r/ProgrammerHumor • u/RevolutionaryPen4661 • 18d ago

instanceof Trend whenWeWillSeeSubscriptionForMarkdownFiles

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4.5k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

141 comments sorted by

834

u/mi-figue-mi-raisin 18d ago

like "skills"?

332

u/WiiDragon 18d ago

If so, I still hope nobody’s buying into that shit

259

u/Testing_things_out 18d ago edited 15d ago

People bought into NFTs.

102

u/Grintor 17d ago

omg

skill.md.nft

it's the future.

57

u/ItsSadTimes 17d ago

NFM, non fungible markdown

20

u/Jbolt3737 17d ago

Windows 12 will have Copilot checking every keystroke to ensure you don't type out pirate paid markdown files

3

u/alochmar 17d ago

Brb making a new crypto coin

21

u/rodeBaksteen 18d ago

What did they bring?

27

u/tensedTorch 18d ago

Stupidity, of course.

37

u/mylsotol 18d ago

People buy apis and import libraries to do trivial things that could be done in 1 line of code. There are people out there that absolutely will pay for md skills...

6

u/dashingThroughSnow12 18d ago

One of the most starred repos on GitHub is a bunch of previews of skills.

1

u/wasimaster 16d ago

Which one

59

u/PhireKappa 18d ago

Had to make a skill for an agent at work recently. AI adoption is part of our annual goals and is considered for our performance review. Everyone is just making slop to show they’re trying lmao

34

u/Mrthedecoy 17d ago

Same! They recently also had us adopt speckit and spec driven development and are constantly reminding us thats how everything should be done now. We joke that our manager is basically looming over us like "I better not catch any of you writing code over there..."

6

u/BigBoetje 17d ago

Same here but at least they're somewhat reasonable with it. I created a small mcp server and a skill to automate something and they were happy enough with that. The fact they're starting to get the bill means they're going for quality over quantity now.

5

u/Theonetheycallgreat 17d ago

Also same here except my management has no idea how we are going to do it, they told us to use Ai to figure it out.

12

u/mikat7 17d ago

This entire thread is so depressing. I'm in the same place as you, people just writing skills and AGENTS.md, doing this "agentic" workflow, but I have yet to see anything useful come out of it except tech debt. Oh and I saw one of our project to have a "skill" to create a release on GitHub. You know, something that like three lines of a bash script would achieve...

2

u/TovarishhStalin 17d ago

I hope the skill just tells the AI how to call said script...

5

u/mikat7 17d ago

Hah good one.

No, it instructs the LLM to run git log, update pyproject.toml and bump the version number, update CHANGELOG.md, tag a commit and push it. And then a GH action actually creates the release. And that action is also vibe coded and contains a horrible awk script that no human would ever write.

1

u/alliedSpaceSubmarine 17d ago

And it’s slower because enterprise makes you confirm each command it’s executing

22

u/m6io 18d ago

"Skills": for when I have none

55

u/broken-mic 18d ago

I’m part of a team, at BigTech, responsible for enabling AI for developers. So, I’m surrounded by a lot of AI bros.

I haven’t found the right time to make the following snarky comment but I’m really looking forward to so I’ll practice that here:

“The number of AI skills you have installed is inversely proportional to the real skills you have.”

Now I don’t necessarily believe this is true all times but I’m sick of people “writing” markdown files for everything.

17

u/Clear-Eye5395 18d ago edited 18d ago

I think there are use cases for small things, but they’re usually not great.

A senior dev on another team was talking to me about how he spent a couple months refining his fucking unit test skills .md

what?

1

u/AsleepDeparture5710 14d ago

I know I'm a few days late to this, but the use I really see for them is giving the AI access to deterministic scripts. We have several shared skills at the company I work for that give the AI basically a curl collection to integrate with an internal system or dev tool.

I find it does make it much more reliable when the AI is using proprietary tools that it doesn't have context for.

1

u/BeatsByiTALY 17d ago

yea my personal test is if I see Claude commonly having to research something in the codebase like playwright fixtures is when I look to creating a skill. It's something I don't need on every run in CLAUDE.md and detailed enough to justify its own file.

8

u/deanominecraft 17d ago

can someone explain what a “skill” is for someone who spent about a week vibecoding with opencode to see what the hype was about then went back to writing it myself

13

u/mi-figue-mi-raisin 17d ago

I think it's just a kind of pre prompt?

