Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 425 posts

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#231

Post by dofm »

somenameforme wrote: post #221
dofm wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our client wants something: I mumble in my phone what they want, with some spec docs we had / made by mumbling in our phones: a working system comes out, we test it with our client, we fix. We sign a SLA, get paid 100k, a few weeks have passed. OK so, it sounds empty and miserable to me, but we can stipulate that this is how it is working out for you. Given that stipulation: how long do you think this can possibly…

You're not just in a race to the bottom with everybody else who is doing this. I don't think his anecdote is particularly surprising at all. You can do the same with basically any typical CRUD app, which is already going to be some very large percentage of all business software. But this kind of also leads to the conclusion that so can the people paying you. I think the years of software development/employment for pr…

I think it's a mistake to assume that quality doesn't plummet when cost does, even if the AI is capable of quality work. The quality issue will always resurface.

But yeah — I mean, I am a freelancer who burned out for reasons that are rather more influenced by the SaaS wave. That was hard to compete with. People choose between the solution that meets their needs and changing their processes to meet the ten-times-cheaper solution that doesn't, and that decision is often not at all irrational; by and large you want as many of your problems to be shared problems as possible.

I am trying to return to work so I am looking at what AI can really do for me, but the conclusion I draw is that since I cannot simply burn token money to solve people's problems, and because bugs cost me money, I need a strategy where I remain in full control of actual code, but LLMs help me do things faster. If I can't solve that, I am out.

Perhaps AI will upend the SaaS market before it fucks the freelancer market and the balance may temporarily shift. But it probably won't.

And at that point, as a fiftysomething, even with a bit of financial security, I start thinking about living a rather shorter, happier life, instead of a longer one. Because as much as I might have ideas, I don't think there is much I can switch to where I have appropriately deep skills to survive AI there, and all those alternative jobs will be oversubscribed and less likely to hire me.

I wonder if people in this industry have understood what we are doing to ourselves, to our friends.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#232

Post by telotortium »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #30
enraged_camel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Is anyone actually seeing a shift towards improved structure rather than more code, faster? Yes. At work we recently finished a complete rewrite of the platform. The old codebase got abandoned and two new codebases got stood up. Previous stack was Phoenix LiveView and the new one is Phoenix API + Vue /w TypeScript. Zero code shared between the two. We took the opportunity to re-architect a lot of the core function…

> For example, there is a 100% test coverage requirement in both server and client, combined with AI-driven review rules that say all tests must be non-vacuous, look, your application works, right? so it doesn't really matter what you or i think, and this is why AI matters. but this, your "100% test coverage" - that is pure slop. just 20 years ago, all the most popular software shipped with NO tests. are you getting…

> just 20 years ago, all the most popular software shipped with NO tests

Are you getting older? A lot of people anchor their intuition of time and history to a certain year. There are probably still lots of people who think the 1990s is not that long ago even though it’s now over a quarter century since it ended. Maybe you mentally default to 2012 or so, when it might be true that most popular software shipped without automated tests (although manual QA was a lot more extensive in 1992).

But 20 years ago is now 2006, and unit tests were well established as a best practice. Perl had extensive automated tests in the late 1990s that everyone who ever compiled Perl would have noticed, since they were run by default and produced obvious output. Kent Beck’s “Test Driven Development: By Example” was released in 2002, and popularized both the name and practice.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#233

Post by anonzzzies »

magicalist wrote: post #226
ElProlactin wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I only have the nagging question that if it’s so easy, why would the clients not do it by themselves? Plenty of reasons, including: 1. They don't (yet) know how to use AI to accomplish what they need. 2. The ROI is still meaningfully positive and they don't want to have to do it themselves. 3. Having a third-party do the work provides protection for decision-makers. If the project fails, the third-party takes the b…

I mean they've boasted[1] about their generated code being so good that they add basically zero value and that they're riding out the rentseeking for as long as possible. Meanwhile they've apparently played with LLM porting of Postgres (or Postgres features?) and "would not put it in production"[2], so we can also guess the kind and scope of features being discussed here. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4959…

The second was just for fun; it is fun. This is very far from the code we roll out at customers though. We build LoB apps which are basically crud apps (they are not but most here would call it that).

We can have fun and make money right? Possibly at the same time but not in that case.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#234

Post by internet2000 »

sinuhe69 wrote: post #196
anonzzzies wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again I don't get what people on HN are doing? Our client wants something: I mumble in my phone what they want, with some spec docs we had / made by mumbling in our phones: a working system comes out, we test it with our client, we fix. We sign a SLA, get paid 100k, a few weeks have passed. I mean, we should not measure everything in money, but for lack of a better measure for productivity, I cannot see how anyone fi…

If it works for you, great! Just keep going. I only have the nagging question that if it’s so easy, why would the clients not do it by themselves? Certainly they understand their problems better than you and they can adapt to rising issues faster if their in-house team does it themselves. And certainly what kind of AI you can access, they can too and perhaps even more. So what will remain your value propositions? I’m…

> I only have the nagging question that if it’s so easy, why would the clients not do it by themselves?

