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We mourn our craft

nolanlawson.com

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Re: We mourn our craft

#131

Post by terminalbraid »

stevejb wrote: post #110
fastasucan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

The better analogy is you're now a shop manager or even just QA. You don't need to touch, look at, or think about the production process past asking for something and seeing if the final result fits the bill.

You get something that looks like a cabinet because you asked for a cabinet. I don't consider that "woodworking craft", power tools or otherwise.

Re: We mourn our craft

#133

Post by zer00eyz »

If you want to build a house you still need plans. Would you rather cut boards by hand or have a power saw. Would you rather pound nails, pilot hole with a bit and brace and put in flat head screws... or would you want a nail gun and an impact driver.

And you still need plans.

Can you write a plan for a sturdy house, verify that it meets the plan that your nails went all the way in and in the right places?

You sure can.

Your product person, your directors, your clients might be able to do the same thing, it might look like a house but its a fire hazard, or in the case of most LLM generated code a security one.

The problem is that we moved to scrum and agile, where your requirements are pantomime and postit notes if your lucky, interpretive dance if you arent. Your job is figuring out how to turn that into something... and a big part of what YOU as an engineer do is tell other people "no thats dumb" without hurting their feelings.

IF AI coding is going to be successful then some things need to change: Requirements need to make a come back. GOOD UI needs to make a comeback (your dark pattern around cancelation, is now going to be at odds with an agent). Your hide the content behind a login or a pay wall wont work any more because again, end users have access too... the open web is back and by force. If a person can get in, we have code that can get in now.

There is a LOT of work that needs to get done, more than ever, stop looking back and start looking forward, because once you get past the hate and the hype there is a ton of potential to right some of the ill's of the last 20 years of tech.

Re: We mourn our craft

#134

Post by dragonelite »

wesammikhail wrote: post #22
arrowsmith wrote: post #2

Speak for yourself. I don't miss writing code at all. Agentic engineering is much more fun. And this surprises me, because I used to love writing code. Back in my early days I can remember thinking "I can't believe I get paid for this". But now that I'm here I have no desire to go back. I, for one, welcome our new LLM overlords!

Speak for yourself. If you find the agentic workflow to be more fun, more power to you. I for one think writing code is the rewarding part. You get to think through a problem and figure out why decision A is better than B. Learning about various domains and solving difficult problems is in itself a reward.

Same here i'm a decade plus in this field, writing code was by far the number 1 and the discussion surrounding system design was a far second. Take away the coding i don't think i will make it to retirement being a code/llm PR auditor for work. So i'am already planning on exiting the field in the next decade.

Re: We mourn our craft

#135

Post by embedding-shape »

Fraterkes wrote: post #94
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…

I've seen a hundred ai-generated things, and they are rarely interesting. Not because the tools are insufficient, it's just that the kind of person that can't even stomach the charmed life of being a programmer will rarely be able to stomach the dull and hard work of actually being creative. Why should someone be interested in you creations? In what part of your new frictionless life would you've picked up something…

> stomach the dull and hard work of actually being creative

This strikes me as the opposite of what I experience when I say I'm "feeling creative", then everything comes easy. At least in the context of programming, making music, doing 3D animation and some other topics. If it's "dull and hard work" it's because I'm not feeling "creative" at all, when "creative mode" is on in my brain, there is nothing that feels neither dull nor hard. Maybe it works differently for others.

Re: We mourn our craft

#136

Post by dukeyukey »

Fraterkes wrote: post #94
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…

I've seen a hundred ai-generated things, and they are rarely interesting. Not because the tools are insufficient, it's just that the kind of person that can't even stomach the charmed life of being a programmer will rarely be able to stomach the dull and hard work of actually being creative. Why should someone be interested in you creations? In what part of your new frictionless life would you've picked up something…

I've been a professional programmer for 8+ years now. I've stomached that life. I've made things people used and paid for.

If I can do that typing one line at a time, I can do it _way_ faster with AI.

Re: We mourn our craft

#137

Post by Nextgrid »

LLMs are only a threat if you see your job as a code monkey. In that case you're likely already obsoleted by outsourced staff who can do your job much cheaper.

If you see your job as a "thinking about what code to write (or not)" monkey, then you're safe. I expect most seniors and above to be in this position, and LLMs are absolutely not replacing you here - they can augment you in certain situations.

The perks of a senior is also knowing when not to use an LLM and how they can fail; at this point I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what is safe to outsource to an LLM and what to keep for a human. Offloading the LLM-safe stuff frees up your time to focus on the LLM-unsafe stuff (or just chill and enjoy the free time).

Re: We mourn our craft

#138

Post by zeroonetwothree »

derektank wrote: post #109
croes wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's true, but ask an author and 99% of them will say they don't want to be an editor.

Re: We mourn our craft

#139

Post by janderland »

zamalek wrote: post #8
AllegedAlec wrote: post #4

While I'm on the fence about LLMs there's something funny about seeing an industry of technologists tear their own hair out about how technology is destroying their jobs. We're the industry of "we'll automate your job away". Why are we so indignant when we do it to ourselves...

This article isn't really about losing a job. Coding is a passion for some of us. It's similar to artists and diffusion, the only difference being that many people can appreciate human art - but who (outside of us) cares that a human wrote the code?

The people outside of us didn’t care about your beautiful code before. Now we can quickly build their boring applications and spend more time building beautiful things for our community’s sake. Yes, there are economic concerns, but as far as “craft” goes, nothing is stopping us from continuing to enjoy it.

Re: We mourn our craft

#140

Post by AstroBen »

Ronsenshi wrote: post #123
croes wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait 5 years and your skills are down

I don't think 5 years is necessary. I think after two years of this agentic orchestration if you rarely touch code yourself skill will degrade to the point they won't be able to write anything non-trivial without assistance.

How much do you think Linus Torvalds has coded over the last decade? Why is he still able to do his job?
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