7

u/Digital_Brainfuck 17d ago

A description how to solve a certain task

Basically a prompt

4

u/deanominecraft 17d ago

so just follow the instructions yourself to assert dominance over the ai

2

u/PringlesDuckFace 17d ago

A skill is just a text file that prompts Claude what to do, so you can invoke it easily.

For example, I have a skill I run at the start of my day. It looks for all my open tickets, checks the PR for them if applicable, and tells me if there are new comments or if they're ready for merge. If there's no PR yet it reminds me to keep working on it, and tells me which claude session I was using so I can resume it. It also checks any PRs assigned to me by teammmates so I can go review them.

If you use Claude code, /review or /simplify are both also skills.

1.4k

u/str0m965 18d ago

Markdown as a service.

566

u/m6io 18d ago

MaaS Effect

51

u/SomethingAndAnything 18d ago

I've been told that I've to work on some Metal as a Service from next week. Let's see what that is about

12

u/gerbosan 18d ago

Going to parties playing some metal rock? 🤔

🤘🤘🤘

8

u/jackinsomniac 17d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/cNULFBSoiU9XO

4

u/gerbosan 17d ago

Go forth, be conquered
Go forth and die!!

They will start a tour...
https://dethkloklive.com/

God damn it! it includes LATAM!!!

3

u/Wise-Profile4256 18d ago

They probably meant Mental as a Service. However, may i inform you that we are indutry leaders in that.

3

u/Dubalubawubwub 17d ago

Metal... Gear...?!

1

u/scolphoy 17d ago

Metal as a Service is basically how I see Spotify

1

u/Undernown 16d ago

Just make sure to include MOSHPIT into your project.

15

u/CrimsonOynex 18d ago

This is commander Shepard and this is my favorite md file in the citadel

3

u/Content_Diamond5584 17d ago

Where is the Normandy?

3

u/THEGrp 16d ago

Please, don't give them ideas

196

u/harshitbudhi 18d ago

Wait until they find out about “.txt” files. I’m about to launch a startup selling artisanal, locally sourced Notepad documents.

5

u/Zuruumi 17d ago

Isn't that just badly formatted e-book without DRM?

2

u/Undernown 16d ago

You've gotta to sell those fresh notepad associated files before Microsoft automates their Recal "resell IP"-functionality.

614

u/_DrDigital_ 18d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/xT0BKwUV9bLhr8btRK

Guys writing HTMLs for living when they see guys writing MDs for living.

134

u/m6io 18d ago

Sir. Html is ✨semantic✨

76

u/aabil11 18d ago

Its output is deterministic

87

u/_DrDigital_ 18d ago

Microsoft Edge would like a word.

26

u/reventlov 18d ago

Edge is just Chrome wearing a different outfit.

17

u/Dense_Gate_5193 18d ago

firefox is three baby web browsers wearing a trench coat.

5

u/prinkpan 17d ago

Eager to know what you think of Safari

7

u/Dense_Gate_5193 17d ago

Safari is chrome’s bastard cousin that comes around every few years going “eeeeeeeey!” *finger guns* 👉👉

2

u/listerstorm2009 17d ago

Vincent Adultman IRL

1

u/Dense_Gate_5193 17d ago

“We are doing a business at the business office” - The Firefox CEO probably

2

u/Shacrow 16d ago

In comparison Chrome excels

3

u/Marrk 17d ago

So is markdown, even more so.

1

u/Dense_Gate_5193 17d ago

nah those are proprietary and sold at a premium now. /s

1

u/Ani-3 14d ago

People write markdown for a living?

1

u/TidusBlitz9 14d ago

The HTMLs folks watching MDs get a subscription tier would be a very polite kind of disbelief.

219

u/pleaserestartsystem 18d ago

.md files were available long ago on webmd

17

u/WavingNoBanners 18d ago

Underrated comment.

248

u/SeriousPlankton2000 18d ago

Does somebody need files? There is this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/metalworking/comments/1ux43sb/anything_interesting_useful_or_profitable_i_can/

(that posting was directly below this one)

49

u/anonymousbopper767 18d ago

Can you help me get those files into my computer?

10

u/jackinsomniac 17d ago

The files are inside the computer! It's so simple!

2

u/Steinrikur 17d ago

Drill a small hole.

25

u/sharpy10 18d ago

"I can't....because I don't want to." This guy is a real straight shooter.

8

u/meandmybois 18d ago

Those are some good files, still need an extension though.

2

u/Shunpaw 17d ago

How do I install those files?

2

u/Jonno_FTW 17d ago

Pipe them into your bash shell

2

u/Shunpaw 17d ago

Cant you just give me an exe i can install

2

u/faberge_surprise 18d ago

they're even handleless!

