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

Do I Stop Learning Coding? DSA?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–16 of 16 posts

Re: Do I Stop Learning Coding? DSA?

#11

Post by codingdave »

These posts where people start from a worldview that believes AI can and will do everything all have a flawed premise. It can't. It won't.

Even if it could, it is a bad idea. How many sob stories are posted to HN about someone building a small startup that is utterly reliant on a 3rd party, and then they crash out and fail when that 3rd party has a problem. And the responses are always the same: "ooh, harsh way to learn that lesson... sorry." AI is no different. It is a 3rd party dependency. It will fail you. You need to have the skills to respond and adapt when those failures occur.

If AI helps you and makes your life easier, great. Use it. If it does 98% of the work for you, that is amazing. But if you could not have done it without AI, then it isn't helping you, it is a crutch. Think about airline pilots. They often (mostly?) just chill and observe while the autopilot does everything. But they can step up, take control, and do everything when needed. Can you imagine flying with a pilot who says, "No, I don't know how to land a plane. The autopilot does that for me." Don't be the software equivalent of a pilot who can't land their own plane.

Re: Do I Stop Learning Coding? DSA?

#12

Post by kypro »

Yes, probably... For a few years now I've been telling people to assume if they're in a tech job it will be their last. That's not to say there will be no tech jobs, but they will be very hard to get and less well paid making them relatively unattractive vs other work.

As it stands it would be a mistake to focus on a career at all. It might take a few decades, but AI and robotics will eventually automate all productive labour whether we like it or not. Any job you do is at risk of disruption in various ways from here until the end.

If you're still in school "learn to be a plumber" is decent advice. If you're older your best bet is probably to look for various low-skill and semi-decent paying jobs.

Your main focus should be trying to achieve financial independence, your physical security and food/water security – in this order. You should also learn basic survival skills and learn how to build things. Can you grow your own food? Can you make and repair tools?

In addition to the job losses political systems are likely to break down over the coming decades as AI and wealth inequality destabilises and erodes the political order. Meanwhile technological risks will undermine our security.

Your concern about your passions and career will seem silly soon. While it's good people are starting to worry about mass joblessness I feel most people are still misunderstanding the full impact AI will have on society with time. Be thinking and planning for the next decade and the decade after that, not the fact there won't be any tech jobs in a few years.

Re: Do I Stop Learning Coding? DSA?

#13

Post by austin-cheney »

Holy fuck, another young person give up on life thread.

Yes, as a software developer you will still need to learn to write software. The most important skill learned from this, speaking from 20 years experience writing open source and corporate software and 30 years military, is systems of organization. Call it architecture if you want. You won’t know how to put the Lego pieces together until you have done it yourself many different times.

AI can write software for you, as can a rookie, but only an experienced developer can determine what’s crap and how to do it better according to evidence.

Re: Do I Stop Learning Coding? DSA?

#14

Post by zuzuleinen »

"How are you coping?"

I'm using AI at work; however, I still believe fundamentals are valuable.

This is why at 37 I still do every day a session of MathAcademy[1] and recently I built a tool to practice coding&algorithms[2] that I plan to do a session each day because I believe coding&math will prove useful in the future and the only way to get really good at them is to practice them in a deliberate way and also have a sort of review component built in place.

These 2 take around 1h combined each day. Will I look back in 10 years telling myself I wasted this time? Probably not, because I really enjoy doing both of them and I really like learning stuff, so at least I can look back and know I had fun learning.

[1] https://mathacademy.com/

[2] https://github.com/zuzuleinen/algotutor/

Re: Do I Stop Learning Coding? DSA?

#16

Post by baranul »

ksherlock wrote: post #8

If you had a kid, would you tell him not to bother learning to read since he can just listen to audiobooks? Would you tell her not to learn math because she can just use a calculator? Would you tell them not to learn a musical instrument because they can just listen to spotify?

Was going to make a reply, but yours was perfect.
Post reply on HN