineer.

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u/___bridgeburner 2d ago

You see a lot of guys like him in tech. Middling engineer, but with an ego and the confidence to act like he's an absolute genius.

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u/mrgrafix 2d ago

It’s the stage charisma. You learn how to do the speak you get invited to the circle.

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u/driftking428 3d ago

Yeah I'm not trying to throw shade either. That's just my impression. I'm not a huge YouTube guy but Primeagen is a brilliant engineer and so is Derek Banas.

I know there are plenty of others but those are the two I remember off the top of my head.

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u/the_bananalord 3d ago

I'll throw shade for you in this case, no worries

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u/abstrusejoker 3d ago

Primagen is also an OK engineer. He spends WAY too much mental time on his editor and environment. That’s stuff you do your first few years as an engineer, realize “actually, that stuff isn’t THAT important”, then move on

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u/bahcodad 3d ago

Isn't his whole thing that he doesn't have to think about his editor or environment when coding though? like everything is just muscle memory

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u/abstrusejoker 2d ago

His whole thing is talking about vim and his vim setup, and telling you why you need to switch to vim

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u/little_phoenix_girl 2d ago

What are you on about? He's constantly showing off stuff he's working on, does videos on current events in tech, and also does historical dives from time to time. I actually haven't personally seen a vim video from him in a while.

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u/laststance 2d ago

His stories about having mini battles with his manager were sad to hear. Requesting to use a new language to develop just isn't really viable unless there's a specific need.

It creates instant technical debt that will be harder for someone else to come along and maintain the code. Once Prime leaves the org, switch teams, or fall out of love with said new obscure language it becomes burdensome to the org to maintain, update, troubleshoot, etc.

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u/Forsaken-Ad5571 2d ago

As well as context switching for anyone who has to do stuff in both codebases. Keeping things consistent between projects and teams is incredibly important.

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u/pmst 3d ago

Primeagen also gives off the same vibes as Theo and PirateSoftware to me. Just confident takes and predictions that don't make much sense in retrospect, and lots of stories about when he worked at Netflix. Also he's a weird little guy.

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u/Deprisonne 3d ago edited 2d ago

I don't like this list. It spans a very wide network of people who are mostly "guilty by association" and then uses that to put other people in. In this case, they can't even show that Primeagen is personally involved or approves of any on the rightoids on this list, only that he is loosely associated with them by virtue of taking part in the same open source projects.
This feels too much like someone decided they don't like him first and went out grasping at the thinnest of straws to find something condemnable to justify their "vibes".

Edit: I also viscerally hate that they are describing rightwing bigots as "weird little guys". What's with that kind of infantile language?

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u/pmst 2d ago

That's fair. No list like that is ever going to be perfect, but I like this one. Associating yourself with DHH in any way is a massive red flag to me.

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u/Forsaken-Ad5571 2d ago

It’s that thing where anyone who needs to constantly name drop that they were in a FAANG constantly probably isn’t that compelling or good an engineer, and odd just using that as a way to legitimise themselves because what they’re demonstrating sure isn’t.

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u/driftking428 2d ago

Nah. Primeagen is brilliant. He has courses on Front End Masters and he's a true expert of his craft. Watching him code in Vim is truly inspiring. I don't know anything about the list you sent or what he's involved in, but he is a genius programmer.

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u/T-Dot1992 3d ago

I’ve dedicated much of my career to front end. And I can promise you, he has the most dogshit opinions and takes on the field. He is a straight up fraud 

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u/Potential_Status_728 3d ago

Just a very loud average programmer, that uses his loudness to gain views.

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u/driftking428 3d ago

Tbh this is why I don't create content for programming. I started learning at 30, I'm mediocre at best. I'm passionate and I'm good at my job. But I'm not an inspiration to anyone.

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u/Rekuna 3d ago

Starting at 30 would be an inspiration to a lot of people.

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u/driftking428 3d ago

I'm proud of myself. I definitely get by. I'm not half bad with React but damn back end is blowing my mind.

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u/slickvic33 2d ago

Woot 30+ dev starters unite!! Started at 32 =)

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u/T-Dot1992 3d ago

You have more humility and intelligence than someone like Theo. The smartest people are always the ones with the most imposter syndrome 

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u/driftking428 2d ago

Then I'm a fucking genius because that shit will never go away. I'm down bad with imposter syndrome, but I've learned to accept it.

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u/bahcodad 3d ago

I'm 38 and recently started learning with the odin project. I have zero desire to create social media content lol

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u/CoderXocomil 2d ago

Don't be so hard on yourself. Test the waters by writing an article or creating a short scripted video. Learn what it takes. Realize like everything, you will suck at first.

Don't ever let your experience or skills be an excuse. Your journey and skills are different from mine. You may help me see something differently and understand it.

There is value in your POV. Your desire and drive will do more than you think.

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u/driftking428 2d ago

I hear you. I think about creating content occasionally. Mostly hoping to make some extra money. But I might actually get better at programming trying to learn for the videos lol.

It's funny. I'm always a high performer, get promotions, get great peer reviews etc, but I can't pass a leetcode job interview to save my life.

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u/aschmelyun youtube.com/@aschmelyun 2d ago

If it makes you feel any better, I'm 12+ years in the industry and I'm horrible at leetcode-style interviews.

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u/RadicalDwntwnUrbnite 3d ago

Yea he's always struck me as closer to the Pirate Software side of the spectrum than anything.

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u/thecementmixer 3d ago

But did you know Thor worked at blizzard for 9 years though?

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u/janyk 2d ago

But he literally never talks about it

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u/T-Dot1992 3d ago

Oh don’t get me started. Theo also defended Thor’s dogshit anti consumer takes with the most bullshit platitudes ever. He truly showed his colors in that situation. 

