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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

#561

Post by bronlund »

I have been on much the same journey as OP and I agree on everything he writes. And even though the author tries to avoid sounding grumpy, you can still feel the sadness in between the lines - a sadness I don't share. Sure, I have gone from being inspired by the pure love of everything computer and a bottomless curiosity, to maintaining legacy systems for large corporations just to feed the kids. The internet is ruined by greed and control, most software is a total mess and having a 10 million times faster computer seemingly just makes the OS less responsive. Schools, not teaching how a computer works, but how to be productive in Microsoft Office. It's a long list.

Back in the eighties, how I looked at the future of computers, was mostly fuelled by sci-fi books and movies. Computers that could talk, that could think and even go insane - it was all too wonderful. All just fantasies. But now we are here. What we could only imagine back then has become a reality, and I kind of do feel the same curiosity and the same love for this new thing. Sure, it came with a couple of surprises like; you can't really program it, you just have to beg it. Or the fact that we now have a completely new genre of utility bills at the household. Still, it is magical - the same kind of magic I felt way back then.

So in one way, I feel that I have come full circle - except for one thing. One thing is different. Back then, there were just a few of us. I was almost nervous about letting anyone know what I really spent the afternoons doing, afraid that it would single me out - and not in a good way. Today, on the other hand, it is all of us.

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

#562

Post by Eliezer »

WoodenChair wrote: post #504

Ironically this post comes across to me as written by an LLM. The em-dashes, the prepositions, the "not this, that" lines. As a college instructor, I can usually tell. I put it through GPTZero and it said it's 96% LLM written. GPTZero is not full-proof but I think it's likely right on this one and I find it very ironic.

Came here to say the same.

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

#563

Post by solarized »

I feel like it’s pushing engineers into management level.

As an artisan, everything’s automated now.

You can’t just stay in the kitchen anymore.

you now have to focus on leverage. sales, growth, hiring, affiliating, etc.

To make more people’s lives better (with faster pace).

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

#564

Post by iqp »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #532
lelanthran wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For me it's that writing code is really enjoyable, and delegating it to AI is hell on earth. It's very sad, for me. Like I told someone recently - letting the LLM write my code for me is like letting the LLM play my video games for me. If all I wanted was the achievement on my steam profile, then sure, it makes sense, but that achievement is not why I play video games. I'm looking at all these people proudly showin…

I think you were incredibly lucky to get to write code that you enjoyed writing. Most of the commercial code I've written, over a 30+ year career, has been shite. The mandate was always to write profitable code, not elegant code. I started (much like the OP) back in the 80's writing code as a hobby, and I enjoyed that. But implementing yet another shitty REST CRUD server for a shitty website... not so much. I totally…

^ This. People bemoan the death of coding, but easily 80%+ of the code I've written commercially was just CRUD or ETL shite. I've done a few interesting things (a formula parser, a WYSWIG survey builder for signature pads, a navigation controller for line-guided industrial vehicles, etc.) but yeah, don't miss writing reams of boilerplate. I always tried to take a Kent Beck inspired Smalltalk/TDD inspired approach to the code I wrote and took pride in my work, but ultimately you're working in a shitty corporate environment where none of your colleagues cares because they're burning at both ends, the management only does lip service to Quality, and Deadlines and the Bottom Line are Everything. If LLMs make this shit more bearable then bring 'em on, I say!

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

#565

Post by [deleted] »

WoodenChair wrote: post #504

Ironically this post comes across to me as written by an LLM. The em-dashes, the prepositions, the "not this, that" lines. As a college instructor, I can usually tell. I put it through GPTZero and it said it's 96% LLM written. GPTZero is not full-proof but I think it's likely right on this one and I find it very ironic.

[deleted]

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

#566

Post by bestthrowaway »

kamaal wrote: post #548
dzonga wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you also have bozo managers like my recent one measuring metrics like PR time open, review count while the team hasn't shipped anything useful in 6 months.

