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Programming Still Sucks

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Re: Programming Still Sucks

#101

Post by viccis »

doug_durham wrote: post #67
Waterluvian wrote: post #50

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.

You can absolutely capture the value of your additional productivity. Strike out on your own. Start your own company or consulting firm. That has always been the answer. Why would you think it would be any different now?

"Ah you textile workers are so whiny. If you're mad at your jobs being obsoleted by massive machine factories, why not just buy a few dozen such factories? Strike out on your own."

Yeah man I don't know if mommy and daddy are paying your rent and healthcare (as I often see from people with this attitude). Or maybe you're one of the 45 year old tech workers whose mid life crisis involves a music project no one will listen to and going to work on some startups with your FIRE nest egg until you come crawling back to a big tech company. But for now I, like most millennial Americans, am reliant on wage labor to afford a dignified life in a tolerable town.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#102

Post by jordwest »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #69
yoyohello13 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He really put in to words what I’ve been feeling lately. I love programming and I’m quite good at it, but this industry is a cesspit. I’ve already decided to go back to school to get one of those ‘real’ jobs. I’m tired of working in an industry hell bent on the destruction of society.

>> I’m tired of working in an industry hell bent on the destruction of society. People will argue this point. However, when I look at all the things that tech has done thinking it was going to improve society; when in fact, it did the exact opposite is hard to argue. AI is just another item on a very long list of dystopian markers that writers/musicians have warned us about for years. The scary part now is people den…

> The scary part now is people denying its happening right in front of them.

I wonder if age is a factor. Those of us who have been around for a while have seen all the promises and hope and excitement about the future, that maybe 20% of that comes true and the rest ends up being the usual exploitation and greed.

The younger people haven't been through that cycle of disillusionment yet so they still believe that only the positive, hopeful dreams will come true. It's natural, but naive, to believe that humans will always collectively choose the best path forward [1].

My grandma always refused to touch computers despite my excitement about them in my youth and I couldn't understand why. Now I think I get it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#103

Post by bluegatty »

bluegatty wrote: post #89
stevenlangbroek wrote: post #76

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.

your experiences (and probably mine as well) are not a reflection of the general reality of the industry - that's the root of the problem; the writing is a projection, not a reality. The writing is fine (even good) as a personal story, not in the manner in which people here seem to be interpreting it.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#104

Post by stevenlangbroek »

fnoef wrote: post #97

Isn’t it a bit ironic that a (presumably statically generated) blog post about “programming sucks” is being chocked to death by HN?

Yeah this was just a failure on my part, I was too lazy to go the ISR route and was on the Cloudflare free plan. I was not expecting any traffic haha.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#105

Post by arian_ »

Programming has always sucked. The difference now is that we have AI agents that can do the sucking for us, and somehow that made everything worse because now we have to debug code we didn't write, can't fully understand, and definitely can't explain in a code review.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#106

Post by jordwest »

kiba wrote: post #85
yoyohello13 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, I should have said an industry that will trample on anything that stands in the way of its pursuit of money.

The industry optimize toward whatever metric is legible. A company that optimize toward an illegible metric will endure.

Unfortunately there are plenty of highly legible metrics that make the world a worse place ("engagement" might be among the worst)

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#109

Post by endanke »

kiba wrote: post #84
socalgal2 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greed does not take your jobs, progress does. People don’t hand wash clothing for money because we have machines to do that now. We don’t need people delivering news papers because the news is delivered digitally. AI is no different. “IF” your job can be automated away or made more efficient it will. That might not be a benefit for your but it’s a benefit to society at large Note: the above is not claiming AI or LLM…

This is ignoring the people who capture the rent. If technological innovation is to liberate us from poverty then it should be a celebration that everytime that a job is automated. Since that is not happening, it implies something deeply wrong about how we structure our society.

These two things can be true at the same time.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#110

Post by ramon156 »

01100011 wrote: post #92
fooqux wrote: 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.

Im a medior and I earn 42k/yr. It would be a privilege for me to earn this much, as I cannot afford a home.
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