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Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

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Re: Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

#291

Post by KellyCriterion »

hexbin010 wrote: post #248
meetingthrower wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is still touched by human - AI is just giving suggestions to humans to speed them up. Can get them 80-90% there. I think also you need to compare it to what was already there. No QA on the humans. Done off the side of their desk with no oversite, process, or checking. Huge amounts of manual errors. The new solution just needs to be better than the old one, it doesn't need to be perfect. (But I 100% agree t…

> I think also you need to compare it to what was already there No. The bar is "miracle" and can cure cancer etc and can replace all developers etc. The bar is much higher than existing manual processes. It absolutely needs to be perfection to match the lofty claims

Miracle was meant here "figuratively", esp for non tech people this wording seems plausible from their perspective, because they can now do that without dev support

Re: Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

#292

Post by latexr »

closewith wrote: post #252
latexr wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re failing to understand the complaint is about the hollow term being used to sound grandiose. A street sweeper “delivers value” in the form of a clean street. A lunch lady at a school “delivers solutions” in the form of reducing hunger in children. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do something for others, the criticism is of the vague terminology. The marketing speak. I’ve said that so many times, I’d hope…

> You’re failing to understand the complaint is about the hollow term being used to sound grandiose. This isn’t a critique of language - it’s a category error. You’re confusing the mechanism with the purpose. In your examples, a street sweeper or lunch lady (Google says this is an antiquated US term for canteen worker?) do indeed deliver value, clean streets and nourished students. That's the value they're paid to pr…

> But according to you, care and deliberate attention (software as craft) are the only way. An absolutist position.

No! That is not what I’m saying! How can you argue my position is an absolute when I just explicitly described it as a spectrum?!

However, I do believe you’re arguing in good faith, I just don’t think we’re on the same page. I wish we were, as while I think we might still disagree, I also believe we’d have an interesting conversation. Probably more so in person.

Unfortunately, I have to go get some work done so I’m unable to continue as of now. Still, instead of leaving you hanging, I wanted to thank you for the respectful conversation as well as your patience and I believe genuine effort in trying to understand my position.

Re: Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

#294

Post by KellyCriterion »

rvz wrote: post #241
lrvick wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider security engineering. It requires constantly thinking about unconventional ways to attack systems, and taking advantage of common coding mistakes LLMs produce as often is humans because it learned from humans. Security engineers will have jobs until software is perfectly secure... and that is going to be a while. I do not use LLMs at all to do my job, and it is unlikely I ever would. Clients pay me -after- t…

> Security engineers will have jobs until software is perfectly secure... and that is going to be a while. Might be never or if the software is not used at all. The perfect and secure software is none.

>The perfect and secure software is none.

Well, at least not connected to the internet?

Re: Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

#295

Post by KptMarchewa »

latexr wrote: post #233
solumunus wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Features are requested from me, I deliver them to the customer, the customer is happy and pays me. I deliver solutions and the customer deems them to be value for their business... What else am I supposed to call that? I'm extremely diligent around vetting all code in my repo's. Everything is thoroughly tested and follows the same standards that were in my codebase before the invention of LLM's. I'm not "vi…

Yes yes, so does a street sweeper. Someone pays them because the road is dirty, and they use a broom to deliver the solution of a cleaner street, which is of value to the user. Do you see why that’s marketing speak? You’re using vague terms which can be applied to anything. It avoids commitment and makes whatever you do seem grandiose. That’s marketing. A few years ago, every app developer and designer was a “story t…

>Yes yes, so does a street sweeper. Someone pays them because the road is dirty, and they use a broom to deliver the solution of a cleaner street, which is of value to the user.

Yes, it's exactly the same. Is your problem the fact that this gets you off the high horse?

Re: Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

#296

Post by mathgeek »

lelanthran wrote: post #242
abalashov wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the plus side, vibe coding disaster remediation looks to be a promising revenue stream in the near future, and I am rubbing my hands together eagerly as I ponder the filthy lucre.

