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Learning to code is still worthwhile

stevekrouse.com

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Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#271

Post by JR1427 »

taybin wrote: post #120

> Code is a beautiful form of creative expression, as rich as literature or music I think this is overstating it and makes me wonder how familiar the author is with literature and music. Most programming is closer to plumbing. We come in, gripe about the guy who did the prior job, and solve a puzzle with some unique constraints. The reason LLMs are good at coding is because with coding we want boring, banal code.

Totally agree. Programming is not art. Does my company pay thousands of engineers to make art? I think not!

We're paid to solve a problem that the customer has.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#272

Post by budsniffer952 »

kuboble wrote: post #190
gyulai wrote: post #163

I think that, even among those who have had the ability to code since before LLMs, the skill of coding has been in atrophy, and will continue to be so over the next 10 or 20 years. Learning to code, over the same period of time, will not be worthwhile. At the end of that process, cracks in the system will start to show: Namely, we will have nothing but LLM-generated code to train future LLMs on, and codebases for pro…

I think in order to be a productive programmer with Claude you still need to understand what you are doing. Learning to code is a must. You need to know what is possible or easy to know how much you can ask. What will be less important is to keep your sword sharp. I notice that if code less for some time I do more one-off errors, copy/paste mistakes etc. With llm keeping the coding skill warm is less important but I…

This is the correct take.

Of course you need to know how to code to code. We just no longer need to write code the same, or even reason about the same problems. It's awesome.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#273

Post by wrey »

customguy wrote: post #232
taybin wrote: post #120

> Code is a beautiful form of creative expression, as rich as literature or music I think this is overstating it and makes me wonder how familiar the author is with literature and music. Most programming is closer to plumbing. We come in, gripe about the guy who did the prior job, and solve a puzzle with some unique constraints. The reason LLMs are good at coding is because with coding we want boring, banal code.

Most programming is throwaway garbage, and if plumbing was treated remotely like that we'd be in deep shit, literally. I never had plumbers come in and complain about the previous guy. They either changed something, or fixed something I caused. And whatever they did, it worked for years and decades, perfectly, even when I didn't treat it as well as I should have. And to make things boring and banal is still an "art",…

I get your point, but I think that's a poor example. I've been around plenty of Plumbers, Mechanics, Contractors, and Electricians. You're almost guaranteed a comment or remark about the previous guy's work.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#275

Post by NuclearPM »

layman51 wrote: post #57
NuclearPM wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.

I have actually thought something similar but more in terms of divination. There’s some people who might compare LLMs to something like Tarot or automatic writing (think Ouija) because there’s a sense of randomness with LLMs too. Both LLMs and divination methods also have the danger that someone could kind of drive themselves into madness with it. I don’t know too much about what how or why people can drive themselve…

The obvious difference is LLMs are real and divination is bullshit.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#276

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

mangodrunk wrote: post #267
stackbutterflow wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's such a shame that our society doesn't value more, in economic terms, this type of skills.

Can you expand on why you think society should value it?

What is a society without culture? Decline.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#277

Post by DrewADesign »

drTobiasFunke wrote: post #106
DrewADesign wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but if things progress as they promised, it will require far fewer people to do the same work, which means the industry already has all the people it so need for at least a couple decades. That’s what happened with tool and die guys when offshoring kicked off, and now they’re scrambling to get apprentices because the last of the OG ones are retiring. There were decades that pretty much nobody (relative to prio…

You are assuming that the amount of work is finite, so more productive people implies fewer people are required. Is that the case though? Has it ever been?

The amount of work in any given market at any given time is finite. Beyond that, developers likely won’t even be the bottleneck if everyone is a 10x ultradev 3000.

> Has it ever been?

Well… yes? So very many industries shrank, even disappeared in practical terms, because efficiency, automation and technological improvements. Industrial revolution? Calculators? Computerized accounting? I mean the list is giant.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#278

Post by Toutouxc »

chii wrote: post #158
glouwbug wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't because we're not committing prompts. The analogous would be compiling to and then committing unmaintainable assembly when the higher level language, which is a deterministic compiler, already exists

> not committing prompts. nothing prevents people from committing their prompts. I've started seeing prompts being committed into repos, or at least as part of the commit message. In any case, if in the future there's a prompt specific language, it would be committed. I dont think we've reached there yet, but i dont doubt this is on the path to the future.

> if in the future there's a prompt specific language, it would be committed. I dont think we've reached there yet, but i dont doubt this is on the path to the future

You mean, like a ... programming language? Honestly I can't tell these days what is satire and what isn't.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#279

Post by alightsoul »

walthamstow wrote: post #249
tines wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't the same thing be said about literature and music?

The earnings distribution in those arts are highly concentrated. Not the case for SWE.

what about stock music/corporate event production and writing knowledge bases/advertising? those would be the plumbing equivalents of music and writing imo
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