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Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

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Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#221

Post by xantronix »

buu700 wrote: post #65
TimFogarty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. I have been thinking about how the vastly different reactions people seem to have to agentic coding could be influenced by what they value about coding. To me it seems like there are three joys in coding: 1. Creating something 2. Solving puzzles 3. Learning new things If you are primarily motivated by seeing a finished product of some sort, then I think agentic coding is transcendent. You can get…

I can see where this idea is coming from, but I don't agree with the conclusion at all. As someone who loves solving puzzles and learning new things, AI has been a godsend. I also very much like creating things, but even more than that, I like doing all three at once. I think of AI like a microdose of Speed Force. Having super speed doesn't mean you don't like running; it just means you can run further and more often…

    > (i.e. paying for third-party solutions)
My experiences are not universal but apart from hardware and maybe $10 for a VPS for hosting, I do not find the need to pay for third-party solutions; I quite like this situation, and I do not find myself particularly constrained taking a little extra time or having to think a bit harder. But, my friend, I must ask, what are LLMs if not third-party solutions with sizable expenditures?

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#222

Post by WillPostForFood »

card_zero wrote: post #198
lovelearning wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software. I must say I find this idea, and this wording, elitist in a negative way. I don't see any fundamental problem with democratization of abilities and removal of gatekeeping. Chances are, you were able to accumulate your expert knowledge only because: - book writing and authorship was democratized away from the church and academia - web content publication and p…

So you put these all in the same category: gaining knowledge, gaining abilities, and just obtaining things. I gatekeep my bike, I keep it behind a gate. If you break the gate open and democratize my bike, you're an idiot.

it is more like:

You gatekeep your bike, you keep it behind a gate, you don't let anyone else ride it.

Your neighbor got a nicer bike for Christmas, rode it by your house and now you are sad because you aren't the special kid with the bike any more, you are just regular kid like your neighbor.

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#223

Post by OneMorePerson »

lovelearning wrote: post #171
samiv wrote: post #51

As a principal engineer I feel completely let down. I've spent decades building up and accumulating expert knowledge and now that has been massively devalued. Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software. I feel depressed and very unmotivated and expect to retire soon. Talk about a rug pull! My experience is that people who weren't very good at writing software are the ones now "most excited" to "create" w…

> Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software. I must say I find this idea, and this wording, elitist in a negative way. I don't see any fundamental problem with democratization of abilities and removal of gatekeeping. Chances are, you were able to accumulate your expert knowledge only because: - book writing and authorship was democratized away from the church and academia - web content publication and p…

This is technically true in a lot of ways, but also intellectual and not identifying with what the comment was expressing. It's legitimately very frustrating to have something you enjoy democratized and feel like things are changing.

It would be like if you put in all this time to get fit and skilled on mountain bikes and there was a whole community of people, quiet nature, yada yada, and then suddenly they just changed the rules and anyone with a dirt bike could go on the same trails.

It's double damage for anyone who isn't close to retirement and built their career and invested time (i.e. opportunity cost) into something that might become a lot less valuable and then they are fearful for future economic issues.

I enjoy using LLMs and have stopped writing code, but I also don't pretend that change isn't painful.

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#224

Post by kristiandupont »

codebolt wrote: post #157
samiv wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you bring to the table night be fine, but how long do you think you'll find emoloyers willing to still pay for this? One thing is for sure LLMs will bring down down the cost of software per some unit and increase the volume. But..cost = revenue. What is a cost to one party is a revenue to another party. The revenue is what pays salaries. So when software costs go down the revenues will go down too. When revenues…

Any given system will still need people around to steer the AI and ensure the thing gets built and maintained responsibly. I'm working on a small team of in-house devs at a financial company, and not worried about my future at all. As an IC I'm providing more value than ever, and the backlog of potential projects is still basically endless- why would anyone want to fire me?

Why would it need people to steer the AI? I can easily see a future where companies that don't rely on the physical world (like manufacturing) are completely autonomous, just machines making money for their owner.

