Part of my job as an educator is to create situations where my students will be stressed, they will struggle, they might get frustrated, they might even hate me (although that's rare). My mentor Kai Engelhardt said that part of his job was to "torture students". It's a joke of course but there is a kernel of truth there: particularly for learning skills like debugging, there's no better way to learn than by trying to reason your way out of a buggy mess of your own creation. Inflicting this kind of stuff on students is actually kind of essential to education.

A lot of students these days are totally unused to feeling stuck. I asked my Structured Programming students who failed my midterm test the other week how they studied. Many of them actually did quite a lot of practice! But the moment they encountered a bug they couldn't immediately fix, they turned to the bots to solve their problem for them. They read and understood what the bot did, and they conflated that with being able to do it themselves.

Part of the reason these bots are hurting education because they undercut my ability to inflict (educational, non-excessive) stress on my students. I used to design effective programming courses that would keep the stress levels low enough to avoid demoralising students but high enough that they had to engage and work and learn. Now if stress levels go over a certain (low) threshold, all the work gets done by AI unless it's in an invigilated exam, which I used to avoid because they're stress spikes. I don't have a good solution. Just very unhappy.

I found this excellent mastodon thread where someone was brave enough to have a look at the leaked Claude Code source code. Anthropic proudly boasted that much of Claude Code was written by Claude Code — and it definitely shows, and not in a good way. One of the most atrocious code bases I've ever seen. I guess they anticipate going out of business before they have to maintain this crap.

Dómine ne longe fácias auxílium tuum a me, ad defensiónem meam áspice: líbera me de ore leónis, et a córnibus unicornuórum humilitátem meam.

For the first three ferias of Holy Week, I sang gregorian chants (mostly various lenten introits) for the introit and recessional of our contemplative evening masses at All Saints Ainslie. On the Wednesday, I was joined by Lynda Tooth on piano and we performed Dowland's In this trembling shadow:

In this trembling shadow, cast

From those boughes which thy winds shake

Farre from humane troubles plac’d

Songs to the Lord would I make

Darknesse from my minde then take

For thy rites none may begin

Till they feele thy light within.

Nos autem gloriári opórtet, in cruce Dómini nostri Iesu Christi: in quo est salus, vita et ressuréctio nostra: per quem salváti, et liberáti sumus.

Adorámus te, Christe, et benedícimus tibi, quia per crucem sanctam tuam redemísti mundum.

The triduum at All Saints Ainslie consisted just of two main services: the Mass of the Lord's Supper on the Thursday night, followed by the Liturgy of the Passion the following morning. On Thursday we sang I Give You a New Commandment by Nardone during the foot washing:

I give to you a new commandment;

A new commandment I give to you:

That you love one another,

Love one another as I have loved you.

(Ubi cáritas et vera, Deus ibi est)

(Congregávit nos in unum Christi amor)

(Exultémus et in ipso iucundémur)

(Timeámus et amémus Deum vivum.)

(Et ex corde diligámus nos sincéro.)

Amen.

As well as Duruflé's Ubi Caritas during communion, with a very similar but slightly different text:

Ubi cáritas et amor, Deus ibi est.	Where there is charity and love, there God is.
Congregávit nos in unum Christi amor;	The love of Christ has gathered us as one;
Exultémus et in ipso iucundémur;	Let us then exult and delight in him;
Timeámus et amémus Deum vivum,	Let us fear and love the living God,
Et ex corde diligámus nos sincéro.	And love each other with sincere hearts.
Ubi cáritas et amor, Deus ibi est.	Where there is charity and love, there God is.
Amen.	Amen.

We weren't high church enough to do a proper Eucharistic procession, but there was a stripping of the altar afterwards with the recitation of Psalm 22. St. Michael and All Saints showed us how it's done with procession, veneration, stripping of the altar, the cleaning of the altar with water and wine, then Fr. Oliver Brewer-Lennon dramatically threw aside the brush used to clean the altar, smashed the old Paschal candle on the sanctuary steps, locked shut the sanctuary gates, tied them with his stole, and ran away (cf. Matthew 26:56), plunging the church into darkness.

The following Good Friday liturgy consisted primarily of the veneration of the Cross and the distribution of the Eucharist which was consecrated the night before. For veneration, we sang first the Victoria Reproaches:

O my people, what have I done to you?

Or in what way have I offended you?

Answer me.

Ἅγιος ὁ Θεός, Holy God,

Ἅγιος ἰσχυρός, Holy and Strong,

Ἅγιος ἀθάνατος, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς.

Holy and Immortal One, have mercy upon us.

Then we sang Leighton's Solus ad Victimam:

Alone to sacrifice thou goest, Lord,

Giving thyself to death, whom thou hast slain.

For us thy wretched folk is any word?

Who knew that for our sins this is thy pain?

For they are ours, O Lord, our deeds,

Why must thou suffer torture for our sins?

Let our hearts suffer in thy Passion, Lord,

That very suffering may thy mercy win.

This is the night of tears, the three days' space.

Sorrow abiding in the eventide,

Until the daybreak with the risen Christ,

And hearts that sorrowed shall be satisfied.

So may our hearts share in thine anguish, Lord,

That they may sharers of thy glory be;

Heavy with weeping may the three days pass,

To win the laughter of thine Easter Day.

During the distribution of communion we sang O vos omnes from Victoria's Tenebræ responsories.

O vos omnes qui tránsitis per viam,	O all you people that travel by this road,
Atténdite et vidéte!	Look and see
Si est dolor símilis, sicut dolor meus.	Whether there is any sorrow like my sorrow.
Atténdite, univérsi pópuli et vidéte dolórem meum	Look, all you people, and see my anguish.
Si est dolor símilis, sicut dolor meus.	Whether there is any sorrow like my sorrow.

RESURREXI, et adhuc tecum sum, allelúia: posuísti super me manum tuam, allelúia: mirábilis facta est sciéntia tua, allelúia, allelúia.

For Easter this year the church at All Saints Ainslie was filled with flowers, which was lovely. We had a vigil service at night followed by a service in the morning. Sadly the Vigil service didn't include a litany, but we sang Holy is the True Light at the vigil:

Holy is the True Light, and passing wonderful,

Lending radiance to them that endured

In the heat of the conflict.

From Christ they inherit a home of unfading splendour,

Wherein they rejoice with gladness evermore. Alleluia!

We also sang the Easter inaugural Gloria from the Darke Mass in F, both in the vigil and the Sunday Mass.

For the Sunday Mass we sang Ouseley's From the Rising of the Sun:

From the rising of the sun

To the going down of the same,

My Name shall be great among the Gentiles,

And in ev'ry place incense shall be offer'd up unto my Name:

For My Name shall be great among the heathen,

Thus saith the Lord!

I was also given the honour and privilege to once again proclaim the resurrection during the vigil, video below. This chant is my own version by expurgating some bits from the Roman Missal for length. I got a lot of compliments afterwards; although I can detect a few wobbly notes, I think my delivery is improved compared to last year.