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Fuck it, make it anyway

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Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#371

Post by Chris2048 »

Zizizizz wrote: post #233
imdsm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is eery to read, as I've been thinking something very similar recently whilst discussing gen AI with a close friend who works in tech but isn't a developer, who now uses AI to build everything he wished he could. Meanwhile I've seen other people, colleagues, friends, who are programmers get incredibly frustrated about AI and it's almost entirely that it lets non-developers make things. The feeling I get is that…

I think there's an element of truth to what you're saying in respect to the feelings of frustration that people who are non-technical can compete with those who have spent decades of time and effort to learning the crafts of their trade. What I also think they are thinking (because I am one of them) is not that we can produce value easier and quicker. It's that there's a devaluing of education and expertise to the po…

> just copy your processes, get rid of you because they have their own ideas

Implies a process requiring no expert knowledge or understanding. That doesn't seem to match common experience of professional agentic development.

You are describing vibe coding, which is without human design, review or direction.

Models are getting better at this, but it's not yet clear how practical they will be. They often fail on uncommon tasks, or get increasingly more expensive as the code-base grows.

I think things will change, as the technology develops; problem is corps are acting like we are already there, encouraged by ai-providers.

I'm optimistic about ai, pessimistic about the fallout of ai hype.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#372

Post by gedy »

Zizizizz wrote: post #233
imdsm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is eery to read, as I've been thinking something very similar recently whilst discussing gen AI with a close friend who works in tech but isn't a developer, who now uses AI to build everything he wished he could. Meanwhile I've seen other people, colleagues, friends, who are programmers get incredibly frustrated about AI and it's almost entirely that it lets non-developers make things. The feeling I get is that…

I think there's an element of truth to what you're saying in respect to the feelings of frustration that people who are non-technical can compete with those who have spent decades of time and effort to learning the crafts of their trade. What I also think they are thinking (because I am one of them) is not that we can produce value easier and quicker. It's that there's a devaluing of education and expertise to the po…

> people who are non-technical can compete with those who have spent decades of time and effort to learning the crafts of their trade.

I say this often, but in 25 years I have not worked with non-technical people who can design a complete, logical product, even with AI/LLMs "unlocking" the coding part now. Maybe I'm just unlucky but quite a few companies and different domains.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#373

Post by FeteCommuniste »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #152
FeteCommuniste wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Motivation is rarely a question of either/or (art for art's sake / art for recognition). And for many practitioners, being part of a community of fellow artists who "know the struggle" is also part of the fun.

There will always be communities of people who want to handcraft everything, who will be available to commiserate about the struggle of their craft. We still have people doing crazy shit like collecting/smelting iron by hand and smithing it into swords (which will literally never be used).

Probably, just like now where there are still small groups of hobbyist programmers who write in little-used languages for obscure old platforms hardly anyone else cares about. But I think it's perfectly fair to mourn the prospect of something that used to be both your passion and livelihood get pushed to some dusty niche corner of the tech landscape.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#374

Post by acedTrex »

Palomides wrote: post #143
user43928 wrote: post #4

I liked building apps and helpful tools before AI came around. I've been doing so for 15 years, 10 of them professionally. Today, I like it even better. It's never been so fun. What would have taken days of work, if it was feasible at all, I can have implemented in half an hour now and iterate on the result to make it work the way I want. I stopped reviewing the code at all. People on here are often saying how that's…

AI has really revealed the programmers who were temporarily inconvenienced idea guys

This is BY FAR the worst part of LLMs to me. The idea guys were always incredibly annoying but very ignorable. Now they are constantly in your face but providing the exact same 0 value as always.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#375

Post by alchemism »

Zizizizz wrote: post #347
alchemism wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any organization that vibecodes a significant amount of software in-house instead of buying it will not be reducing developer headcount. I'd bet on it. The CTO or EngDir will not be able to run 10x10 agent-cli sessions, or review 50 vibe coded PRs per week, no matter how capably autonomous the agents become.

