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The Programmer Identity Crisis

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Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#151

Post by rpcope1 »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #106
codyb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Configuring editors, dot files, and dev environments consistently adds value by giving you familiarity with your working environment, honing your skills with your tools, and creating a more productive space tailored to your needs. Who else becomes the go to person for modifying build scripts? The amount of people I know who have no idea how to work with Git after decades in the field using it is pretty amazing. It's…

Have you considered that the problem is with Git and not the users?

How dumbed down does everything need to be? Git has warts for sure, but this whole ideas guy no actual understanding of anything is how you get trainwrecks. There is no free lunch, and you're going to pay one way or another for not understanding the tools of the craft, and that not everything can be ridiculously simple.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#152

Post by bdangubic »

isaacremuant wrote: post #145
aeblyve wrote: post #115

This process has been affecting most of the world's workers for the past several centuries. Programming has received a special treatment for the last few decades, and it's understandable that HN users would jump to protect their life investment, but it need not. Hand-coding can continue, just like knitting co-exists with machine looms, but it need not ultimately maintain a grip on the software productive process. It…

This is so funny to me. Hand-coding is no longer "the future"? Did an AI write your post or did you "hand write it"? Code needs to be simple and maintainable and do what it needs to do. Auto complete wasn't a huge time saver because writing code wasn't the bottleneck then and it definitely is not the bottleneck now. How much you rely on an LLM won't necessarily change the quality or speed of what you produce. Special…

> Code needs to be simple and maintainable and do what it needs to do.

And yet after 3 decades in the industry I can tell you this fantasy exists only on snarky HN comments.

> Hand-coding is no longer "the future"?

hand-coding is 100% not the future, there are teams already that absolutely do not hand-code anything anymore (I help with one of them that used to have 19 "hand-coders" :) ). The typing for sure will get phased out. it is quite insane that it took "AI" to make people realize how silly and wasteful is to type characters into IDEs/editors. the sooner you see this clearly the better it will be for your career

> How much you rely on an LLM won't necessarily change the quality or speed of what you produce.

if it doesn't you need to spend more time and learn and learn and learn more. 4/6/8 terminals at a time doing all various things for you etc etc :)

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#153

Post by aleph_minus_one »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #117
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem rather is that you still have to stay somewhat agreeable while calling out the bullshit. If you were "socially allowed" to treat colleagues like > All while the author—who clearly only skimmed their “own” code—is taking no responsibility, going “whoopsie, Claude wrote that. Silly AI, ha-ha.” as they really deserve, the problem would disappear really fast. So the problem that you outlined is rather social,…

They should get a clear explanation of the problem and of the team expectations the first time it happens. If it happens a second time? A stern talk from their manager. A third time? PIP or fired. Let your manager be the bad guy. That's part of what they're for. Your manager won't do that? Then your team is broken in a way you can't fix. Appeal to their manager, first, and if that fails put your resume on the street.

> Let your manager be the bad guy. That's part of what they're for.

> Your manager won't do that? Then your team is broken in a way you can't fix.

If you apply this standard, then most teams are broken.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#154

Post by cookiengineer »

strix_varius wrote: post #57

To me, the most salient point was this: > Code reviewing coworkers are rapidly losing their minds as they come to the crushing realization that they are now the first layer of quality control instead of one of the last. Asked to review; forced to pick apart. Calling out freshly added functions that are never called, hallucinated library additions, and obvious runtime or compilation errors. All while the author—who cl…

You have two options: Burn out because you need to correct every stupid line of code, or... Start to not give a damn about quality of code and live a happy life while getting paid.

The sane option is to join the cult. Just accept every pull request. Git blame won't show your name anyways. If CEOs want you to use AI, then tell AIs to do your review, even better.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#155

Post by 1718627440 »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #106
codyb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Configuring editors, dot files, and dev environments consistently adds value by giving you familiarity with your working environment, honing your skills with your tools, and creating a more productive space tailored to your needs. Who else becomes the go to person for modifying build scripts? The amount of people I know who have no idea how to work with Git after decades in the field using it is pretty amazing. It's…

Have you considered that the problem is with Git and not the users?

Nah.

