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I am happier writing code by hand

abhinavomprakash.com

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Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#11

Post by taway1874 »

ramesh31 wrote: post #3

I also came to a pretty simple understanding over the years. If I'm coding and making progress on a project, I'm happy. If I'm not, or I'm stuck on something, I'm unhappy. This is a profoundly unhealthy way to live because life will pass you by. There is more to our existence than work, or even hobbies. And if AI lets me get more time for that, I am happier than ever.

Yes but is AI really getting you unstuck or are you playing a game of whack-a-mole where it fixes one bug and generates several others that you are unaware off (just one example)?

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#12

Post by eddythompson80 »

It really depends on the project for me. For example,I never enjoyed writing react code (or really any UI), just the outcome of my idea materializing in a usable interface. There is nothing creative or fun for me in almost any UX framework. It’s just a ton of predictable typing (now we need a fricking box. And another box. And another stupid box…) I’m more than happy outsourcing that. However, my thoughts are too random and imprecise that actually outsourcing it before to another person always felt disrespectful to them. I don’t have to worry about that with AI. My company is paying it, and when I’m prototyping a react thing every now and then, I burn few thousand dollars a day for the lols.

If they don’t like it, take it away. I just won’t do that part because I have no interest in it. Some other parts of the project, I do enjoy working on by hand. At least setting up the patterns I think will result in simple readable flow, reduce potential bugs, etc. AI s not great at that. It’s happy to mix strings, nulls, bad type castings, no separation of concerns, no small understandable functions, no reusable code, etc. which is th part i enjoy thinking about

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#13

Post by skerit »

taway1874 wrote: post #11
ramesh31 wrote: post #3

I also came to a pretty simple understanding over the years. If I'm coding and making progress on a project, I'm happy. If I'm not, or I'm stuck on something, I'm unhappy. This is a profoundly unhealthy way to live because life will pass you by. There is more to our existence than work, or even hobbies. And if AI lets me get more time for that, I am happier than ever.

Yes but is AI really getting you unstuck or are you playing a game of whack-a-mole where it fixes one bug and generates several others that you are unaware off (just one example)?

> Yes but is AI really getting you unstuck

Yes, it really is.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#14

Post by CurleighBraces »

Has anyone got any insights into what hiring software engineers looks like these days? As someone currently with a job and not hiring it is hard to imagine.

Has there been any sort of paradigm shift in coding interviews? Is LLM use expected/encouraged or frowned upon?

If companies are still looking for people to write code by hand then perhaps the author is onto something, if however we as an industry are moving on, will those who don't adapt be relegated to hobbyists?

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#15

Post by rpodraza »

ramesh31 wrote: post #3

I also came to a pretty simple understanding over the years. If I'm coding and making progress on a project, I'm happy. If I'm not, or I'm stuck on something, I'm unhappy. This is a profoundly unhealthy way to live because life will pass you by. There is more to our existence than work, or even hobbies. And if AI lets me get more time for that, I am happier than ever.

This is great in theory, but answer me sincerely: are you spending less time at work because of AI? Because I reckon for most programmers here it is not the case at all.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#16

Post by woeirua »

candiddevmike wrote: post #10
woeirua wrote: post #5

This is no different then carpentry. Yes, all furniture can now be built by machines. Some people still choose to build it by hand. Does that make them less productive? Yes. Will they ever carve furniture by hand for a business? Probably not. Can they still enjoy the act of working with the wood? Yes. If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do…

> If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do that professionally for much longer. If you can't code by hand professionally anymore, what are you being paid to do? Bring the specs to the LLMs? Deal with the customers so the LLMs don't have to?

Every engineer in the next two years needs to prepare themselves for this conversation to play out (from Office Space):

> Bob Slydell: What you do at Initech is you take the specifications from the customer and bring them down to the software engineers?

> Tom Smykowski: Yes, yes that's right.

> Bob Porter: Well then I just have to ask why can't the customers take them directly to the software people?

> Tom Smykowski: Well, I'll tell you why, because, engineers are not good at dealing with customers.

> Bob Slydell: So you physically take the specs from the customer?

> Tom Smykowski: Well... No. My secretary does that, or they're faxed.

> Bob Porter: So then you must physically bring them to the software people?

> Tom Smykowski: Well. No. Ah sometimes.

> Bob Slydell: What would you say you do here?

The agents are the engineers now.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#17

Post by lazyfolder »

rf15 wrote: post #9

This is pointing out one factor of vibecoding that is talked about too little: that it feels good, and that this feeling often clouds people's judgment on what is actually achieved (i.e. you lost control of the code and are running more and more frictionless on hopes and dreams)

Definitely. And it’s hard to separate out whether the person is actually more productive or feels more productive.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#18

Post by kelipso »

eddythompson80 wrote: post #12

It really depends on the project for me. For example,I never enjoyed writing react code (or really any UI), just the outcome of my idea materializing in a usable interface. There is nothing creative or fun for me in almost any UX framework. It’s just a ton of predictable typing (now we need a fricking box. And another box. And another stupid box…) I’m more than happy outsourcing that. However, my thoughts are too ran…

Same with gui. I’m making a web gui that’s very specific for a project that I’m working on. My team finds it very useful but I would never make that thing without AI assistance, combination of I don’t find it interesting or fun, would take too long, I am not familiar with web gui stuff.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#19

Post by lazyfolder »

acedTrex wrote: post #6

I will do what i know gives me the best possible and fastest outcome over the long term, 5-10 year period. And that remains largely neovim and by hand. The process of typing code gives me a deeper understanding of the project that lets me deliver future features FASTER. I'm fundamentally convinced that my investment into deep long term grokking of a project will allow me to surpass primarily LLM projects over the lon…

> I will do what i know gives me the best possible and fastest outcome over the long term, 5-10 year period. And that remains largely neovim and by hand. The process of typing code gives me a deeper understanding of the project that lets me deliver future features FASTER. I'm fundamentally convinced that my deep long term understanding of a project will allow me to surpass primarily LLM projects over the long term.

I have never thought of that aspect! This is a solid point!

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#20

Post by falloutx »

CurleighBraces wrote: post #14

Has anyone got any insights into what hiring software engineers looks like these days? As someone currently with a job and not hiring it is hard to imagine. Has there been any sort of paradigm shift in coding interviews? Is LLM use expected/encouraged or frowned upon? If companies are still looking for people to write code by hand then perhaps the author is onto something, if however we as an industry are moving on,…

Most of the hiring is happening in heavy AI coding companies, a lot of mid sized companies have freezed hiring or they are also only hiring people who claim to use AI to be 10x devs. For non-lying devs, only big companies seem to be hiring and their process hasnt changed much. you are still expect to solve leetcode and then also sit through system design.
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