January 16, 2026
Truckla vibes, Reddit rants
High-Level Is the Goal
Devs fight over slow apps, jQuery nostalgia, and what “low-level” even means
TLDR: Ben Visness argues slow apps come from bad foundations, using a Tesla pickup hack and Old vs New Reddit to prove the stack matters. Comments clash: some want a plan, others roast jQuery nostalgia, and many ask if “low-level” dreams just end up as high-level tools anyway.
Ben Visness says the fix for slow, bloated apps is going low-level—closer to the machine—so we can build better high-level tools later. He uses Truckla, a Tesla turned into a pickup, to argue: start with the right frame or you get a pretty-but-bad truck. He points to New Reddit’s lag versus Old Reddit’s snappy feel as proof the tech stack shapes the experience. The crowd? Immediately cinematic: “this reads like a Wes Anderson film,” joked one commenter, setting the tone.
Then the gloves came off. Critics asked for action: where’s the plan, where’s the link to the Handmade community, and why is the blog so sparse? Supporters cheered the core message: abstractions should help, not hide—stop fighting tools that block understanding. But the big brawl was nostalgia vs modernity: did the piece over-romance jQuery, the old web helper, while ignoring its messy past? React, the popular modern library, “won” for a reason, argued others. Another zinger landed: if you keep adding helpful layers, aren’t you just making a high-level language anyway?
Between “12 apps at once!” memes and Reddit performance rants, the audience split into two camps: build from the metal up, or accept the winners and make them faster. The vibe: passionate, practical, and very online. For the non-tech crowd: low-level means closer to the computer; high-level means easier tools built on top. That’s the tug-of-war here.
Key Points
- •The author argues that low-level programming is essential to building better high-level software systems.
- •He uses Simone Giertz’s Truckla project as an analogy to show that starting with the right foundation is crucial.
- •The tech stack is described as the software equivalent of a vehicle’s frame, determining final outcomes.
- •A comparison between New Reddit and Old Reddit highlights how stack choices can lead to performance differences.
- •The article questions the practicality of everyone building from scratch but maintains low-level knowledge should inform tool and stack design.