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Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

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Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#151
post #92
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty true, someone today on here wrote, “teach it to understand swagger”, I actually laughed, like I’ve used swagger and it often turns into a Frankenstein, and sometimes for good reason. I completely understand the sentiment and I like swagger. I believe the world is wiggly, not geometrically perfect, intellectuals struggle with that because square problems are easier to solve. Ideal scenarios are predictable…

> Ask a construction worker about them. Hah. So true. The more I work on renovating parts of my house the more I see where a workers experience kicked in the finagle something. Very analogous to programming. All the parts that fit together perfectly are already easy today. It’s those bits that aren’t square, but also need to fit where the ‘art’ comes in. Can AI also do that part? IDK, currently I believe it will simp…

I’m positive about it, there is a lot of repetition in coding and it’s rare we get to spend the time on the good bits because of it.

If we need a semi-intelligent system to help us with the copy pasta, so be it.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, maybe we should replace lower and middle management with AI. What i usually find is that lower and middle management is the reason shit isn't getting done. They are the messenger that don't want to get shot but want to get promoted. Why not let the people on the floor complain to a AI manager, the people on the floor know exactly what is killing their productivity. Like "yo ai manager, manually filling…

> the people on the floor know exactly what is killing their productivity The reality is that they frequently don’t.

I’d say people on the floor know the problem very well. Frequently they don’t know the solution though and they are often the wrong people to find it.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#154
post #29

Looking back we had one CS professor who in 2007 predicted we'd all be jobless in ten years, i.e. 2017. His prediction was based on the trends he was seeing at the time. But it wasn't even AI. Instead he made this prediction because he saw the rise of no-code tools replacing software developers because managers could finally cut out the pesky "translators", i.e. software developers. I said it then and I will say it n…

> we had one CS professor who in 2007 predicted we'd all be jobless in ten years I always found that overwhelming majority of professional academic educators are particularly bad in anything that has to do with the practical side of their domain. That is especially true for software engineering. University lecturers are very detached from our field and it shows in how badly fresh grads are prepared to do any dev work…

University is good for giving deep understanding of what is going on and how things work, or even training you to reach for this deep understanding. It's not good at training you to be a good developer. This part takes a long time and some of it is specific to what domain / job you end up working on. Those two parts are complementary, and this deep understanding is part of what makes you a good dev.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#155
I feel when we have truly intelligent machines, programming jobs will be gone. But AI’s like ChatGPT aren’t there yet. It’s just good at faking it - until it isn’t and fails silently.

Maybe it’s the lack of data - it’s difficult to model the world accurately with just words. Maybe it’s an architectural limitation that no amount of data can fix and we need new better algorithms.

Either way, given the state of its current output I don’t think it’s there yet.

Should AI actually reach such a level … I think everyone will be out of a job. Accountants, engineers, lawyers, even doctors will take a haircut. Programmers will just be a drop in the ocean of the jobless.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#156
post #24

Just avoid careers in software development. These are not high paying, if you factor in total time invested and spent working; and you have to waste your life away sitting in an office chasing tickets. Nothing engineery about it. It’s modern day assembly line work.

What do you recommend for someone with a CS degree?

Sunk cost, so just work in tech ;-)

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#157
post #138

There's a weird phenomenon I've seen in a few domains of prideful ignorance. Backend engineers who proudly don't know how to write frontend code and vice versa. Professional engineers who refuse to learn how to use modern IDEs and monitoring platforms. People who don't know how to quickly prototype software as if building something without complete rigor is beneath them. People who refuse to learn or work in certain…

In my (small) experience I've seen that only once, a perfect specimen who fits your description. Unfortunately this person was acting-CTO of a startup. They decided that for a consumer product very close to what a smartphone can do, they didn't need an OS. So they started writing their build system with make only, then an OS, an IP stack, then a GUI, then added support for multithreading,... Of course Android existed…

That sounds like a fantastic hobby project - but being able to tell the difference between a hobby project and a viable product in the marketplace is... maybe something AI can help with!? :P

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#158
post #29

Looking back we had one CS professor who in 2007 predicted we'd all be jobless in ten years, i.e. 2017. His prediction was based on the trends he was seeing at the time. But it wasn't even AI. Instead he made this prediction because he saw the rise of no-code tools replacing software developers because managers could finally cut out the pesky "translators", i.e. software developers. I said it then and I will say it n…

The obligatory CommitStrip: https://www.commitstrip.com/en/2016/08/25/a-very-comprehensi...

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#159
post #46

I love to code, as much as I loved math in college, but coding paid better and I'm pretty good at it. Those were my choices though b/c I want to do something I love. Sure, I keep my eye on the "Delivered Value" by making sure I engineer solutions to real problems, but I've never wanted to move out of coding and into managing engineers to build stuff. I want to code. It seems to me that the advice given here would be…

It's like telling a musician to become a DJ because the point of performing is to entertain people. It's not wrong, but it's also not applicable to all people who enjoy performing an instrument.

I think there is room for interpretation as to whether it equates to telling a musician to become a DJ, or a pianist to wear a jacket, or soldiers to strap a first aid kit on left thigh.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#160
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His prediction was based on the trends he was seeing at the time. But it wasn't even AI. Instead he made this prediction because he saw the rise of no-code tools replacing software developers because managers could finally cut out the pesky "translators", i.e. software developers. It might sound really crazy and stupid today, but when SQL came out, it's advertised as one of "program-generating" languages and was su…

My career predates relational/SQL databases so I can confirm what you wrote. When Oracle came out the buzz was that a whole bunch of programmers would go away because managers and executives could write queries in a “natural” English-like language. That never happened. SQL is hard to master, but it’s the easy part of understanding the relational model and any particular schema. Instead Oracle and the other RDBMSs tha…

Mine doesn't predate it but it's very confusing for me to read this opinion.

From my point of view, it totally did happen? Can you imagine how many programmers the company would've needed to get all the data a business analyst casually queries per day?

What you're looking at is the quantity of people actually employed in the industry, not how many SQL made obsolete. The industry just grew so much that it didn't become an issue.

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