It is an amazing time for programmers • Hacker News Board

Re: It is an amazing time for programmers

#121

Post by cpfohl » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

anotherevan wrote: post #88

cpfohl wrote: post #42

Along similar lines: many of your favorite authors, musicians, and creators have public email addresses and seem to love getting emails. I’ve started writing notes with my kids to their favorite authors with ideas and always a thank you note. I’ve gotten replies from authors on NYT best sellers lists, musicians, and more. People like to be appreciated.

I know some authors in particular never, ever want to be sent story ideas. The potential of being accused of or sued for plagiarism down the track for something even vaguely similar is non-zero.

Most of our ideas are silly puns about the character names ;).

Re: It is an amazing time for programmers

#122

Post by keeda » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 4:03 PM UTC

austin-cheney wrote: post #118

keeda wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I doubt that would be an issue for a couple of reasons: 1. We have infinitely more durable means of storing, indexing and retrieving knowledge (and now potentially even means of programmatically reasoning about that knowledge!) We can re-derive things from our records using first principles, as long as we have critical reasoning skills -- about the only skill we will need in the future, and ironically the one mo…

That missed the point in past history and misses the point now. The technology to better preserve human knowledge has been available for thousands of years. It’s an irrelevant compensator for human behavior. If people, in large enough numbers, are not willing to learn, and extend, their craft it will fade into obscurity. There is no cheat sheet or magic tool for human behavior.

Hmm, I would say the technology to durably preserve human knowledge is actually very recent. Until just a few decades ago, other methods have been extremely lossy. Even today, with triple-redundant, geographically-distributed data replicas we see cases of catastrophic data loss. Previously, all it took was an errant spark in a library.

You're right that the main driver for loss of knowledge is human behavior, but I would posit the underlying reason is economics. Craft that reduces in economic value simply disappears because there is no incentive to preserve it.

As such, there is a cheat sheet for human behavior, it's called economics! ;-) And the already high economic value of code is only going to keep increasing sharply, so even if LLMs do most of the work there will be strong incentives for people to manualy craft code whenever LLMs, like all systems, inevitably fall short.

Re: It is an amazing time for programmers

#123

Post by gorjusborg » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #90

gorjusborg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by circle of avoidance?

When I go to these gigs, I tend to be the oldest person there. No one makes eye contact, and no one looks at me. I find it extremely difficult to start conversations, and I'm a fairly gregarious chap. There's usually a space around me, about a meter wide; even when it's crowded. The good news is, I rarely have trouble finding a seat.

I'm sorry you have had to experience that.

As much as I'd like to judge, I had a little bit of that 'elder avoidance' in my 20s, and I look back and cringe at how stupid I was.

I'm old enough now to know that 'my people' can't be determined by things I can judge easily by looks or short interactions. I'm going to hope they get it at some point.

Re: It is an amazing time for programmers

#124

Post by simbosambo » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 4:10 PM UTC

FrayedKnot wrote: post #94

CuriouslyC wrote: post #80

It's not a great time to be a programmer, it's a great time to be a marketer that can program passably. While 10x programmers are getting ignored on social media, you can use your marketing skills to hype your half baked project into a few thousand GitHub stars, then into investment from a VC. The exception is game programmers. With AI/engines, making games has never been easier, Steam takes a lot of the guesswork ou…

Damn, sounds like you can make some easy money if you teamed up with a guy who is really good at marketing then, or taught yourself after market.

[dead]

Re: It is an amazing time for programmers

#125

Post by jlundberg » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

jdw64 wrote: post #7

I also want to communicate with someone and have programming conversations. There's no one around me to talk about programming with. I'm the only programmer around. Aside from AI and books, I sometimes want to talk with a real person.

My two best points of advice is:

Go to meetups/hackathons

Threads the app, reply to coders on posts you find interesting and have things to add to.

Re: It is an amazing time for programmers

#126

Post by chrishill89 » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

justgoodfriends wrote: post #116

senda wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky was always amazing for this.

Yet he always found the time to read and respond to his bestie Jeff Epstein.

Absolutely. You didn't have to make an account to remind me, at least. His relationship with Epstein was shameful and there is no excuse for it.