A book about swords

Carmack read a translation of Musashi's Book of Five Rings. The introduction traced how swordsmanship slid from battlefield necessity to sport, curiosity and hobby.

“I recently went through a translation of Musashi's Book of Five Rings.”

Banned, then rebranded

Under the post-WW2 occupation, martial arts were outlawed in Japan. Judo survived by being pitched as western wrestling, Kendo later as fencing.

Assembly already went first

Plenty of programmers still remember hand assembling opcodes to hex, magic numbers stuck in their heads. Even today's assembly holdouts, like FFmpeg, don't work that low anymore.

“dozens of people reading this that remember hand assembling opcodes to hex”

From -jitsu to -do

AI is stripping the necessity out of skills that used to define the job. Writing code carefully by hand is turning into a discipline you practice, not a weapon you need.

“carefully writing code completely by hand is moving from a -jitsu to a -do. Code-do? Codo?”

Retro computing is fine

Carmack has no problem with the shift. The retro scene is full of people rebuilding old machines and old skills purely because they love it.

“That's ok! The retro computing scene is delightful”

Don't get mauled

The warning is about pride, not nostalgia. Inheriting a tradition doesn't protect you from an amateur with better tools, and Musashi would have liked assault rifles.

“don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master, heir to lifetimes of tradition, that gets mauled by an amateur MMA fighter”