Sounds like a failure of imagination to me (I hope you're right). It doesn't have to be the CTO, it can be anyone who will sit there for the cheapest cost to read output while assuming the risk of it all working until they retire. Sounds glorious

Even if all the changes are “good” not shoddy, awareness of changes will still require layers of cognitive filtering. One human PM clerk will not be able to oversee all of the products, one developer will not be able to oversee all changes in all codebases.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#376

Post by 59percentmore »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #175
0xpgm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you enjoy the crafts, or did you enjoy the compliments? Did you enjoy the difficult puzzles or the identity derived from a career that gives you the reputation and perceived value of someone who can do a thing most people can’t? I think in the end everyone will be happy. Those who just want to ship, make money and attain status and do not care much for the process will embrace whatever capabilities AI affords t…

Except that there are finite hours in the day. I enjoy the process and craft very much, but I also enjoy making high tech salaries. Up until a year or so ago, those weren't contradictory, because the craft paid well. Now, continuing to be employed in an AI-dominated industry means that I can no longer practice my craft at work most days. So now I need to find the motivation to do it in my spare time - and this while…

Welcome to the world everyone else has to muddle through.

The solution has long been, and remains, "Organize and demand enough money to live on from ~20 hours of employed labor a week, spend the rest of the time as you'd like."

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#377

Post by hirvi74 »

I have pondered whether our career/hobby will eventually be like equestrian activities. Horses or walking were basically the only options for land traversal for thousands of years. Now, horseback riding is nothing more than a hobby or sport. I grew up on a horse farm and rode a lot in my youth. I can't say the skill has ever truly been useful, but it was fun for a time.

No matter how good AI gets, I believe I will always program by hand to some degree. I really enjoy the activity, and most of all, I have enjoyed the learning and composition aspect. Programming by hand might not be useful, but like most hobbies, that does not really matter at the end of the day.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#378

Post by acedTrex »

namr2000 wrote: post #288
bigmadshoe wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't bring anything to life. You just described it.

I mostly agree with this sentiment, and have a hard time describing anything LLM generated as "mine". However, would you say that the designers at Apple, or Steve Jobs for example didn't "bring the Macintosh to life" because they didn't work on any of the engineering or code? It's a hard line to draw.

No, its a very easy line to draw. Rallying and bringing together humans is COMPLETELY different than having an LLM do something. They are not comparable.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#379

Post by GMoromisato »

pastel8739 wrote: post #257
imdsm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is eery to read, as I've been thinking something very similar recently whilst discussing gen AI with a close friend who works in tech but isn't a developer, who now uses AI to build everything he wished he could. Meanwhile I've seen other people, colleagues, friends, who are programmers get incredibly frustrated about AI and it's almost entirely that it lets non-developers make things. The feeling I get is that…

> The people who are happy about this change, are those who would answer a programmer's job is to produce value. This is sort of meaningless; the purpose of _every_ job is to produce value. The reason I chose to be a software engineer is because I enjoy solving the kinds of problems that it involved, not because it would allow me to deliver value to companies. Changing what a programmer does is _changing the job_, an…

I believe my job as a programmer is to produce value, but your retort is very strong. Cleaning bathrooms would not be fullfilling for me.

Ultimately, I like the creation part of programming: creating something that doesn't exist that is of value to at least one person (usually me). In general, though, I get more satisfaction when more people get value out of my creations.

Through that lens, AI does change things: a whole set of things that I can create no longer have value to people (at least the value is lower, because AI can do it better than whatever product I create). But at the same time, I can now create more sophisticated and more powerful things with the help of AI.

On the whole, I'm more satisfied with AI than without.

Re: Fuck it, make it anyway

#380

Post by [deleted] »

alchemism wrote: post #270
Zizizizz wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an element of truth to what you're saying in respect to the feelings of frustration that people who are non-technical can compete with those who have spent decades of time and effort to learning the crafts of their trade. What I also think they are thinking (because I am one of them) is not that we can produce value easier and quicker. It's that there's a devaluing of education and expertise to the po…

Any organization that vibecodes a significant amount of software in-house instead of buying it will not be reducing developer headcount. I'd bet on it. The CTO or EngDir will not be able to run 10x10 agent-cli sessions, or review 50 vibe coded PRs per week, no matter how capably autonomous the agents become.

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