“Always keep a separate backup.” For sure, every experienced programmer should know this. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 …

“Always keep a separate backup.” For sure, every experienced programmer should know this. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘷𝘪𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵. And we now have a legion of synthetic coding agents (like Cursor) that also apparently don’t always follow this basic principle, either. 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘄𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀. @SteveStricklan6 @GaryMarcus @robertskmiles Always keep another copy of your backups separate from your originals. It's been a rule since the 1960s.

Related

• All the best programmers I know are starting to write code by hand again
• ChatGPT doesn’t know its whisk from its elbow
• Why have many programmers gone back to handcoding? Because with AI (shocker!) it’s….
• Amazon’s AI coding boom is creating a mess. Vibe coding their way to chaos.

Source: Gary Marcus (X) | 2026-04-27