I get hate on only using cli. Glad someone else see's a different perspective
Every time I try to use Claude Desktop, I quickly feel like it's like trying to type wearing mittens. No bueno, at least for me.
Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
631–640 of 1001 posts
Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
#63250 here. Years ago I completely stopped coding, becoming tired of the never ending rat race of keeping up with the latest bizarre web stacks, frameworks for everything, node for this, npm for that, Angular, React, Vue, whatever - as if solving business problems just became too boring for software developers, so we decided to spend our cycles on the new hotness at every turn. Tools like Claude Code are the ultimate ch…
> It'll also be good to see leetcode die.
Agreed. Leetcode caused more harm than good.
Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
#633The framework fatigue angle in this thread is real. I spent years maintaining legacy JS and CSS codebases, watching the ecosystem reinvent the same dropdown menu in Backbone, then Angular, then React, then Vue. What I didn't expect is that all that time understanding the actual DOM, specificity rules, and browser quirks would become useful again — when Claude goes sideways on an old codebase, the underlying mental model is what lets you catch it. Vibe-coding isn't replacing that knowledge, it's finally giving it a place to move fast.
Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
#634Earlier quoted context omitted.
> LLM watch-six-agents-writing-and-you-proofreading gave me so much existential crisis and depression this is extremely bizarre because I’m 53, been coding since 12, and it has had literally the exact opposite effect on me, I find it tremendously exciting, like riding a snowmobile instead of manually cross-country skiing but I do think that if you’re not ready to work like this, you may need to consider a career pivo…
Coding since 11. Using AI makes me completely lethargic. I really don't know how to fill the minutes that AI takes to write code. Maybe if AI gets faster I will be able to enjoy it. That said, like many people here I have invested quite some time in becoming a skilled and experienced coder, so there is no denying that this whole AI craze makes me feel like something is taken away from me.
For me, coding since the 80s (but i knew then it didn't spark joy or anything - debugging was so annoying, learning new language syntax even more so...) I love AI. I am a product manager, i just see freedom to make things that are real and learn faster - does this solve a problem? Is it better than what we have now? and move on, disposing of things as i go because it's cheap. To fill the minutes, i might work on 3-4 or even 5 separate projects and even multiple worktrees within those. I feel busier than ever. I think the best part is it's not lazy and I am. There's so many things I don't have time or energy to go deep on that I can delegate. I'm jealous of real sw engineers because it's probably a huge force multiplier, while I can't call BS on it as much, but getting better.
Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
#635I just had what you might probably describe as the opposite experience. I was sat at a very important all hands meeting by our senior tech leader with about 100 people or so .who was mandating an AI goal for every employee on workday, he basically says that “if we all do not learn to adapt to AI, we will all get left behind” , and he had presented how to utilise spec driven development. He opened up the room for Q&A…
You are definitely not alone, and it’s unfortunate when people pushing AI ignore that legitimate fear and talk past it.
You are right, there is something you lose, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think the loss is necessarily critical thinking - I think it’s possible to use AI and still hone your critical thinking skills.
The thing you start to lose first is touching the code directly, of course, making the constant stream of small decisions, syntax, formatting, naming, choosing container classes, and a large set of other things. And sometimes it’s the doing battle with those small decisions that leads to deeper understanding. However, it is true, and AI agents are proving, that a lot of us have to make the same small decisions over and over, and we’re frequently repeating designs that many other people have already thought through. So one positive tradeoff for this loss is better leveraging of ground already covered.
Another way to think about AI is that it can help you spend all of your time doing and thinking about software design and goals and outcomes rather that having to spend the majority of it in the minutiae of writing the code. This is where you can continue to apply critical thinking, just perhaps at a higher level than before. AI can make you lazy, if you let it. It does take some diligence and effort to remain critical, but if you do, personally I think it can be a lot of fun and help you spend more time thinking critically, rather than less.
Some possible analogies are calculators and photography. People were fretting we’d lose something if we stop calculating divisions by hand, and we do, but we still just use calculators by and large. People also thought photography would ruin art and prevent people from being able to make or appreciate images.
Software in general is nearly always automating something that someone was doing by hand, and in way every time we write a program we’re making this same tradeoff, losing the close hands-on connection to the thing we were doing in favor of something a touch more abstract and a lot faster.
Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
#636Earlier 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…
> I don't see any fundamental problem with democratization of abilities and removal of gatekeeping. This parroted argument is getting really tired. It signals either astroturfing or someone who just accepts what they are sold without thinking. LLMs aren’t “democratising” anything. There’s no democracy in being mostly beholden to a few companies which own the largest and most powerful models, who can cut you off at an…
> LLMs aren’t “democratising” anything.
They absolutely are. Anytime new knowledge or skills become widely available to everyone, that's a term used for it.
> There’s no democracy in being mostly beholden to a few companies which own the largest and most powerful models, who can cut you off at any time, jack up the prices to inaccessibility, or unilaterally change the terms of the deal.
None of that has anything to do with anything. There's competition between companies to keep prices low and accessibility high.
I think you are simply misunderstanding the word "democratic". It isn't just political. From MW:
> 3 : relating, appealing, or available to the broad masses of the people : designed for or liked by most people
Here, it's specifically about making things available to the broad masses of the people that wasn't before.
This isn't a matter of opinion. It's just the meaning of the word.
Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
#637Finally we learn the truth in this comment section:
Claude is for old people!
Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
#638Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
This is correct. Had lunch with a senior staff engineer going for a promo to principal soon. He explained he was early to CC, became way more productive than his peers, and got the staff promo. Now he’s not sharing how he uses the agent so he maintains his lead over his peers. This is so clearly a losing strategy. So clearly not even staff level performance let alone principal level.
Why the downvotes? It is the defining characteristic of the staff+ level to empower others. Individual contributions don’t matter at this level.
Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
#639Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm mad about Ozempic. For years I toiled, eating healthy foods while other people stuffed their faces with pizza and cheese burgers. Everybody had the opportunity to be thin like me, but they didn't take that and earn it like me. So now instead of being happy about their new good fortune and salvaged health, I'm bitter and think society has somehow betrayed me and canceled promises. /s, obviously I would hope except…
I would rather see regulations fixing incentives that create this problem (why does healthy food cost so much more than processed food?) than a bandaid like Ozempic that 2/3 of people can't quit (hello another hidden subscription service) without regaining their weight back.
> why does healthy food cost so much more than processed food?
It doesn't. Carbs like rice, potatoes, etc. are incredibly cheap. Protein like ground beef and basic cuts of chicken are not expensive. And broccoli, carrots, green peppers, apples -- these are not exactly breaking the bank. Product is seasonal, so you vary what you buy according to what is cheapest this week.
Meanwhile, stuff like breakfast cereal and potato chips and Oreo cookies actually are surprisingly expensive.
Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
#64050 here. Years ago I completely stopped coding, becoming tired of the never ending rat race of keeping up with the latest bizarre web stacks, frameworks for everything, node for this, npm for that, Angular, React, Vue, whatever - as if solving business problems just became too boring for software developers, so we decided to spend our cycles on the new hotness at every turn. Tools like Claude Code are the ultimate ch…
> Years ago I completely stopped coding, becoming tired of the never ending rat race of keeping up with the latest bizarre web stacks, frameworks for everything, node for this, npm for that, Angular, React, Vue, whatever
Have you tried Claude? No, Opus? No, not that version, it's two weeks old, positively ancient lol. Oh wait, now OpenClaw is the cool thing around the block.
My dude, the rat race just became a rat sprint. I hope you're keeping up, you're no spring chicken any more.