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Programming Still Sucks

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91–100 of 354 posts

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#92
post #27

> AI didn't take our jobs. Greed did. Same greed that moved factories to Bangladesh and keeps slaves in cobalt mines in the Congo, wearing a new mask. Tell the nephew to do something else. Anything. It won't save him either, but at least he won't have to pretend the thing destroying his life is a robot. This hit me hard. This article is art. I think I need to sleep on this and read it again in the morning.

Society doesn't owe me over $500k/year for writing some instructions in a cryptic specification language. It's cool that I've been getting that, but I consider that luck and circumstance. When robots take my job I'll go find something else to do. I'm not going to blame evil rich people or some other boogieman.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a quote that goes something like "The purpose of any system is whatever it does." Whatever any system does, it's someone's intention that it does so. It's like an unavoidable truism. You can't say anything that gets around it.

Great. The system does what it does. It's not 'destroying society'. Not remotely in, any sense. Many people seem to like Facebook. It's not really not causing harm, they are a minor nuisance at worst ... that you can avoid by ... not using it. Open AI makes AI that you can use to do whatever. That's mostly it.

Facebook literally heavily contributed or at minimum enabled and amplified at least one genocide (2017 Myanmar). That is the total opposite of "really not causing harm".

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't like to go against everyone but this not particularly well written. It's a long winding absurdist metaphorical tale, that is really more or less a rant. It's not particularly well grounded. It's a nice piece of personalized fiction, but it's not particularly good writing and nothing approaching what we'd think of as 'journalism'.

Maybe 'journalism' wasn't the best suggestion by the OP but I have to disagree with the rest of your message. It may be a rant, or less pejoratively it may be a cry for help of someone seeing their industry's future, but I can't accept that it's not well written. When is the last time you opened an HN comment section and the main comment was that people enjoyed the writing quality? Maybe it says more about what we us…

I commented only because I didn't think it was particularly well written, and I found the threaD to be full of people commenting on how well written it was.

It's highly personalized and interesting, but I wouldn't call it well written.

As a personal bit of art - 'thumbs up', but anything else is overstated.

But more appropriately, the nihilism on this thread is unhinged.

"seeing their industry's future" ???

I'm seeing people empowered to do the most spectacular things that they have ever done in their lives.

Software hiring on the aggregate is up, job postings are up, people are doing more, non-developers get to tinker.

Speculative money is coming into the industry for people to try wild new things.

The implied reality in the story is totally detached from reality.

Surely - there is a movement of people who lament a sense of loss of control, but that's normal with change.

There are also people in crappy jobs with crappy bosses in crappy companies doing crappy things - but that's not a feature of AI or the industry, in fact, software is a pretty good place, relatively speaking.

As I said, this is a reflection of someone's state of mind, mood, being interpreted as some kind of metaphor, but it just doesn't line up with reality in general. A personal reality sure, but that's not a reflection of the community.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#95

I’m trying to piece together a thought. Is it right if my employer wants to “own” the gain in productivity from these tools? I’m being paid the same. I’m still doing 40 hours. The huge gains in productivity are not mine to enjoy, it seems.

[deleted]

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#96

I’m trying to piece together a thought. Is it right if my employer wants to “own” the gain in productivity from these tools? I’m being paid the same. I’m still doing 40 hours. The huge gains in productivity are not mine to enjoy, it seems.

I don't pay for the tokens I use, so why would I expect to be compensated for it?

Hell, I paid for my own programming environment (SlickEdit) years ago with my own money and still didn't expect to get paid more. I did it because it helped me deliver higher quality work more efficiently and I was proud of that.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hi, author here. what mental disposition would that be?

Whatever your mental disposition is. The writing is an expression of a state of mind through an absurdist voice, not any kind of reasonable articulation of reality. It's at least a much about the lens as it is the subject. Which is fine, if we ingest it roughly from that purview.

the writing is a tribute to a 2014 similar article, based on my experiences since. it is absolutely a reasonable articulation of reality, although through a sarcastic or satirical lens. you might have different experiences, that doesn't invalidate mine.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#100

It sounds like the author shouldn't be in tech. For many, perhaps most of us programming is joy. It's why we started in our teens and have continued for 40 years. This is just a cynical post that adds no new value. We didn't kill the junior training mechanism. Juniors are still hired in the 100's thousands every year. There are valuable things to be said about the impact of AI. This isn't one of them.

There are way too many people in tech who did it solely for the money. People worry about AI slop but these poseurs have been cranking out garbage for decades. A lot of my career has been cleaning up the mess they've made.
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