They can do it. What's the issue?

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#235

Post by venvio »

It would seem that the AI craze has shown a flaw in stereotypical "software engineers": an obsession over quantity and speed over everything else. A desire to belong to the group, a desire to exhibit the fact that they are not being left behind. While FOMO is a thing for all peoples, those in tech are particularly susceptible, given the nature of the field.

I have yet to see evidence that AI produces code that is higher in quality than human-written code. I have yet to see anyone show that burning through tokens is economically smarter than paying human engineers. All that is being revealed is how companies and software engineers truly feel about the work they do.

This technology is impressive, and we cannot doubt this. However, it seems that those within Silicon Valley are desperate to showcase the innovative spirit which has been absent for two decades.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#236

Post by anonzzzies »

sinuhe69 wrote: post #196
anonzzzies wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again I don't get what people on HN are doing? Our client wants something: I mumble in my phone what they want, with some spec docs we had / made by mumbling in our phones: a working system comes out, we test it with our client, we fix. We sign a SLA, get paid 100k, a few weeks have passed. I mean, we should not measure everything in money, but for lack of a better measure for productivity, I cannot see how anyone fi…

If it works for you, great! Just keep going. I only have the nagging question that if it’s so easy, why would the clients not do it by themselves? Certainly they understand their problems better than you and they can adapt to rising issues faster if their in-house team does it themselves. And certainly what kind of AI you can access, they can too and perhaps even more. So what will remain your value propositions? I’m…

Clients are starting to, that’s exactly why I am not sure why AI doom deniers here think this will think it will go well for them. But it will still take awhile and we are enjoying that time. If we see new markets, we will move into them.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#237

Post by ramesh31 »

magicalist wrote: post #226
ElProlactin wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I only have the nagging question that if it’s so easy, why would the clients not do it by themselves? Plenty of reasons, including: 1. They don't (yet) know how to use AI to accomplish what they need. 2. The ROI is still meaningfully positive and they don't want to have to do it themselves. 3. Having a third-party do the work provides protection for decision-makers. If the project fails, the third-party takes the b…

I mean they've boasted[1] about their generated code being so good that they add basically zero value and that they're riding out the rentseeking for as long as possible. Meanwhile they've apparently played with LLM porting of Postgres (or Postgres features?) and "would not put it in production"[2], so we can also guess the kind and scope of features being discussed here. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4959…

They're not "adding no value", the SLA is the value. I have a business problem, and I pay you to solve it and support your solution for me, is a completely different proposition than standing up your own solution as a non-technical org and maintaining it.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#238

Post by wiseowise »

PostOnce wrote: post #88

John Carmack is a personal hero of mine, so it pains me to say this: Carmack hasn't produced anything noteworthy since AI was invented, therefore, how productive can it really be? It could be he is doing incredible work in private... but it could also be that he's lost in the weeds, because AI is so counterproductive while feeling the opposite? I remain a skeptic.

As opposed to producing great things without AI? He hasn’t produced anything impressive since 90s/early 00s.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#239

Post by mettamage »

corv wrote: post #7
glimshe wrote: post #3

We are going from the era of manual, line-by-line mental model transcription to one where software engineers can focus on data structures, software architecture and algorithms. I love being able to quickly bring out the program that is already running in my head without having to worry about the grind of typing it into a format that the compiler understands. Dealing with API names. Syntax. Language quirks. Library go…

I like your constructive outlook and I want to believe that we can now focus on the bigger picture, but I'm not really seeing it around me. Most everyone I know that's "AI-pilled" has spent the newfound capacity on throughput instead of altitude. Is anyone actually seeing a shift towards improved structure rather than more code, faster? We seem to be living in the Gatling-gun version of the picture John Carmack drew…

I use vibecoding to capture UX. It's the best way of capturing requirements I've seen so far. Then once it's all captured and dies down towards requirements that are all in the "could have" category of MoSCoW, then I use AI-assisted coding (and the fun task of reading tens of thousands of source code lines) to refactor or create an entirely new application that is more technically sound.

I'm making full-stack applications at the moment.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#240

Post by lelanthran »

glimshe wrote: post #3

We are going from the era of manual, line-by-line mental model transcription to one where software engineers can focus on data structures, software architecture and algorithms. I love being able to quickly bring out the program that is already running in my head without having to worry about the grind of typing it into a format that the compiler understands. Dealing with API names. Syntax. Language quirks. Library go…

> We are going from the era of manual, line-by-line mental model transcription to one where software engineers can focus on data structures, software architecture and algorithms.

Why? What makes you think your data structure design, architecture and algorithms are ever going to surpass AI in the near future?

You honestly can't see a (near) future where those 3 elements are done by AI, not by you?

Post reply on HN