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

I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

jamesdrandall.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 697 posts

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#331

Post by chasd00 »

skydhash wrote: post #137
zozbot234 wrote: post #47

There's nothing "hollowed out" about directing an AI effectively, the feedback is as quick and tight as it always was. The trick is that you don't just "vibe code" and let the AI one-shot the whole thing: you should propose the change first and ask the AI about a good, detailed plan for implementing it. Then you review what the robot has proposed (which is trivial compared to revising code!) make sensible changes, as…

> you should propose the change first and ask the AI about a good, detailed plan for implementing Why ask though? If I’m familiar with a project, more often than not, I usually have a very good idea of the code I have to write within minutes of reading the ticket. Most of the time taken is finding the impact of the change, especially with dependencies that are present in the business domain, but are not reflected in…

> I don’t need to ask what to code. I can deduce it as easily as doing 2+2.

in those cases you wouldn't use an agent. It's not an xor thing, you use the tool where it works and not where it doesn't.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#332

Post by tavavex »

jamesrandall wrote: post #4
ossa-ma wrote: post #3

The irony of these "My craft is dead" posts is that they consistently, heavily leverage AI for their writing. So you're crying about losing one craft to AI while using AI to kill another. It's disingenuous. And yes it is so damn obvious.

If you bothered to read it you’d find that I am embracing the tools and I still feel there is craft. It’s just different. But snark away. It’s lazy. And yes it is so damn tedious.

If you feel so strongly about your message, why would you outsource writing out your thoughts to such a large extent where people can feel how reminiscent it sounds of LLM writing instead of your own? It's like me making a blogpost by outsourcing the writing to someone on Fiverr.

Yes it's fast, it's more efficient, it's cheap - the only things we as a society care about. But it doesn't convey any degree of care about what you put out, which is probably desirable for a personal, emotionally-charged piece of writing.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#333

Post by pixelsort »

tavavex wrote: post #319
pixelsort wrote: post #188

I was 7 in 1987, learned LOGO and C64 BASIC that year, and I relate to this article as well. It feels as though a window is closing upon the feeling that software can be a powerful voice for the true needs of humanity. Those of us who can sense the deepest problems and implications well in advance are already rare. We are no more immune to the atrophy of forgetting than anyone. But there is a third option beyond embr…

This proposal feels really vague to me, I don't really understand what this actually does. Can you explain more? What exactly is a computer with permanence? What is software that forces a user to treat the computer it runs on "as an appliance"? In what ways is this different from any general-purpose computer, and what's the reason why a user would pick this over something standard?

Re: Permanence

I mean "permanence" in the same vague senses that I think the OP was hinting upon. A belief that regardless of change, the primitives remain. This is about having total confidence that abstractions haven't removed you the light-cone of comprehension.

Re: Appliance

I believe turing-completeness is over-powered, and the reason that AGI/ASI is a threat at all. My hypothesis is that we can build a machine that delivers most of the same experiences as existing software can. By constraint, some tasks would impossible and others just too hard to scale. By analogy, even a Swiss-army knife is like an appliance in that it only has a limited number of potential uses.

Re: Users

The machine I'm proposing is basically just eBPF for rich applications. It will have relevance for medical, aviation, and AI research. I don't suppose that end-users won't be looking for it until the bad times really start ramping up. But, I suppose we'll need to port Doom over to it before we can know for sure.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#335

Post by kinneticslammer »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #249
alexgarden wrote: post #48

Wow... I really relate to this. I'm 50 as well, and I started coding in 1985 when I was 10... I remember literally every evolutionary leap forward and my experience with this change has been a bit different. Steve Yegge recently did an interview on vibe coding ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuJyJP517Uw ) where he says, "arch mage engineers who fell out-of-love with the modern complexity of shipping meaningful code…

The original Homeworld team was casting spells! I'm still amazed by how you got ships to usually fly in formation, but also behave independently and rationally when that made sense. That game was a magnificent piece of art. It set a unique and immersive vibe on par with the original Tron movie. I'm really glad I have a chance now to tell you.

Amen to this. The optimization the team did blows my mind… whenever I think of it I think of if someone made Crysis run on the NES without compromises.

