Curiosity-driven coding is dying, practical interface principles and why new doesn't mean better. Also: Why LLMs hallucinate, how vibe coding affects new coders, fetch streams and more.

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Welcome, Developers! đź‘‹

This week we're looking at the decline of dev curiosity culture, building better interfaces from a developer's perspective, and why "modern" became a marketing trap. Plus why LLMs hallucinate, OpenAI's push on Responses API and a framework for making better engineering decisions.

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đź”– The Reading Room

Articles we have hand-picked for you:

Dev Culture Is Dying The Curious Developer Is Gone

The software development world is shifting from curiosity-driven innovation to metric-obsessed product building. Gone are the nights of tinkering with code just for fun, replaced by developers chasing revenue optimization and building products they don't care about. This cultural transformation is killing the creative spirit that gave us tools like Linux, Git, and VLC.

By Dayvi Schuster →

Rules for Creating Good-Looking User Interfaces, from a Developer

After struggling with bad designs, Dominik identified the core problem: alignment and consistency issues that make interfaces feel "grating." His solution involves strict component library adherence, using only 2 font weights and 2 text colors, and prioritizing global UI consistency over local optimizations for dramatically better results.

By Dominik Weber →

The Modern Trap: How progress became a marketing term

We're psychologically hardwired to believe new equals better, but "modern" is often just "unproven wearing a better suit." This creates a cycle where developers spend more time learning new frameworks than mastering existing ones. The result? Sacrificing stability and deep expertise at the altar of novelty.

By Ibrahim Diallo →

Why we built the Responses API

OpenAI's new Responses API delivers significant performance improvements with dramatically better cache utilization compared to Chat Completions. The stateful design enables lower latency, reduced costs, and persistent reasoning across conversation turns. GPT-5 integrated via Responses scores 5% higher on benchmarks purely from preserved reasoning state.

By OpenAI →

How Software Engineers Make Productive Decisions

Engineers waste time treating reversible choices like permanent commitments. Use a simple 3-question filter: What's the impact if wrong? How hard to reverse? Can we mitigate with small blast radius? Most decisions are two-way doors you can walk back through.

By Adolfo Ochagavía →

⏳ Back in Time

Most clicks from last newsletter:

đź”— The Link Lounge 

Unordered finds from around the web:

Find something cool? You can send us links to feature here via email.

🧰 The Toolbox

Tools and products we're excited about today:

sj.h

sj.h is a minimalist JSON parsing library for C99 that provides zero-allocation parsing with error location reporting. It handles JSON structure parsing while leaving number and string interpretation to the developer for maximum flexibility.

Learn more →

Cachey 

Cachey is a high-performance read-through cache for object storage that provides HTTP API access to S3-compatible backends with hybrid memory and disk caching, fixed 16MB pages, and hedged requests for reduced latency.

Learn more →

SQLiteData

SQLiteData is a fast, lightweight replacement for SwiftData that uses SQLite for data persistence with SwiftUI property wrappers like @FetchAll and @Table, plus built-in CloudKit synchronization and sharing capabilities.

Learn more →

npm-check-updates 

npm-check-updates upgrades your package.json dependencies to the latest versions while maintaining existing semantic versioning policies. It only modifies package.json and supports npm, yarn, pnpm, deno, and bun with extensive filtering options.

Learn more →

They can’t scam you if they can’t find you.

Your personal info powers every scam. Whether it’s fake IRS calls, phishing texts, or insurance scams, they usually start by buying your data from shady broker sites.


Incogni makes you invisible to these scammers by deleting your personal data wherever it’s exposed online. Their service covers 420+ data broker sites and routinely removes your information as soon as it’s exposed.  


Alternatively, you can get their Unlimited plan to send links straight to their team and have your data removed from additional websites not covered in their automated removals. Less exposure, less risk, more peace of mind.


Protect your privacy with Incogni. Use code SITEPOINT for 55% off Annual Plans and start removing your personal data today.

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