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#225

Post by al_borland »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #98
al_borland wrote: post #10

I spent the last 2 days primarily using Claude instead of coding things myself at work. I felt the exact opposite way. It was so unfulfilling. I’d equate it to the feeling of getting an A on a test, knowing I cheated. I didn’t accomplish anything. I didn’t learn anything. I got the end result with none of the satisfaction and learned nothing in the process. I’m probably going to go back and redo everything with my ow…

You're paid by a company to create software, so they can use it to drive business value and make a profit. You did so effortlessly. But it didn't make you feel personally fulfilled. So you're going to go back and re-do it, so you feel better? How do you think your company's CEO is going to feel when you tell them you could be finishing the software much faster, but you'd rather not, because it feels better to do it b…

It’s not just about speed today. It’s about the speed to make changes, to understand the minutia of the code to more quickly troubleshoot when something goes wrong, to better understand the implication of future changes…

Just yesterday I was on a call where someone was trying to point to my code as a problem when we suspected a DNS issue. If I didn’t know the code inside and out, I could have easily been steam rolled, because as we know, “it’s never the network”. We found out today it was in fact DNS.

If someone only ever worries about is speed, they’ll likely get tripped up and fall. One guy on my team is all about delivering quickly. He gives very optimistic timelines and gets things out the door as fast as possible. Guess what, the code breaks. He is constantly getting bug reports from everyone and having to fix stuff. As he continues to run into this, he is starting to become a bit more mature and tactical, but that is taking time.

I think the CEO would much rather see the production code be fully tested and stable. I write the frameworks everyone else on the team uses. If my code breaks, everyone’s code is broken. How much will that cost?

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#227

Post by satvikpendem »

ares623 wrote: post #220
lovelearning wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software. I must say I find this idea, and this wording, elitist in a negative way. I don't see any fundamental problem with democratization of abilities and removal of gatekeeping. Chances are, you were able to accumulate your expert knowledge only because: - book writing and authorship was democratized away from the church and academia - web content publication and p…

how is 2-3 centralized providers of this new technology "democratization"?

There are lots of open weight models

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#228

Post by visarga »

samiv wrote: post #51

As a principal engineer I feel completely let down. I've spent decades building up and accumulating expert knowledge and now that has been massively devalued. Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software. I feel depressed and very unmotivated and expect to retire soon. Talk about a rug pull! My experience is that people who weren't very good at writing software are the ones now "most excited" to "create" w…

> I've spent decades building up and accumulating expert knowledge and now that has been massively devalued. Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software.

Do you like the craft of programming more than the outcomes? Now you are in a better position than ever to achieve things.

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#229

Post by buu700 »

xantronix wrote: post #221
buu700 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see where this idea is coming from, but I don't agree with the conclusion at all. As someone who loves solving puzzles and learning new things, AI has been a godsend. I also very much like creating things, but even more than that, I like doing all three at once. I think of AI like a microdose of Speed Force. Having super speed doesn't mean you don't like running; it just means you can run further and more often…

> (i.e. paying for third-party solutions) My experiences are not universal but apart from hardware and maybe $10 for a VPS for hosting, I do not find the need to pay for third-party solutions; I quite like this situation, and I do not find myself particularly constrained taking a little extra time or having to think a bit harder. But, my friend, I must ask, what are LLMs if not third-party solutions with sizable expe…

You may be an exception, but most businesses and many individuals pay for a laundry list of commercial software products. If you count non-monetary forms of payment (i.e. data and/or attention to ads), that expands to virtually everyone with access to a computer.

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#230

Post by satvikpendem »

ipaddr wrote: post #206
post-it wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI completely erases the profession of software developer, I'll find something else to do. Like I can't in good faith ever oppose a technology just because it's going to make my job redundant, that would be insane.

There may not be a job for you in an office setting. What would you do?

That's when the problem shifts from individual to systemic, and only systemic solutions fix systemic problems.
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