The soundtrack was stellar, and introduced me to Barber (Adagio for Strings).

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#336

Post by bmitc »

sho_hn wrote: post #14

My advice to everyone feeling existential vertigo over these tools is to remain confident and trust in yourself. If you were a smart dev before AI, chances are you will remain a smart dev with AI. My experience so far is that to a first approximation, the quality of the code/software generated with AI corresponds to the quality of the developer using the AI tool surprisingly well. An inexperienced, bad dev will still…

> My advice to everyone feeling existential vertigo over these tools is to remain confident and trust in yourself.

I do try to do that and have convinced myself that nothing has really changed in terms of what is important and that is systems thinking. But it's just one more barrier to convincing people that systems thinking is important, and it's all just exhausting.

Besides perhaps my paycheck, I have nothing but envy for people who get to work with their hands _and_ minds in their daily work. Modern engineering is just such a slog. No one understands how anything works nor even really wants to. I liken my typical day in software to a woodworker who has to rebuild his workshop everyday to just be able to do the actual woodworker. The amount of time I spend in software merely to being able to "open the door to my workshop" is astounding.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#337

Post by lelanthran »

davsti4 wrote: post #205
aabajian wrote: post #127

It seems AI is putting senior developers into two camps. Both groups relate to the statement, "I started programming when I was seven because a machine did exactly what I told it to, felt like something I could explore and ultimately know, and that felt like magic. I’m fifty now, and the magic is different, and I’m learning to sit with that." The difference is that the first camp is re-experiencing that feeling of wo…

Similarly, I'm using it to write apps in non-native languages, like rust. My first foray into it led to finding poor documentation examples. AI allows me to create without spending large swaths of time learning minutia. I'm enjoying it to a point, but yes, it does eliminate that sense of accomplishment - when you've spent many late nights working on something complex, and finally finish it. That's pretty much gone.

> Similarly, I'm using it to write apps in non-native languages, like rust.

This does not make sense; Rust is native.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#338

Post by maxfurman »

alexgarden wrote: post #48

Wow... I really relate to this. I'm 50 as well, and I started coding in 1985 when I was 10... I remember literally every evolutionary leap forward and my experience with this change has been a bit different. Steve Yegge recently did an interview on vibe coding ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuJyJP517Uw ) where he says, "arch mage engineers who fell out-of-love with the modern complexity of shipping meaningful code…

I'll join the chorus of praise for Homeworld. It was a big part of that era for me. I must have spent hours just zooming the camera as close as I could get to all the different ships, or just watching the harvesters do their thing. Almost meditative, looking back. Thank you for casting your spells!

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#339

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

samiv wrote: post #138
alexgarden wrote: post #48

Wow... I really relate to this. I'm 50 as well, and I started coding in 1985 when I was 10... I remember literally every evolutionary leap forward and my experience with this change has been a bit different. Steve Yegge recently did an interview on vibe coding ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuJyJP517Uw ) where he says, "arch mage engineers who fell out-of-love with the modern complexity of shipping meaningful code…

I just told my gardener to cut the grass and work on some flower installations. I'm so excited about gardening again. Can't wait to do some. Employing a gardener to do my gardening for me is really making me enjoy gardening again!

If I were the architect of a large building that I designed from the blueprints, the interior, etc, I wouldn’t feel bad that I didn’t install the toilets myself. AI agents are the plumbers, the painters, the electricians, etc

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#340

Post by bitwize »

rubenflamshep wrote: post #313
UtopiaPunk wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of. But the outcomes likely do not benefit the masses. People "accessing AI labor" is just a race to the bottom. Maybe some new tools get made or small businesses get off the ground, but ultimately this "AI labor" is a machine that is owned by capitalists. They dictate its use, and they will give or deny people access to the machine as it benefits them. Maybe they get the masses dependent on AI tools that are cu…

As someone who has leaned fully into AI tooling this resonates. The current environment is an oligopoly so I'm learning how to leverage someone else's tool. However, in this way, I don't think LLMs are a radical departure from any proprietary other tool (e.g. Photoshop).

Indeed. Do you know how many small consultancies are out there which are "Microsoft shops"? An individual could become a millionaire by founding their own and delivering value for a few high-roller clients.
Post reply on HN