zlacker

a response like this is confusing to me. what you are saying makes sense, but seems irrelevant. something like gas town is clearly not attempting to be a production grade tool. its an opinionated glimpse into the future. i think the astethic was fitting and intentional.

this is the equivalent of some crazy inventor in the 19th century strapping a steam engine onto a unicycle and telling you that some day youll be able to go 100mph on a bike. He was right in the end, but no one is actually going to build something usable with current technology.

Opus 4.5 isnt there. But will there be a model in 3-5 years thats smart enough, fast enough, and cheap enough for a refined vision of this to be possible? Im going to bet on yes to that question.

>>anthon+(OP)
in 3-5years, sure, just like we are all currently using crypto to pay for groceries and smart contracts for all legal matters.

>>leftbe+ii
... no one ever used crypto to buy things. most engineers are currently already using AI. such a dumb comparison that really just doesnt pass the sniff test.

>>anthon+1p
Their green username is leftbehinds. Let them hold their wrong opinions based on outdated information.

>>anthon+1p
Not quite true. This pub's changed hands now but it was possible to pay in bitcoin for several years.

https://www.wired.com/story/london-bitcoin-pub/

>>jbl0nd+5o1
For anyone who takes doing their taxes seriously, this is a nightmare. Every pint ordered involves a capital gain (or loss) for the buyer. At a certain point you're doing enough accounting that you might as well be running the bar yourself (or just paying in cash)!

>>anthon+(OP)
I think this read is generous:

> something like gas town is clearly not attempting to be a production grade tool.

Compare to the first two sentences:

> Gas Town is a new take on the IDE for 2026. Gas Town helps you with the tedium of running lots of Claude Code instances. Stuff gets lost, it’s hard to track who’s doing what, etc. Gas Town helps with all that yak shaving, and lets you focus on what your Claude Codes are working on.

Compared to your read, my read is confused: is it or is it not intending to be a useful tool (we can debate "production" quality, here I'm just thinking something I'd actually use meaningfully -- like Claude Code)?

I think the author wants us to take this post seriously, so I'm taking it seriously, and my critique in the original post was a serious reaction.

>>anthon+1p
people use crypto to buy black market goods like drugs. Its incredibly reliable to buy drugs with.

>>benreg+kq1
Depends. If you hold crypto for more than a year in Germany, gains are tax free.

>>jbl0nd+5o1
Inside scoop: the pub group who owned that pub (still going, owns four in Cambridge and environs) was cofounded by Steve Early, a Cambridge computer scientist who wrote his own POS software, so it was very much a case of "yeah, that sounds like fun, I'll add it". (Until tax and primary rate risk made it not fun, so it was removed.)

The POS software's on GitHub: https://github.com/sde1000/quicktill

>>mccoyb+Yz1
The blog post says, many times, not to use Gastown. It makes fun of the tool's inconsistent branding and describes a lot of jankiness.

This tool is dangerous, largely untested, and yet may be of interest if you are already doing similar things in production.

>>anthon+1p
People use crypto all the time to buy dollars. Thats its main purpose: spend sanctioned rubles to buy crypto to buy dollars; use randomware to coersively obtain crpyto to buy dollars, etc.

>>adw+XM1
That's brilliant insight, thank you. I enjoyed reading Steve's extensive read me.

Also I'm planning a trip to Cambridge so I've bookmarked one of the pubs for a visit.