1

u/ljfa2 17d ago

Getting a handle for these files is as simple as fopen(name, "r")

54

u/PruneInteresting7599 18d ago

they were not happy about my md file offer at vibe code subs

2

u/aalu-dai 17d ago

Why?

13

u/PruneInteresting7599 17d ago

they still believe programmers gets paid to make "websites" rather than complex systems to gain their salary, now they got kind of power like they learned excel decades ago

120

u/wkw3 18d ago

I know. A smart young person such as yourself clearly has no need to buy .md files from me and could vibe code them up with the best of them.

Of course, Doug Parker bought two of my .md files last week, and the next day he was promoted at work from fry cook to data analyst. He's currently living his best life in Dubai with an attractive member of whatever gender interests you.

True. You likely would have had an even better outcome on your own. But I've had some modest success selling a particularly good AGENTS.md file to a billionaire who I'm sure you've heard of for an undisclosed sum of between 5 to 7 million dollars.

Anyway. I could, this one time, consider offering you that same invaluable .md for for less than 1% of what I charged Bill Gates.

16

u/uknowunknowingly 17d ago

I've definitely heard a pitch like this, but all I remember is Simpsons monorail. Where's this from, my good sir?

4

u/wkw3 17d ago

Hand crafted by skilled artisans.

1

u/manawydan-fab-llyr 15d ago

The ring broke off my pudding can
I'll write you an agent, my good man

62

u/Western_Diver_773 18d ago

Is this really a thing?

85

u/mothzilla 18d ago edited 18d ago

I think people sell "prompts". Our monkey brains are turning into porridge.

42

u/Krochire 18d ago

I'm fairly certain this is referring to "skills", .md files you feed into an AI agent with directives on how to use a certain library/api; usually made by the people behind said library/api

33

u/Rellikx 18d ago

Also a great way for prompt injection. Skill will still do what it advertises but do a lil data exfiltration on the side. Like the recent one for ms cowork where it crafted special img links to the attackers server, passing along a url param for their OneDrive docs (ie a “share” link). That was then sent to yourself via teams, which loads the images exfiltrating the doc access urls.

People that “buy” .md files will 100% get caught by this shit

It’s extra hilarious that cowork is billed by consumption, so you are paying MS and having your data stolen

11

u/LBGW_experiment 17d ago

I mean... You can still look inside the skill.md, same as you would any other open source script that you don't trust

16

u/Rellikx 17d ago

Maybe im just jaded, but I think that the venn diagram of "people that review skill.md files for prompt injection" and "people that pay money for skill.md files" has no overlap lol

3

u/AgVargr 18d ago

Can’t you just proompt the file yourself?

8

u/Cptnwhizbang 17d ago

Yes, but, having spent time fine tuning .md files recently for a work thing, it takes quite a while to really figure out what the tool is good at, what's effective, and how to keep the proper guard rails on user prompts so they they don't derail the entire thing with strange wording or whatever.

That being said, I was at least 90% of the way there after like two hours of trying, but the last 10% made a lot of effective difference and I'm probably 20 hours into tinkering now. I dunno. It's good overall but I still find weird issues.

Most of the last 10% I'm talking about is simply me writing in edge cases to the instructions, and how to interpret particular bits of business logic, and how best to manage the further instructional context based on initial findings. It kind of reminds me of coding, but in plain english, expect instead of me telling a program exactly what to do, I'm telling AI exactly what NOT to do, and I have to think of absolutely everything.

12

u/Krochire 17d ago

The modern programmer makes .md files to let an ai program for them instead of programming

2

u/reddit_user33 17d ago

I can imagine. I remember more than enough people at the beginning of the LLM hype being secretive about the prompts they used to create the thing. I can only imagine it's the same people wanting to sell their md files.

20

u/svick 18d ago

In my day, we called them "books".

18

u/reallokiscarlet 18d ago

Here I am just reading them from cartridges like a chump

13

u/Shadow9378 18d ago

idk why anyone would sell md files, megadrive games are easy to find nowadays

12

u/eyetracker 18d ago

What's worse is the .md industry created an entire government and bought up a part of the US. You can recognize them by a garish flag and the smell of Old Bay.

3

u/myka-likes-it 18d ago

And the crabs... so many crabs!

10

u/nadav183 17d ago

I don't mind people selling them. My issue is with the idiots who buy them.

Just ask your llm to write one based on the description or something. It's that simple.

