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We mourn our craft

nolanlawson.com

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Re: We mourn our craft

#101

Post by apitman »

jmclnx wrote: post #68
sosomoxie wrote: post #10

I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing. I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We're on the precipice of somet…

I retired a few years ago, so I have no idea what AI programming is. But I mourned when CRT came out, I had just started programming. But I quickly learned CRTs were far better, I mourned when we moved to GUIs, I never liked the move and still do not like dealing with GUIs, but I got used to it. Went through all kinds of programming methods, too many to remember, but those were easy to ignore and workaround. I view t…

OT but I see your account was created in 2015, so I'm assuming very late in your career. Curious what brought you to HN at that time and not before?

Re: We mourn our craft

#102

Post by d357r0y3r »

I thought I'd miss all the typing and syntax, but I really don't. Everyone has their own relationship with coding, but for me, I get satisfaction out of the end product and putting it in front of someone. To the extend that I cared about the code, it mainly had to do with how much it allowed the end product to shine.

Re: We mourn our craft

#103

Post by croes »

sosomoxie wrote: post #10

I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing. I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We're on the precipice of somet…

> We're on the precipice of something incredible.

Total dependence on a service?

Re: We mourn our craft

#104

Post by henning »

> They can write code better than you or I can

Speak for yourself. They produce shit code and have terrible judgment. Otherwise we wouldn't need to babysit them so much.

Re: We mourn our craft

#105

Post by linguae »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #55
Levitating wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> golden age of computing I feel like we've reached the worst age of computing. Where our platforms are controlled by power hungry megacorporations and our software is over-engineered garbage. The same company that develops our browsers and our web standards is also actively destroying the internet with AI scrapers. Hobbyists lost the internet to companies and all software got worse for it. Our most popular desktop o…

It’s never been easier for you to make a competitor So what is stopping you other than yourself?

I’m not the OP, but my answer is that there’s a big difference between building products and building businesses.

I’ve been programming since 1998 when I was in elementary school. I have the technical skills to write almost anything I want, from productivity applications to operating systems and compilers. The vast availability of free, open source software tools helps a lot, and despite this year’s RAM and SSD prices, hardware is far more capable today at comparatively lower prices than a decade ago and especially when I started programming in 1998. My desktop computer is more capable than Google’s original cluster from 1998.

However, building businesses that can compete against Big Tech is an entirely different matter. Competing against Big Tech means fighting moats, network effects, and intellectual property laws. I can build an awesome mobile app, but when it’s time for me to distribute it, I have to either deal with app stores unless I build for a niche platform.

Yes, I agree that it’s never been easier to build competing products due to the tools we have today. However, Big Tech is even bigger today than it was in the past.

Re: We mourn our craft

#106

Post by Ronsenshi »

fastasucan wrote: post #63
iambateman wrote: post #9

I do not mourn. For my whole life I’ve been trying to make things—beautiful elegant things. When I was a child, I found a cracked version of Photoshop and made images which seemed like magic. When I was in college, I learned to make websites through careful, painstaking effort. When I was a young professional, I used those skills and others to make websites for hospitals and summer camps and conferences. Then I learn…

>It was, for me, never about the code. Then it wasn't your craft.

Yeah, seems like too many went into this field for money or status not because they like the process. Which is not an issue by itself, but now these people talk about how their AI assistant of choice made them some custom tool in two hours that would have taken them three weeks. And it's getting exhausting.

Re: We mourn our craft

#107

Post by iafan »

It makes me sad to read posts like this. If it is a necessary step for you on the journey from denial to acceptance to embracing the new state of the world, then sure, take your time.

But software engineering is the only industry that is built on the notion of rapid change, constant learning, and bootstrapping ourselves to new levels of abstraction so that we don't repeat ourselves and make each next step even more powerful.

Just yesterday we were pair programming with a talented junior AI developer. Today we are treating them as senior ones and can work with several in parallel. Very soon your job will not be pair programming and peer reviewing at all, but teaching a team of specialized coworkers to work on your project. In a year or two we will be assembling factories of such agents that will handle the process from taking your requirements to delivering and maintaining complex software. Our jobs are going to change many more times and much more often than ever.

And yet there will still be people finding solace in hand-crafting their tools, or finding novel algorithms, or adding the creativity aspect into the work of their digital development teams. Like people lovingly restoring their old cars in their garage just for the sake of the process itself.

And everything will be just fine.

Re: We mourn our craft

#108

Post by apitman »

mirsadm wrote: post #75
andai wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love programming, but most of that joy doesn't come from the type of programming I get paid to do. I now have more time and energy for the fun type, and I can go do things that were previously inconceivable! Last night "I" "made" 3D boids swarm with directional color and perlin noise turbulence. "I" "did" this without knowing how to do the math for any of those things. (My total involvement at the source level was…

Yes but did you learn anything?

Obviously that matters, but how much does it matter? Does it matter if you don't learn anything about computer architecture because you only code in JS all day? Very situational.

Re: We mourn our craft

#109

Post by derektank »

croes wrote: post #96
iambateman wrote: post #9

I do not mourn. For my whole life I’ve been trying to make things—beautiful elegant things. When I was a child, I found a cracked version of Photoshop and made images which seemed like magic. When I was in college, I learned to make websites through careful, painstaking effort. When I was a young professional, I used those skills and others to make websites for hospitals and summer camps and conferences. Then I learn…

But you don’t make. You order it.

The transition is from author to editor/publisher. Both play an important role in bringing something new into the world.

Re: We mourn our craft

#110

Post by stevejb »

fastasucan wrote: post #63
iambateman wrote: post #9

I do not mourn. For my whole life I’ve been trying to make things—beautiful elegant things. When I was a child, I found a cracked version of Photoshop and made images which seemed like magic. When I was in college, I learned to make websites through careful, painstaking effort. When I was a young professional, I used those skills and others to make websites for hospitals and summer camps and conferences. Then I learn…

>It was, for me, never about the code. Then it wasn't your craft.

Isn't this like saying that if better woodworking tools come out, and you like woodworking, that woodworking somehow 'isn't your craft'. They said that their craft is about making things.

There are woodworkers on YouTube who use CNC, some who use the best Festool stuff but nothing that moves on its own, and some who only use handtools. Where is the line at which woodworking is not their craft?

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