> On the plus side, vibe coding disaster remediation looks to be a promising revenue stream in the near future, and I am rubbing my hands together eagerly as I ponder the filthy lucre. I don't think it will be; a vibe coder using Gas Town will easily spit out 300k LoC for a MVP TODO application. Can you imagine what it will spit out for anything non-trivial? How do you even begin to approach remedying that? The only…

There's a middle ground here that you're not considering (at least in the small amount of text). Vibe coders will spit out a lot of nonsense because they don't have the skills (or choose not) to tweak the output of their agents. A well seasoned developer using tools like Claude Code on such a codebase can remediate a lot more quickly at this point than someone not using any AI. The current best practices are akin to thinking like a mathematician with regards to calculator use, rather than like a student trying to just pass a class. Working in small chunks and understanding the output at every step is the best approach in some situations.

Re: Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

#297

Post by abalashov »

mathgeek wrote: post #296
lelanthran wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the plus side, vibe coding disaster remediation looks to be a promising revenue stream in the near future, and I am rubbing my hands together eagerly as I ponder the filthy lucre. I don't think it will be; a vibe coder using Gas Town will easily spit out 300k LoC for a MVP TODO application. Can you imagine what it will spit out for anything non-trivial? How do you even begin to approach remedying that? The only…

There's a middle ground here that you're not considering (at least in the small amount of text). Vibe coders will spit out a lot of nonsense because they don't have the skills (or choose not) to tweak the output of their agents. A well seasoned developer using tools like Claude Code on such a codebase can remediate a lot more quickly at this point than someone not using any AI. The current best practices are akin to…

That's very true. The LLM can be an accelerator for the remediator, too, with the value-add coming from "actually knowing what they're doing", much as before.

Re: Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

#298

Post by zeroxfe »

fourside wrote: post #264

> Stack: Next.js, React, TailwindCSS, shadcn/ui, four languages (EN/DE/FR/JA). The AI picked most of this when I said "modern and clean." I’m not an AI hater but I do see this as evidence of LLMs being susceptible to chasing trends as much as people. Next.js with server rendered React is not a stack that an experienced web developer would have recommended for a “clean” solution to a collection of financial calculator…

TBH, that's pretty much the stack I'd pick if I were building anything new by hand. If you look at the site, there's a lot going on and Next + React + Tailwind does not seem so crazy.

These are all quite reliable well-understood components, and far from "chasing trends" IMO.

Re: Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

#299

Post by bigpeopleareold »

vim-guru wrote: post #71

I'm at the opposite end. I feel AI is sucking all the joy out of the profession. Might pivot away and perhaps live a simpler life. Only problem is that I really need the paycheck :(

While my projects have not touched agentic AI yet and the type of code I have been writing is produced like back in the day (read documentation, write code, read documentation, write code ...) I expect that my next project will tether me to agentic AI systems more. I still have my hobby projects, which I code the old-fashioned way. Hey! at least it costs me much less that $100/month to tinker on projects ... more like the cost and wear on running my laptop!

There are people here "I can finally get all my ideas done!" Sure, if they are really important enough, I guess. But high technology is much, much less important to me than my employer or probably others here on HN. I can only be concerned with the paycheck at this point. And at this point, they are happy that I can read documentation, write code, read documentation, write code, and don't care how it gets done. (For what I am working in though, I'd just skip the AI training step.)

With that in mind, I like to use PLs as tools to clarify thinking. There are others that think using PLs and their accompanying tools as friction to their goals, but my friction is understanding the problems I am trying to solve. So, while taking the adventure into automated tooling might be interesting, it doesn't replace the friction (just the feeling I have to read more potential garbage code.)

Re: Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back

#300

Post by 7777332215 »

cbdevidal wrote: post #240
7777332215 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what we currently have is pretty close to the ceiling for LLMs. But with the amount of money being spent there might be a new breakthrough (not llm)

It must depend on the person. I’ve been coding for all my life but have never been GOOD. I thoroughly enjoy coding, despite being frustrated many times. Literally yesterday I remarked to my tech friends how fun coding with CoPilot is. I actually make forward progress now, and I understand all that the agent is doing. For me, coding is an enjoyable means to an end. I do enjoy the process, but I enjoy the results more.

You could read the syntax and see what it logically did. But you likely don't always know why it did something, and you definitely don't know why another way wasn't chosen (maybe that way would have better aligned with your long term goals)
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