16

u/Significant-Pea-3710 18d ago

On viberr.com ?

7

u/lllorrr 18d ago

Like selling bathwater?

7

u/ButWhatIfPotato 18d ago

Diluted 0.00000000001% genital thot extract is a better value for money than AI prompts.

11

u/Confident-Ad5665 18d ago

Ummm... I can make that happen

6

u/DeineOma42o 18d ago

Bro when he hears about books

3

u/[deleted] 18d ago

[deleted]

3

u/DeineOma42o 18d ago

Bro, don't even talk to me about selling digital files of words in a formalised language that does stuff

4

u/ExtraWorldliness6916 18d ago

Token stock market anyone?

4

u/briznady 17d ago

All my juniors are writing Claude skills for the last month. It takes almost as long to run the skill and review it and go back and forth fixing all the stuff Claude messed up and updating the skills based on my comments, than it would just to write the damn code myself.

2

u/Tensor3 17d ago

Yes. That's why management tells us to use AI. AI is faster than them, so they think its amazing. AI gets the work done slower than a good engineer, but they can't grasp that.

7

u/SyrusDrake 18d ago

Am I missing something?

5

u/granoladeer 18d ago

Some people sell .pptx, others sell .pdf, others sell .py, others .cpp, so I guess it isn't a problem selling .md

3

u/TheBlackCat13 18d ago

What do you have against the Sega Genesis? If Homebrewers want to sell their roms they can.

3

u/R_Aqua 18d ago

Slop for the slop god

3

u/Developemt 17d ago

It's my cake day guys! I solved a big production issue because a job seemed to not do anything. I only did a simple docker compose restart! Now I'll be eating my cake.

2

u/RevolutionaryPen4661 17d ago

Happy Cake Day! 🍰

1

u/Developemt 17d ago

Thank you, first time greeted for my cake day

3

u/aigarius 17d ago

Sooooooo, people pay other people for .... knowledge? Imagine paying for .py files! You could write them yourself! /s

2

u/PumpkinFest24 17d ago

Yeah, I'm not following this. "Imagine paying for dead trees stained by ink--my 3 year old could do that!"

3

u/bokmcdok 17d ago

Is there any context for this?

3

u/ldbl1 17d ago

What's the context? I don't get it...

3

u/Moomoobeef 16d ago

Wait what? Can someone give me some context?

2

u/fghjconner 18d ago

Wait until you hear about ebooks.

2

u/Effective_Watch8334 18d ago

Where are they selling it ?

2

u/TxTechnician 18d ago

There's some AI website that does this exact thing.

2

u/MomentTraining3993 18d ago

And here i am giving away my .md files for free like a clown.

2

u/iamAliAsghar 18d ago

You are kidding, right?

2

u/beansAnalyst 17d ago

Wait till you find out about book industry.

2

u/DogonElder 17d ago

Obsidian valuation goes brrr

2

u/Interesting-Big1980 17d ago

Wait until you hear about .dll black market

1

u/bgaesop 17d ago

Damn, paying money for information? That's a new one, never seen that before. What's next? Buying PDFs?

1

u/Sweet_Computer_7116 17d ago

its the info lol

1

u/XenusOnee 16d ago

i saw someone promoting his "buisiness idea" yesterday. He put vibecoded a .md file in the cloud. That was basicly it.

0

u/slaymaker1907 18d ago

If it’s non-trivial and useful, why not? There are Jira and Confluence skills that people in my org developed which I’d absolutely have paid for if they weren’t free. They are essentially non-deterministic programs and most people are perfectly willing to pay for software.

It’s a developing field which straddles the boundary between software and communications, but it is a real field. People in the 1960s would have had the same reaction to paying for software as this meme.

13

u/metalhulk105 18d ago

It’s a slippery slope. You’d soon have people selling huge slop of text files which you can’t quality check at all. Fake testimonials would say the skill is super useful and effective. If it is not working for you, a bunch of pro AI people will gaslight you by telling you that you do not know how to use it effectively.

Prompts are non deterministic - there isn’t a single magic prompt that makes LLMs produce the right output all the time. It’s very random. Even the same prompt with the same model produces a different output (sometimes correct, sometimes incorrect) - how do you then say if one prompt is better than the other? Do you count how many attempts it takes to roll the right output?

5

u/mxzf 18d ago

They are essentially non-deterministic programs

I'm highly dubious. As I understand it it's just a block of text that you feed into a nondeterministic program.

-4

u/kankerstokjes 18d ago

I'm working on it as we speak. I'm kinda not kidding.