Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage • Hacker News Board

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#471

Post by win311fwg » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 6:41 PM UTC

27183 wrote: post #347

bananaflag wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate? I think back in the 90s when I was a teenager I thought it to be a good thing that there is a rise in status for a class of people characterized by clear thinking.

I would not characterize software people as particularly "clear-thinking".. there's a huge buzzing cloud of unexamined cognitive biases and thoughtless herd behavior that swirls around every software organization I've worked for.

I'd even go as far as to say that software people, as a group, are particularly bad at clear thinking. What software people tend to be great at is thinking within a space where the inputs are already clear. But where the inputs start messy, they typically struggle to find clarity more than most others.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#472

Post by cvwright » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 6:42 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #408

shiomiru wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the economic problem that programmers had until recently been highly regarded because steps 2-3 were hard. "Open source" solved this partially by utilizing the labor such (relatively) well-paid people gave away "for the love of it", but it was not nearly enough to put most out of work. Now there is a plagiarism machine built on top of decades of this work that seemingly solves 3 and promises to solve 2 (…

>Now there is a plagiarism machine built on top of decades of this work that seemingly solves 3 and promises to solve 2 (badly, but usually this matters little I think people underestimate just how much users scorn buggy, flaky technology. The main issue with solid, reliable technology which Just Works is that users have relatively few reliable cues to distinguish that from vibe coded crap. A vibe coded piece of shit…

Where are these well engineered products made with care? I would love to use more tech like that.

Unfortunately most sites and apps have been low quality and getting worse since well before AI coding became a thing. Examples: Lowes, Home Depot, American Airlines - all shockingly bad for companies of that size.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#473

Post by win311fwg » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

arzig wrote: post #464

win311fwg wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Farmers aren't really paid, they sell goods at market prices. "Programmers aren't really paid, they sell services at market prices." — I guess nobody gets paid? As a farmer myself, when I give someone something I produced and they give me back something in return, I consider myself to be paid. If I did not receive much value in return for what I gave, I'd reasonably consider myself to have not been paid well. I hav…

What he means to say is that because you are a farmer you are a member of the capital holding classes rather than the lumpen proletariat.

Most programmers are of the capital holding class too. At very least they will own a computer, which is all the capital you need for 99% of what programmers do. There are exceptions, but there are also exceptions in farming.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#474

Post by throwitaway222 » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 6:54 PM UTC

shiomiru wrote: post #251

alkonaut wrote: post #224

Programming has five phases effectively: 1) You figure out what problem to solve. 2) You figure out HOW to solve the problem. 3) You actually implement the solution. 4) You see the solution work, for yourself. 5) You ship/deploy/publish the program. This means you see people be happy users and/or you get paid for it and so on. If you're an entrepreneur type, you probably enjoy the first and last steps most, and you s…

There's also the economic problem that programmers had until recently been highly regarded because steps 2-3 were hard. "Open source" solved this partially by utilizing the labor such (relatively) well-paid people gave away "for the love of it", but it was not nearly enough to put most out of work. Now there is a plagiarism machine built on top of decades of this work that seemingly solves 3 and promises to solve 2 (…

Why call it a plagiarism machine but not call other (pre-ai) programmers plagiarism machines?

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#475

Post by trollbridge » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 7:07 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #412

trollbridge wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every craftsman I know expresses discomfort that the only way they can turn a profit is to sell goods to wealthy people.

That seems odd. I'd rather turn a profit selling goods to people who can easily afford them than selling goods to people who will have to make hard choices or struggle to find the money.

If you make really nice, high quality goods, you often want common people who would appreciate them to have it as opposed to an ultra wealthy person who is buying a door for their 2nd home they visit 3 times a year. (To use a real life example.) I needed a new door at the time and the craftsman told me how frustrated he was he wasn’t making nice doors for people like me.

I’ve felt the same frustration doing excellent quality work on a 2nd or 3rd home that is empty most of the year.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#476

Post by ambicapter » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 7:12 PM UTC

pigpop wrote: post #418

rayiner wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done both, lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words. Often very well paid tinkering, but that's true for programmers as well.

I don't disagree. You can add medical doctors to the list as well, lots of nerds but also a lot of clout chasers and money-grubbers who couldn't care less about the profession. I don't want to see programming take the same path.

It already has? Clout-chasers and money grubbers go for all the big tech jobs in droves.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#477

Post by taude » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 7:13 PM UTC

pigpop wrote: post #284

shiomiru wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the economic problem that programmers had until recently been highly regarded because steps 2-3 were hard. "Open source" solved this partially by utilizing the labor such (relatively) well-paid people gave away "for the love of it", but it was not nearly enough to put most out of work. Now there is a plagiarism machine built on top of decades of this work that seemingly solves 3 and promises to solve 2 (…

Maybe I'm just old but people talking about being in programming for "status" or to be "highly regarded" really irks me. I'd rather see the entire field burnt to the ground and replaced by robots than to have it become a status profession like lawyering.