Its crazy how management has gone from productivity to a kind of policing, crowd control and abstract number management that has no sense. One of things that's being discussed now is AI won't really help people ship products faster, because no one was serious about building them at the first place. In most large corps the managerial layers simply care about preserving their own jobs and comp. Also similar things an b…

I like my manager but I think what many people don't seem to understand is that the manager tends to be the bottleneck. We were moving as fast as he was able to give requirements even without AI, and now we're being told to use as much AI as makes sense and now we just more product roadblocks faster. We may be shipping faster but amortized over all the roadblocks I'd say our velocity is like 10% faster.

Code was never the bottleneck.

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

#567

Post by bestthrowaway »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #92
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…

> 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.

I don't understand the problem. Nothing is stopping you from writing code.

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

#568

Post by lelanthran »

NamlchakKhandro wrote: post #476
lelanthran wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also if you look at the leveling guidelines of any major tech company, their leveling guidelines above mid level are based on scope, impact and dealing with ambiguity - not “I codez real gud” Your entire comment is this specific strawman - no one, and I mean no one , is making this claim! You are the only one who is (ironically, considering the job you do) too tone-deaf and too self-unaware to avoid making this arg…

> The argument is not Then what is it. be blunt and obvious in your reply or go home.

> Then what is it.

It's that the erosion and atrophying of the fundamental skill that made you (or, in this case, the GP) valuable is a matter of concern, because you (or GP, as the case may be) are willingly embracing the fact that you will be no more valuable than the average office office worker, and so can expect that compensation will drop to match.

As an example, moving to Python from C was was moving to a higher level of abstraction, but it still didn't jettison the need for actually knowing how to program!

Moving to LLMs from Python does jettison any need to know what an object is, what "parse, don't validate" actually means, etc.

If the problem you are solving with the LLM doesn't need that knowledge, then that job doesn't need all those valuable programming skills anyway, and thus you are no more valuable than the average clerk toiling away in the middle of some organisation.

> be blunt and obvious in your reply or go home.

Very classy.

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

#569

Post by lelanthran »

zabzonk wrote: post #445
lelanthran wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cannot figure out what you mean by "BA" in this context Business Analyst - those people who learn everything about what the customers requirements, specs, etc are. What they need, what they currently have, how to best advise them, etc. They know everything , except how to program.

> They know everything, except how to program In my experience, they know nothing, including how to program.

> In my experience, they know nothing, including how to program.

In my experience (Banking, Insurance, Fintech, etc) they were invaluable.

If, while developing, you hit some ambiguity in the spec, you could always go to the BA that wrote the spec and clarify, and I've never had the situation where they responded "Wait, let me ask the customer"; they knew what the business process should be, what the workflow should be, etc.

It worked for the customer as well - when they had trouble deciding "should or workflow do $FOO or $BAR?", a quick chat to our BA would be enough for them to make a decision.

Now, having worked in Agile shops (which I believe are the majority), there is no space for a BA - the ethos is "through something together, and if the customer doesn't want it, refine it until they do", so any BAs in this shop tend to be superfluous anyway because there is no place for them in the process anyway.

That's a failure of the process, not a failure of the role.

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

#570

Post by lelanthran »

iqp wrote: post #564
marcus_holmes wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you were incredibly lucky to get to write code that you enjoyed writing. Most of the commercial code I've written, over a 30+ year career, has been shite. The mandate was always to write profitable code, not elegant code. I started (much like the OP) back in the 80's writing code as a hobby, and I enjoyed that. But implementing yet another shitty REST CRUD server for a shitty website... not so much. I totally…

^ This. People bemoan the death of coding, but easily 80%+ of the code I've written commercially was just CRUD or ETL shite. I've done a few interesting things (a formula parser, a WYSWIG survey builder for signature pads, a navigation controller for line-guided industrial vehicles, etc.) but yeah, don't miss writing reams of boilerplate. I always tried to take a Kent Beck inspired Smalltalk/TDD inspired approach to…

> I always tried to take a Kent Beck inspired Smalltalk/TDD inspired approach to the code I wrote and took pride in my work, but ultimately you're working in a shitty corporate environment where none of your colleagues cares because they're burning at both ends, the management only does lip service to Quality, and Deadlines and the Bottom Line are Everything.

LLMs are a multiplier. If this depressed you, then there is no way I can see the following happening.

> If LLMs make this shit more bearable then bring 'em on, I say!

What LLMs are going to do is multiply the amount of "none of your colleagues care" and "Management only does lip-service to ..."

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