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Learning to code is still worthwhile

stevekrouse.com

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Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#291

Post by customguy »

wrey wrote: post #273
customguy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn't say it doesn't happen, but I for one never experienced it, I saw zero churn and posturing or kool-aid. I guess plumbing got more professional the more widespread and crucial it became, while software is just getting sloppier and more bloated.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#293

Post by fragmede »

nullpoint420 wrote: post #156
fragmede wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the expense of what, though? That's 30 minutes not spent learning about the business, or talking to customers, or to your kids. Or watching the World Cup. Or reading Hacker News.

i always hear this argument. and then those that proclaim it get stuck for a sprint trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and then i get a ticket a month later because the customer reported the feature isn't working. all while they proclaim how much they care about the customer. i'm not just talking about one person. i feel as if there's an archetype of programmer that thinks like this.

I'm not sure what archetype my comment makes me fall under, but my point is people spend time and effort learning about the things that are important to them. The things that are important to them aren't important to you and I'm saying that being interested in how a CPU actually works doesn't make you better or smarter than them being interested in how other parts of the business work.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#294

Post by jplusequalt »

Rover222 wrote: post #266
jplusequalt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roller Coaster Tycoon was programmed in fucking assembly. That's a work of artistry right there.

Calling it as rich as the best works of literature is peak programmer angst.

Trying to compare apples to oranges is peak idiocy.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#295

Post by Izkata »

weakfish wrote: post #241
duskdozer wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, are you still handwriting your specs? How Q2 2026. Handcrafted artisan specs are obsolete and you will be left behind in the dust if you still insist on them.

Poe’s law displayed beautifully here

In which direction? It wasn't long ago having the agent generate a plan before acting on it was a "best practice".

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#296

Post by loco5niner »

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.

Have you not seen the Mechanical Watch work of art by Bartosz Ciechanowski? My goodness it's beautiful.

https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#297

Post by kbelder »

irjustin wrote: post #122
StilesCrisis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The babysitting work would still be impossible if you didn't actually know how to code.

For now, I can imagine a not too distant future where this is largely untrue. LLMs are an abstraction just like machine code -> assembly -> C/JVM -> some lang -> LLMs? At some point you stopped needing to understand the layer down because the layer you were on became so good. Yes there are always corner cases, but for the vast majority of developers/engineers out there, staying at your layer was enough to make a care…

But at every point, your product was better if you still understood the lower level. Your Python is better if you understand Assembly.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#298

Post by blooalien »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #89
exfalso wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways to do it correctly. You just end up spending a lot of time conceptualizing and refining abstractions. To me the issue is more that conceptualizing requires a certain state of mind. Before llms it was 10% hard thinking 90% implementing. Implementation was actually sort of a reward, it felt so good just being in the zone and fleshing out ideas. Post llms I find myself walking up and down quite a lot, onl…

I wonder what the rates of burnout are going to look like in a couple of years, if this is the future Talk about driving people off a cliff

> Talk about driving people off a cliff

The mega-rich clowns firing everyone and then hiring back just those few that they realize they actually needed to keep after-the-fact are actually driving themselves right off that same cliff along with everyone else, and they don't even realize it. I bet money all this "AI" nonsense don't end up leadin' to the "Rich Guy Utopia" they think they're workin' toward. It's much more likely gonna just lead to a shittier world for everyone on Earth, rich and mega-ultra-totally-too-rich folk included. Wait'll the "AI bubble" bursts and see how much fun they have losin' zillions while pretty much everyone else lands in the "poor house" and comes lookin' to them for retribution. I suspect the guillotine is makin' a comeback sometime in the future.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#299

Post by PyWoody »

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…

If you haven't read it, I think you'd enjoy The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. It's amazingly prescient, given it was written in 1909.

Re: Learning to code is still worthwhile

#300

Post by DrewADesign »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #209
swsieber wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if your average developer is a measly 30% more efficient, that might create 20% less demand for developers I mean it might. But I wouldn't rule out Jevon's paradox where the increased efficiency increases demand. Build more roads, congestion gets worse. Make developers more efficient, demand for developers increases. I wouldn't be surprised if demand for bespoke software goes up.

I see it go in either two directions, assuming it plateaus at a marginal increase in productivity. Either this newly found productivity helps teams tackle backlog tasks that they never had the time to complete, or it's used to churn out more low quality work.

We can get a preview of it all in the media creation world. Slop slop slop.
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