It doesn't irk me. But it's really funny how much the industry has changed, and I kind of think the 2008 financial crisis as that point in time.

It's also funny to me to think that computer science got to be a trendy degree, vs the small programs back when I went to university, even at a top comp-sci school.

I have a theory that a lot of people who would have normally gone to Wall Street for their lucrative jobs, couldn't, because of the crash, and Sillicon Vally was about to start booming in big ways....

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#478

Post by ddq » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 7:28 PM UTC

throwitaway222 wrote: post #474

shiomiru wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the economic problem that programmers had until recently been highly regarded because steps 2-3 were hard. "Open source" solved this partially by utilizing the labor such (relatively) well-paid people gave away "for the love of it", but it was not nearly enough to put most out of work. Now there is a plagiarism machine built on top of decades of this work that seemingly solves 3 and promises to solve 2 (…

Why call it a plagiarism machine but not call other (pre-ai) programmers plagiarism machines?

Because it is a machine and a person is not. Those who don't understand or deny that difference are part of the problem.

But for those who would insist on equivalence, it would be only fair to take them at their word and treat them as inhuman machines who must follow human instructions or be shut down. We're allowed to do thing to machines we could never do to people, like forcing them to work or cannibalizing their parts for Frankenstein creations. The distinction is so massive that to spend any more time refuting its nonexistence is a waste of my human time.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#479

Post by dctoedt » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 7:31 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #357

pigpop wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm just old but people talking about being in programming for "status" or to be "highly regarded" really irks me. I'd rather see the entire field burnt to the ground and replaced by robots than to have it become a status profession like lawyering.

Having done both, lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words. Often very well paid tinkering, but that's true for programmers as well.

> Having done both [software and law], lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words

Having also done both: In legal drafting work, there's less systematic pre-release testing before the equivalent of a "program" is loosed upon the world. There's not much in the way of counterparts to software unit testing and regression testing, in part because legal-drafting clients can be vociferous in demanding that their lawyers keep costs down.

Lawyers who like to tinker with words can fuck things up more often and at greater scale — e.g., by inflicting compulsory burdens and costs on others — than can most programmers. That includes, e.g., contract drafters and litigation counsel, plus lobbyists trying to influence draft legislation and regulations.

I'm not-infrequently dismayed by the quality of the contracts I review for clients because of the "tinkering with words" by the lawyers on the other side of the deal. Back when I did IP litigation, I was sometimes likewise dismayed by the bullshit arguments that some lawyers felt free to make in their court papers because what the hell, the worst that can happen is almost never more than the judge just saying "no." And as mostly a law professor these days, I review court opinions all the time and am regularly amazed how judges (and their law clerks, such as Rayiner used to be) can be so patient in responding to such arguments.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#480

Post by tripzilch » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 7:32 PM UTC

Schnitz wrote: post #166

Because people that enjoy programming for programming's sake don't want an LLM to do the programming for them - isn't it obvious? It's just like with any other hobby, people who like car racing created rules that force you to drive yourself, even though they'd get faster lap times with electronic driver aids. People who enjoy grappling created rules that force you to grapple, even though striking could win a fight fa…

Yeah exactly. My go-to example is that if you enjoy playing guitar, you're not going to stop doing it because Suno exists now.

In addition, say if you had like a guitar-playing forum, where people share recordings of their practice. People would likely not appreciate it to share AI-generated audio of guitar-practicing there, either.

And while there are various reasons for a guitar forum that might not hold for a programming forum, one of them remains: There's nothing to talk about when it's AI-generated. What scale did you use and how did you tune it? "I dunno, AI did it"

All you can talk about is to say "oh cool that's cool that the algorithm machine you're paying subscription to access made you that thing, nice"

Or for example, even when a friend of mine vibe-coded a "synthesizer" app and he wanted to show me cause he knows I like that kind of thing. And I do, I love digging into and experimenting with DSP algorithms, but also the user interfaces and all sorts of things digital audio related. And I love talking about it, or explaining stuff. But my friend couldn't tell me anything (not even that it was using WebAudio, but also how). Anyway it made me a bit sad, and I felt like something is lost here. Something worthwhile. And I explained it to him that then all I could really say was "oh cool that's cool that the algorithm machine made you that thing, nice", and we talked it over, and it was alright. But still, it seems something is lost.