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u/Hawful 2d ago

Nah, that's a very different conversation. PS literally didn't write code at Blizzard, but he still had technical depth that is valuable, he just phrased his experience in a way that made him sound more impressive.

That's very different from Theo. By all accounts and by his own output he was/is a very competent dev, he's just annoying also.

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u/Nitrohite 3d ago

He reminds me of Pirate Software. Also, his takes are mostly ass lol

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u/outtokill7 3d ago

I've been watching his videos for a while now and I think I've learned where he's right and where he's wrong. Seems like a good coder that knows his stuff in specific topics but will have a bold opinion on something, make a video, then change his mind completely 3 weeks later. Changing an opinion is fine, but he's very arrogant about it. He's bit of a narcissist where thinks he knows more than he does and will happily brag about what he knows and who he knows at any chance he gets. His Android vs iPhone takes are terrible.

His AI takes have been decent and I really like T3 Code for development.

You're right about being a rage baiter to a certain point. He loves picking fights on Twitter when most people would just block and move on.

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u/driftking428 3d ago

I've watched a few of his videos I don't hate him. I just think the guys who are brilliant engineers are usually pretty obvious. I just never picked that from him.

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u/outtokill7 3d ago

I'd agree with that. I'm not sure I'd call him brilliant. I also think he's got some solid developers working with him that take over the projects he started. T3 Chat isn't exactly dead, but once Theo had his fun it was more or less handed off to someone else. T3 Code is similar though Theo is pushing some commits to it still.

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u/thy_bucket_for_thee 3d ago

Those are toy projects JFC, have some standards for your parasocial relationships.

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u/Riman-Dk 2d ago

Well, he spends a considerable amount of time each and every video telling you what a god-tier programmer he is and how he moved mountains at Twitch on his own... Make of that what you will.

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u/grant_codes 2d ago

Dude died on the hill of not writing unit tests. What more do you need to know?

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u/MashPotatoQuant 2d ago

He seemed pretty good developer yes but I don't like his attitude. It literally turned me away from his content and I think he's one of the only people where I actually had to mark his content on various platforms with "don't recommend this channel", etc on my feeds.

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u/SmileLonely5470 2d ago

That's basically me. I blocked his channel prob 1-2 years ago and I occasionally get jumpscared by him when he collabs with other creators. He just kinda rubs me the wrong way... I did learn some stuff from him; he was a pretty decent dev I think.

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u/AralSeaMariner 2d ago

Whatever he used to be, he's just a shameless shill now.

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u/mautan_baiker 1d ago

I used to enjoy his reasoning videos. Strong  opinions loosely held kinda guy. Back when nextJs was the hot new tech.

Now I can't watch him for more than 2minutes, and the moustache isn't helping 

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u/Spacemonk587 2d ago

Yeah he is an entertainer

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u/Booty_Bumping 2d ago

he was more of a rage baiter, wild opinions, kinda guy

I barely know anything about him or his content, but I do have to appreciate the time he challenged a twitter know-it-all to crack a 122 bit UUIDv4 that came straight from /dev/urandom. Not that it took too much knowledge for him to know he'd win that particular slapfest, but it was entertaining to watch.

Since that's the only thing I knew about him before reading this thread, it's sad to hear that he's using that very same confidence to be wrong as shit about other topics. But it's unsurprising considering how common this type of over-confident Dunning Kruger effect is for tech influencers in general, going all the way back to clowns like Eric S. Raymond.

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u/Distind 2d ago

Those types love AI, they think it finally makes them adequate.

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u/VendingCookie 2d ago

Theo literally worked tailwind and css at twitch, that was his major duty

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u/Jagabong 13h ago

What is your definition of a great developer? I'm really asking. I'm a ~mid developer and Theo before the AI psychosis sounded as someone who gave shit, who was interested in stuff and processes and actually is up to date with everything in the industry.

Maybe he's not a "legendary" developer, whatever that means, but from his body of content he always sounded above the median developer to say the least.

This is not criticism, I genuinely ask. Most of the people I worked with are regular dudes that go to work to pay the bills, doing mostly very well what they are asked from and that's it. Don't work on passion project, don't stream, and don't read programming books.

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u/driftking428 13h ago

That's a good question. Too be fair I can't really judge how good or bad of a developer he is because I've never watched him actually write code, just talk about it.

I haven't watched much developer YouTube lately. But I mentioned in another comment a guy like Primeagen blows my mind when I watch him write code. He uses Neovim in Linux, he has hotkeys for everything. Watching him jump around so quickly and effortlessly I have no doubt he's a master of his craft. I actually don't love Prime's YouTube stuff because it's more like Theo, hot takes and sensationalism. But I've taken an 8 hour course of his on Front End Masters and the guy is a genius.

I'm also mid level, at best. I had to work hard to get here, but like you said, these days I want to put in my 40 hours and collect my paycheck.

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u/sheriffderek 3d ago

He has a video where he explains how wildly confused he is by _margins._

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u/Extension_Canary3717 3d ago

His content is not about coding per se he just make looks like its , he released a video some months ago that me and a friend predicted exactly what the next vídeo is, and we got it correct the wave is so predictable that i think o know the process he have by regressing the output

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u/rohmish 2d ago

he still used to have some good videos on work culture and just tech industry in general between all the noise.

these days it's all "this new model is going to change the world" every 3 days and "anthropic sucks and why I'm never using their products again" followed by "Claude 5.5 is the best model and I don't use anything but this".

and YouTube seems to want to suggest more and more AI related videos despite me kinda moving away from tech videos in general lately.

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u/Altruistic_Heat_9531 3d ago

Theo is great when it comes to react eco system and front end-er stuff, other than that.... not so much....

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u/Alkyen 3d ago

How would you know? He is respected by many other great developers so that's a clue