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

jamesdrandall.com

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

#481

Post by mpakes »

If you are feeling the way that James does, that the magic is gone... I encourage you to try creating things in a new domain.

Try making music, creating videos, making interactive LED art, building robots, or fabricating toys.

The tools we have today suddenly make it far easier and more fun to experiment with a new craft. What was once daunting is now approachable.

Start by using an AI-powered tool—without shame—to make something superficially 'cool'. Yes, we all know you used a 'cheat code' but that's okay! Now you get to dive in and deconstruct what you created. Tear it apart and learn how and why it works. Go as deep as your motivation carries you. Experiment, hack, and modify.

Just as in software, there will be many many layers of abstraction that you can work through and learn about. Many of them are overflowing with magic and sources of inspiration, I promise.

The gears of capitalism will likely continue to aggressively maximize efficiency wherever possible, and this comes with both benefits and very real costs (some of which are described James's post).. but outside the professional sphere, it appears to me that we are entering a new hobbyist / hacker / creative renaissance. If you can find a way to release enough anxiety and let the curious and creative energy back in, opportunities start showing up everywhere.

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

#482

Post by smallstepforman »

alexgarden wrote: post #276
anonymous908213 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't personally think there is magic in building a Docker container. Call me old-fashioned. This seems like a false dichotomy. You don't have to do this. It is still possible to build magical things. But agents aren't it, I don't think. It is honestly extremely depressing to read this coming from a founder of Relic. Relic built magic. Dawn of War and Company of Heroes formed an important part of my teenage years…

If we've arrived at the point where bots are impersonating me (instead of the billions of other choices), I'm probably at peak Alex. I'll light a candle. So... easy to disambiguate this one. I got the idea for Homeworld one night when I was about 21. At the time, I was working at EA as a programmer on Triple Play 98 (building FE gfx - not glamorous). In an RTS-ironic twist of fate, my boss and mentor at the time was…

Thank you for creating Homeworld, it truely was a memorable experience.

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

#483

Post by icedchai »

cstever wrote: post #478
icedchai wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say don't use AI at all, I said give it the boilerplate, rote work. Developers can still work on more interesting things. Maybe not all the interesting things.

That may be fine ... if it remains your choice. I'm saying companies are outmoding people (programmers, designers, managers, et al) who don't leverage AI to do their job the fastest. If one programmer uses AI to do boilerplate and then codes the interesting bits personally and it takes a week and another does it all with AI (orchestrating agents, etc) and it takes 2 hours and produces the same output (not code but bu…

I get your point, but I think smart people will figure out a balance. That 2 hours of output could take a week to debug and test.

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

#484

Post by qingcharles »

nomel wrote: post #436
qingcharles wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIs have made me realize that I don't actually care about writing code, even though it's all I've done for my entire career. I care about creating stuff. How it gets from the idea in my brain to running on the computer, is immaterial to me. I really like that I go from idea to reality in half the time.

Same here, and I also really enjoy the high level design /structure part of it. THAT part doesn't mesh too well with AI, since it's still really bad at autonomous wholistic level planning. I'm still learning how to prompt in a way that results in a structure that is close to what I want/reasonable. I suspect going a more visual block diagram route, to generate some intermediate .md or whatever, might have promise, es…

Definitely go for that middle step. If it's something bigger I get them to draw out a multi-phase plan, then I go through and refine that .md and have them work from that.

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

#485

Post by windows_hater_7 »

davebranton wrote: post #416

The deep, profound, cruel irony of this post is that it was written by AI. Maybe if you work in the world of web and apps, AI will come for you. If you don't , and you work in industrial automation and safety, the I believe it will not.

I was thinking the same thing, but I thought I was being too cynical given it was a post lamenting about all the cognitive abstractions we have created.

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

#486

Post by cstever »

icedchai wrote: post #483
cstever wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be fine ... if it remains your choice. I'm saying companies are outmoding people (programmers, designers, managers, et al) who don't leverage AI to do their job the fastest. If one programmer uses AI to do boilerplate and then codes the interesting bits personally and it takes a week and another does it all with AI (orchestrating agents, etc) and it takes 2 hours and produces the same output (not code but bu…

I get your point, but I think smart people will figure out a balance. That 2 hours of output could take a week to debug and test.

Yes! I am not advocating for the 2 hours and the "vision" of managers and CEOs. Quite the contrary. But it is the world we live in for now. It's messy and chaotic and many people may (will?) be hurt. I don't like it. But I'm trying to be one of the "smart people". What does that look like? I hope I find out.

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

#488

Post by recursive »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #467
recursive wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, anyone can do it.

And that's exactly what the person I was replying to seems to be complaining about. So many people on "Hacker" News could benefit from reading the canonical text on the subject by Steven Levy. A true hacker wants to bring the fire down the mountain. People around here just want to piss on it.

No, he's complaining about changes. Everyone can do it and that's not a change. Everyone could always do it.

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

#489

Post by hex4def6 »

qingcharles wrote: post #368
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you were a smart dev before AI, chances are you will remain a smart dev with AI. I don't think that's what people are upset about, or at least it's not for me. For me it's that writing code is really enjoyable, and delegating it to AI is hell on earth.

AIs have made me realize that I don't actually care about writing code, even though it's all I've done for my entire career. I care about creating stuff. How it gets from the idea in my brain to running on the computer, is immaterial to me. I really like that I go from idea to reality in half the time.

Same.

I've been exploring some computer vision recognition stuff. Being able to reason through my ideas with an LLM, and make visualizations like t-SNE to show how far apart a coke can and a bag of cheetos are in feature-space has been mind blowing. ("How much of a difference does tint make for recognition? Implement a slider that can show that can regenerate the 512-D features array and replot the chart")

It's helping me get an intuitive understanding 10x faster than I could reading a textbook.

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

#490

Post by cstever »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #175
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get bored if they don't find real meaning in their work. https://medium.com/ideas-into-action/ikigai-the-perfect-care... Fact is, the tech sector is filled with folks that find zero joy in what they do, chose a career for financial reasons, and end up being miserable to everyone including themselves. The ex-service people would call these folks entitled Shitbirds, as no matter the situation some will complain…

The reason we don’t have the right to be lazy is because of the people who find “meaning” in toil. I do not want to work and AI is the most anti work technology in human history. Bertrand Russel literally wrote a book called “in defense of idleness” because he knew that heavy hitters like him had to defend work abolitionism. The “work is good” crowd is why we can’t have nice things. You guys are time thief’s and onto…

You 100% can be lazy. Just don't make the rest of us carry you.
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