Sorry, programming is still fun. LLMs can't change that.
I'm curious - how do you explain the fact that as you look all around you, lesser number of devs are having fun?
Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
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Re: Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
#22Re: Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Difficulty is too many technologies available. So a beginner needs something/someone that teaches principles. I have realized that simplier (boring) is better. E.g. simple html5 css combo is better instead of trying to navigate in JS frameworks.
>simple html5 css combo HTML is not a programming language IMHO. Javascript running in browser is not very interesting either.
Don’t catch me by word :)
Would you prefer starting with compiling a program or running a python script? Imho for beginners it is too heavy, even a python that is so hyped recently.
Re: Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
#24I'm the author of Python Crash Course, and I got this exact same email this week. I was thinking of writing a public response as well, because any attempt to sincerely answer these questions takes something along the lines of a full post. It's also worth a public response because many people who are getting into programming for the first time right now are asking variations of these same questions. > Do I think that…
> I think people can learn faster than they used to
Agree, but that only applies for people who were experienced developers before AI took over. Let's see in 5-10 years what our caliber looks like when you skip the foundations.
Re: Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
#25My biggest issue with halting AI progress right now is we are in a dangerous place where AI is only just good enough to be dangerous. So I see an argument to continue development until its competent to depend on.
Re: Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
#26Sorry, programming is still fun. LLMs can't change that.
I'm curious - how do you explain the fact that as you look all around you, lesser number of devs are having fun?
Because for a lot of millenials and older developers coding/making thing by hand was the fun part. The endless meetings, scrum rituals, code reviews etc were the annoying parts of the job.
Now they took away coding by hand, so what's there to enjoy? In a field that was already sensitive to burn out and churn taking the joy from the daily routine doesn't help with that.
Only thing you can do is get in build something for 2 years hope you got bought by big tech before the pile of slop code collapses on itself.
Re: Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Difficulty is too many technologies available. So a beginner needs something/someone that teaches principles. I have realized that simplier (boring) is better. E.g. simple html5 css combo is better instead of trying to navigate in JS frameworks.
>simple html5 css combo HTML is not a programming language IMHO. Javascript running in browser is not very interesting either.
As a programming languages researcher I disagree. HTML is not just a programming language (a declarative one), it literally has the word “language” in the name. The world of programming languages is much larger than general purpose languages.
Also, whether JavaScript is interesting is a matter of opinion. Given that for a long time it was the only web language, I’d say that makes it interesting. It’s also in my opinion a poorly designed language but that also makes it “interesting” because its behavior is sometimes hard to predict.
Re: Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
#28I'm doing this. After getting started with LLM coding, I became super interested in learning to code, just out of passion. I walked out of engineering thinking physics was elite, but now I understand how passionate I am about building things, and how boring quantum mechanics was. Better late than never.
Re: Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
#29[flagged]
Re: Learning Programming in an Age of LLMs
#30Sorry, programming is still fun. LLMs can't change that.
I agree. Possibly more fun than ever. Bugs are being caught earlier through AI review, higher quality and quantity of tests, features are going out faster, bad decisions can be easily course corrected and bike shedding is dropping dramatically.
I miss the romanticism of trad coding but shipping better solutions to my customers was the goal. Hard to argue things aren’t better when AI is used intelligently by experienced people.