Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

praf.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 262 posts

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#151

Post by creesch »

theshrike79 wrote: post #41
foo42 wrote: post #30

The tradeoff of higher velocity for less enjoyment may feel less welcome when it becomes the new baseline and the expectation of employers / customers. The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. I suspect it doesn't matter how we feel about it mind you. If it's going to happen it will, whether we enjoy t…

The trick is not telling anyone you spent an hour to do 7 hours of work. That's stupid and detrimental to your mental health. You do it in an hour, spend maybe 1-2 hours to make it even better and prettier and then relax. Do all that menial shit you've got lined up anyway.

> The trick is not telling anyone you spent an hour to do 7 hours of work.

I wish that the hype crowd would do that. It would make a for a much more enjoyable and sane experience on platforms like this. It's extremely difficult to have actual conversations subjects when there are crowds of fans involved who don't want to hear anything negative.

Yes, I also do realize there are people completely on the other side as well. But to honest, I can see why they are annoyed by the fan crowd.

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#152

Post by crabmusket »

baq wrote: post #142
codr7 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak for yourself, I'm not a computer.

Your opinion on the matter is not relevant whether you are or aren't one. Besides, if our brains aren't computers, what are they?

> what are they?

They are brains. I think it's on you to prove they're the same, rather than assuming they're the same and then demanding proof they aren't!

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#153

Post by guappa »

october8140 wrote: post #8

What kind of projects are people doing that are feeling the increased velocity?

Where I work there are like 2x as many front end developers as there is need for. They spend an insane amount of time doing meetings, they require approval of 2 different people for every simple CSS change.

Their job is to do meetings, and occasionally add a couple of items to the HTML, which has been mostly unchanged for the past 10 years, save for changing the CSS and updating the js framework they use.

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#154

Post by never_inline »

foo42 wrote: post #30

The tradeoff of higher velocity for less enjoyment may feel less welcome when it becomes the new baseline and the expectation of employers / customers. The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. I suspect it doesn't matter how we feel about it mind you. If it's going to happen it will, whether we enjoy t…

> The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day.

It's not really about excitement or enjoyment of work.

It's the fear about the __8x output__ being considered as __8x productivity__.

The increase in `output/productivity` factor has various negative implications. I would not say everything out loud. But the wise can read between the lines.

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#155

Post by creesch »

latexr wrote: post #36
foo42 wrote: post #30

The tradeoff of higher velocity for less enjoyment may feel less welcome when it becomes the new baseline and the expectation of employers / customers. The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. I suspect it doesn't matter how we feel about it mind you. If it's going to happen it will, whether we enjoy t…

> The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. That dumb attitude (which I understand you’re criticising) of “more more more” always reminds me of Lenny from the Simpsons moving fast through the yellow light, with nowhere to go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR10t-B9nYY > I suspect it doesn't matter how…

> That dumb attitude (which I understand you’re criticising) of “more more more” always reminds me of Lenny from the Simpsons moving fast through the yellow light, with nowhere to go.

Realizing that attitude in myself at times has given me so much more peace of mind. Just in general, not everything needs to be as fast and efficient as possible.

Not to mention the times where in the end I spend a lot of time and energy in trying to be faster only to end up with this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1319/

As far as LLM use goes, I don't need moar velocity! so I don't try to min max my agentic workflow just to squeeze out X amount more lines code.

In fact, I don't really work with agentic workflows to begin with. I more or less still use LLMs as tools external to the process. Using them as interactive rubber duckies. Things like deciphering spaghetti code, do a sanity check on code I wrote (and being very critical of the suggestions they come up with), getting a quick jump start on stuff I haven't used again (how do I get started with X of Y again?), that sort of stuff.

Using LLMs in the IDE and other agentic use is something I have worked with. But to me it falls under what I call "lazy use" where you are further and further removed from the creation of code, the reasoning behind it, etc. I know it is a highly popular approach with many people on HN. But in my experience, it is an approach that makes skills of experienced developers atrophy and makes sure junior developers are less likely to pick them up. Making both overly reliant on tools that have been shown to be less than reliable when the output isn't properly reviewed.

