[1]Simon Willison’s Weblog

[2]Subscribe


    Every time an engineer evaluates a language that isn’t “theirs,” their
    brain is literally working against them. They’re not just analyzing
    technical trade offs, they’re contemplating a version of themselves that
    doesn’t exist yet, that feels threatening to the version that does. The
    Python developer reads case studies about Go’s performance and their
    amygdala quietly marks each one as a threat to be neutralized. The Rust
    advocate looks at identical problems and their Default Mode Network
    constructs narratives about why “only” Rust can solve them.

    We’re not lying. We genuinely believe our reasoning is sound. That’s what
    makes identity based thinking so expensive, and so invisible.

— [3]Steve Francia, Why Engineers Can't Be Rational About Programming Languages

Posted [4]4th November 2025 at 2:54 am

Recent articles

  • [5]A new SQL-powered permissions system in Datasette 1.0a20 - 4th November
    2025
  • [6]New prompt injection papers: Agents Rule of Two and The Attacker Moves
    Second - 2nd November 2025
  • [7]Hacking the WiFi-enabled color screen GitHub Universe conference badge -
    28th October 2025

[8] programming-languages 37 [9] psychology 6 [10] technical-debt 8

  • [11]Colophon
  • ©
  • [12]2002
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  • [19]2009
  • [20]2010
  • [21]2011
  • [22]2012
  • [23]2013
  • [24]2014
  • [25]2015
  • [26]2016
  • [27]2017
  • [28]2018
  • [29]2019
  • [30]2020
  • [31]2021
  • [32]2022
  • [33]2023
  • [34]2024
  • [35]2025


References:

[1] https://simonwillison.net/
[2] https://simonwillison.net/about/#subscribe
[3] https://spf13.com/p/the-hidden-conversation/
[4] https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/4/
[5] https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/4/datasette-10a20/
[6] https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/2/new-prompt-injection-papers/
[7] https://simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/28/github-universe-badge/
[8] https://simonwillison.net/tags/programming-languages/
[9] https://simonwillison.net/tags/psychology/
[10] https://simonwillison.net/tags/technical-debt/
[11] https://simonwillison.net/about/#about-site
[12] https://simonwillison.net/2002/
[13] https://simonwillison.net/2003/
[14] https://simonwillison.net/2004/
[15] https://simonwillison.net/2005/
[16] https://simonwillison.net/2006/
[17] https://simonwillison.net/2007/
[18] https://simonwillison.net/2008/
[19] https://simonwillison.net/2009/
[20] https://simonwillison.net/2010/
[21] https://simonwillison.net/2011/
[22] https://simonwillison.net/2012/
[23] https://simonwillison.net/2013/
[24] https://simonwillison.net/2014/
[25] https://simonwillison.net/2015/
[26] https://simonwillison.net/2016/
[27] https://simonwillison.net/2017/
[28] https://simonwillison.net/2018/
[29] https://simonwillison.net/2019/
[30] https://simonwillison.net/2020/
[31] https://simonwillison.net/2021/
[32] https://simonwillison.net/2022/
[33] https://simonwillison.net/2023/
[34] https://simonwillison.net/2024/
[35] https://simonwillison.net/2025/