Maybe Git is too complicated for hobby users, because it has a steep learning curve. But after two weeks using you now enough to handle things, so it shouldn't be a problem in any professional environment.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#156

Post by jmkni »

bdangubic wrote: post #118
inglor_cz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 47, I am an older guy already. But in my generation, people who went on to be programmers usually started tinkering with code at ~ 11 y.o. (back then on ZX Spectrum and similar cheap beasts available in freshly post-Communist Europe) out of interest and passion, not because of "I want to build a lucrative career". (Given how massively widespread piracy was back then, programming looked rather like a good way to do…

Hard agree, I am 51 and all of this resonates true with me except… > That is NOT the same sort of talent. My fingers are clumsy; my mind is not. if handyman work was paying $600/hr your fingers would un-clums themselves reaaaaaaly fast :)

Handyman work can pay very very well for those who are good at it

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#157

Post by jakub_g »

strix_varius wrote: post #57

To me, the most salient point was this: > Code reviewing coworkers are rapidly losing their minds as they come to the crushing realization that they are now the first layer of quality control instead of one of the last. Asked to review; forced to pick apart. Calling out freshly added functions that are never called, hallucinated library additions, and obvious runtime or compilation errors. All while the author—who cl…

I feel like I went through this stage ahead of time, a decade ago, when I was junior dev, and was starting my days by: first reviewing the work of a senior dev who was cramming out code and breaking things at the speed of light (without LLMs); and then leaving a few dozen comments on pull requests of the offshore team. By midday I had enough for the day.

Now that I'm no longer at that company since a few years ago, I'm invincible. No LLM can scare me!

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#158

Post by aeblyve »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #138
aeblyve wrote: post #115

This process has been affecting most of the world's workers for the past several centuries. Programming has received a special treatment for the last few decades, and it's understandable that HN users would jump to protect their life investment, but it need not. Hand-coding can continue, just like knitting co-exists with machine looms, but it need not ultimately maintain a grip on the software productive process. It…

I started writing code in basic on a beige box. My first code on windows was a vb6 window that looked like the AOL login screen and used open email relays to send me passwords. I've written a ton of code in my life and while I've been a successful startup CTO, I've always stayed in IC level roles (I'm in one right now in addition to hobby coding) outside of that, data structures and pipelines, keep it simple, all tha…

Agree, and well said. There are no points for hard work, only results -- this is an extremely liberating principle when taken to the limit and we should be happy to say goodbye to an era of manual software-writing being the norm, even if it costs the ego of some guy who spent the last 20 years being told SWE made him a demi-god.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#159

Post by JambalayaJimbo »

akra wrote: post #123
dennisy wrote: post #50

I absolutely loved this piece. I also agree with comments on this thread stating that problem solving should be the focus and not the code. However my view is that our ability to solve problems which require a specific type of deep thought will diminish over time as we allow for AI to do more of this type of thinking. Purely asking for a feature is not “problem solving”.

I think you can enjoy both aspects - both the problem solving and the craft. There will be people who agree that of course from a rational perspective solving the problem is what matters, but for them personally the "fun" is gone. Generally people that identify themselves as "programmers" as the article does would be the people who enjoy problem solving/tinkering/building.

What if you want to be a better problem solver (in the tech domain)? Where should you focus your efforts? That's what is confusing to me. There is a massive war between the LLM optimists and pessimists. Whenever I personally use LLM tools, they are disappointing albeit still useful. The optimists tell me I should be learning how to prompt better, that I should be spending time learning about agentic patterns. The pessimists tell me that I should be focusing on fundamentals.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#160

Post by codyb »

senordevnyc wrote: post #88
codyb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, a lot of us aren't convinced reviewing 8 meals made by agents in parallel _is_ producing better food. And it also seems exceedingly wasteful to boot.

I don't think that's really the point of this post; it's all about how LLMs are destroying our craft (ie, "I really like using knives!"), not really about whether the food is better. I think the real problem is that it's actually increasingly difficult to defend the artisanal "no-AI" approach. I say this as a prior staff-level engineer at a big tech company who has spent the last six months growing my SaaS to ~$100k…

Call me crazy, but my guess is that that may not have been able to happen without the decade of experience it took you to get to the Staff level engineering position at a big tech company which has enabled you to gain the skills required to review the AI code you're producing properly.
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