151–160 of 184 posts
This was always my least favorite part about being a software engineer (and the downfall of many): being a software engineer has become an identity crutch for many. I’ve see so many kids whose whole identity is being good at computers; they go through middle/high school, college getting affirmations about their value and intelligence. Then they get out of Stanford, Berkeley and show up to the feature treadmill that m…
Just out of curiosity. What makes startups different? Is the lack of structure the key difference?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you believe that, it could be true. On the other hand there are lots of companies hiring still, so you could also keep working as a software engineer, if that's what you're good at. The job has changed a lot though, it's not about writing code by hand anymore.
Provided one can go through the silliness of fitting golf balls into planes, or going through the algorithms and data structures books from 30 years ago.
I would take a interview premised on a know, learnable challenge (even if silly) over one that exclusively relied on what college you went to.
I’m wary about the exuberance of AI displacing quality. But some of the worst experiences I’ve had with coworkers were with those who made programming part of their identity. Every technical disagreement on a PR became a threat to identity or principles, and ceased being about making the right decision in that moment. Identity means: there’s us, and them, and they don’t get it. ‘Programmer’ is much better off as a de…
Yes. Verb not noun.
> Which is to say that the pleasure I get from programming is mostly about learning the underlying truths about computation and applying what I’ve learned. Always improving the craft. This, to me, is the practice of programming. I guess when you get to a certain age (I'm 45) I stop caring whether something like this has social value. I enjoy it anyways. Wanting to know how things work always brings me back. I don't c…
Programming is not going to disappear, neither AI coding assistants. But if anything I fear more a future backslash against those useful tools than being replace by them. Overly excited people using those tools without any controls are what is going to give us sooner or later a lot of high impact incidents, lik e Therac 25, but in a massive scale, and my fear is that the companies will err in overcorrecting once this inevitably happens.
Also, cheap assistants are not going to last forever, real inference costs, despite all the hand-weaving will inevitably rear their ugly heads, and investor s will tire of subsidizing inference.
> Which is to say that the pleasure I get from programming is mostly about learning the underlying truths about computation and applying what I’ve learned. Always improving the craft. This, to me, is the practice of programming. I guess when you get to a certain age (I'm 45) I stop caring whether something like this has social value. I enjoy it anyways. Wanting to know how things work always brings me back. I don't c…
I lost my job as a programmer and I think it's over for me. No, you will not hack the device drivers in the basement but you're gonna be flipping burgers and out of cash or energy for anything else. Worst thing: you never gonna even be good at flipping burgers without experience or young age... Once you are out of the field, and your money is gone: suddenly you are useless, old trash. No one even wants to employ ex p…
This kind of feeling is mostly just our old minds that cannot stop identifying this situation as social rejection or being shunned off; both things amongst the most terrible events that can happen to social primates like us.
Is it that large corporations ruined being a programmer? Don't work for one.
Is it that silicon valley culture ruined being a programmer? Don't live on the west coast.
Is it that LLMs ruined being a programmer? Don't use them.
Or is it just that you're getting older, and it's not so much about programming as it is about the world not being the same one you grew up in. The inevitable alienation of aging.
Personally, I think programming is just as rad as it always was. More so even. It's never been easier to learn, there's more cool languages than ever, hardware is cheap, we just invented alien technology, basically every person has a computer in their pocket, basically every company needs programmers function, etc, etc.
Everybody is so down about the current moment in time, and no doubt there's plenty to be down about, but a quick read of history will tell you that it's always like this. Nothing to be down about. It's just business as usual. Social and news media have wormed their way into everyone's vibes and feeling bad is addictive.
The only thing we can do is have a good attitude, roll up our sleeves, try to fix what's broken, and keep on keeping on. The responsibility of every age.