I get the firm feeling that velocity crowd works in environments where they are judged by the amount of tickets closed. Basically "feature complete, test green, merged, move on!". In that context, it isn't really "important" that the tests that are green are also refactored by the thing itself, just that they are green. It is a symptom of a corporate environment where the focus is on these "productivity" metrics. From that perspective I can fully see the appeal for LLM heavy workflows as they most certainly will have an impact on metrics like "tickets closed" or "lines of code written".

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#156

Post by shiandow »

never_inline wrote: post #154
foo42 wrote: post #30

The tradeoff of higher velocity for less enjoyment may feel less welcome when it becomes the new baseline and the expectation of employers / customers. The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. I suspect it doesn't matter how we feel about it mind you. If it's going to happen it will, whether we enjoy t…

> The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. It's not really about excitement or enjoyment of work. It's the fear about the __8x output__ being considered as __8x productivity__. The increase in `output/productivity` factor has various negative implications. I would not say everything out loud. But the w…

I always feel most productive when I remove more code than I add.

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#157

Post by elliottkember »

jwr wrote: post #49

In my experience, listening to music engages the creative part of your brain and severely limits what you can do, but this is not readily apparent. If I listen to music, I can spend an hour CODING YEAH! and be all smug and satisfied, until I turn the music off and discover that everything I've coded is unnecessary and there is an easier way to achieve the same goal. I just didn't see it, because the creative part of…

> discover that everything I've coded is unnecessary and there is an easier way to achieve the same goal

In my experience, there is no good shortcut to this realization. Doing it wrong first is part of the journey. You might as well enjoy the necessary mistakes along the way. The third time’s the charm!

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#158

Post by nullandvoid »

gibagger wrote: post #145
hudon wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What caused textile machines to replace the manual labor wasn’t the quality of their output, it was quantity. In fact, manually made clothing was of higher quality than what was machine-produced.

A low quality fabric makes the fashion police come and arrest you. Low quality software kills people.

Safety critical (will kill someone if not bug free) code makes up Both will stay manual / require high level of review they're not what's being disrupted (at-least in near term) - it's the rest.

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#159

Post by griffiths »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #110
furyofantares wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Society" is more than just software developers. We are very well paid for very cushy work. It's not good for anyone's work to get worse, but it's not a huge hit to society if a well-paid cushy job gets less cushy. And presumably people buy our work because it's valuable to them. Multiplying that by 8 would be a pretty big benefit to society. I don't want my job to get less fun, but I would press that button without…

My cushy software job has burned me out so badly that I am on medical leave with massive memory problems and a bit of concern about my heart So I mean... Yeah Is software more comfortable generally than many other lines of work? Yes probably Is it always soft and cushy? No, not at all. It is often high pressure and high stress

What kind of massive memory problems? I might have this but didn't think to attribute it to burnout.

Re: AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

#160

Post by bogtog »

sfn42 wrote: post #97
jwr wrote: post #49

In my experience, listening to music engages the creative part of your brain and severely limits what you can do, but this is not readily apparent. If I listen to music, I can spend an hour CODING YEAH! and be all smug and satisfied, until I turn the music off and discover that everything I've coded is unnecessary and there is an easier way to achieve the same goal. I just didn't see it, because the creative part of…

I just think it's distracting. I get caught up listening to the lyrics and kind of mentally singing along, stuff like that which disrupts my thought and distracts from what I actually want to be thinking about. I think this is individual, I have the same problem in social settings - if I'm having a conversation and a song I like is playing in the background I some times stop listening to the conversation and focus on…

Same here on all fronts about distractions. I can't tell whether when people talk about listening to music while working/studying: (1) they mean music with no lyrics, (2) they are unserious and okay with their work being constantly interrupted, or (3) they can resist thinking about the lyrics.

Some work may allow for seamless pivoting between work vs. enjoyable distraction, e.g., a clerk, but I often hear about people listening to music in other contexts.

Post reply on HN