Exactly like my example above. 1/8 implies +or- 1/16. While .125 implies +or- .0005, but it was only measured to +or- .0625, which is 2 orders of magnitude different.

The fraction allows you to communicate length and tolerance in a single number. A decimal implies precision to the last number, a measure with a fraction can show 1/8 as more granular than 1/16. 1/8 of a cm is less precise than a mm, but if you wrote 1.125 cm, you are now implying sub mm level precision.

This matters because the level needed in building generally doesn’t line up to 1/10 measurements. For example if you had a brick wall and a row had 1 cm height differences between bricks in a row it would be extremely obvious and look terrible. A 1mm height difference would be impossible to notice, but is also overkill to get that level. Ideal is about 5/8 cm or 6.35 mm difference over 3 meters of wall. The fractional measure often ends up easier to work with in practice.

AI is a lot closer to a revolution than to a bust. It’s already likely going to remain an established tool for software development and process automation.

It still remains to be seen if a company can be a single person managing an army of agents can actually become a sustainable company. This would be an industrial revolution on steroids type change that’s honestly terrifying.

An equally or even more likely scenario is we get most of the way there, but it only reduces the need for developer type jobs by 20-50%. From here lots of things could happen. The job market could stay somewhat stable as while companies hire less people, there are more smaller companies with direct hires as the barrier is massively reduced. The job market drastically shrinks and software becomes a less attractive discipline compared to other types of engineering or office work. An industry wide Cobol type situation happens as those that survive the job losses retire and laid off workers have moved on to other industries and no junior positions exist.

P is for Pterodactyl.