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Now might be the best time to learn software development

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Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#161

Post by anonzzzies »

guicen wrote: post #131

In fact, in my opinion, one of the benefits of AI tools that is often overlooked is "psychological support". When you are stuck at work, it will give you a push. Even if it is not completely right, it is enough to get you moving. The feeling of "no longer fighting alone at work" is actually more important than many people think.

It is exactly how I use it personally the most: it will crap down a massive amount of plumbing that I really do not feel like doing myself at all. So when I think of procrastinating, I tell it to write something: after 30 minutes I will have something that would be procrastinate me from hours to never doing it at all. Now its 'almost done anyway, so might as well finish it'. Then I spend 3 months hacking on it while, at any point, getting the AI do the annoying stuff I know im not going to do or postpone. If only for that... I find bug fixing more rewarding and easier than writing crap from scratch anyway.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#162

Post by chii »

dakiol wrote: post #160
pyman wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked my students to write a joke about AI. Sometimes humor is the best way to get people to talk about their fears without filters. One of them wrote: "I went to work early that day and noticed my monitor was on, and code was being written without anyone pressing any keys. Something had logged into my machine and was writting code. I ran to my boss and told him my computer had been hacked. He looked at me, concern…

Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money? As usual, what one brings to the company is value, and if AI-generated code needs to be prompted first and reviewed later, I don’t see how prompters in the future could earn less than software engineers now. Prompt engineering is like singing: sure thing everyone can physically sing… now whether it’s pleasant listening to them is another topic.

> Prompt engineering is like singing

i think you got the analogy wrong. Not everyone can sing professionally, but most people can type text into a text-to-speech synthesis system to produce a workable song.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#163

Post by collingreen »

idiotsecant wrote: post #101
noworriesnate wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But software developers often struggle to use sql and prefer using ORMs or analytical APIs like polars; the people who excel at sql are typically not programmers, they’re data engineers, DBAs, analysts, etc. Maybe a similar bifurcation will arise where there are vibe coders who use LLMs to write everything, and there are real engineers who avoid LLMs. Maybe we’re seeing the beginning of that with the whole bifurcatio…

'real' engineers can use SQL just fine. This is a strange position to take.

No true Scotsman would struggle with sql

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#164

Post by RugnirViking »

dakiol wrote: post #160
pyman wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked my students to write a joke about AI. Sometimes humor is the best way to get people to talk about their fears without filters. One of them wrote: "I went to work early that day and noticed my monitor was on, and code was being written without anyone pressing any keys. Something had logged into my machine and was writting code. I ran to my boss and told him my computer had been hacked. He looked at me, concern…

Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money? As usual, what one brings to the company is value, and if AI-generated code needs to be prompted first and reviewed later, I don’t see how prompters in the future could earn less than software engineers now. Prompt engineering is like singing: sure thing everyone can physically sing… now whether it’s pleasant listening to them is another topic.

There are people trying very hard (and succeeding) to CREATE the impression it will pay less money. Pay in general is extremely vibes based. A look at well... anything in the economy shows that. There are constant shortages of low paying jobs, and gluts of high paying jobs

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#166

Post by brabel »

0points wrote: post #135
AdieuToLogic wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Early on, programming was considered secretarial work. Incorrect. Encoding a program was considered secretarial work, not the act of programming itself. Over time, "encoding" was shortened to "coding." This is why the industry term "coder" is a pejorative descriptor.

> This is why the industry term "coder" is a pejorative descriptor. It is not.

It used to be widely seen as such. See for example Stallmanns latest post where he mentions that. Coder was not the same as programmer, it was the lesser half of the job. Nowadays the term has lost its original meaning.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#167

Post by cardanome »

dakiol wrote: post #160
pyman wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked my students to write a joke about AI. Sometimes humor is the best way to get people to talk about their fears without filters. One of them wrote: "I went to work early that day and noticed my monitor was on, and code was being written without anyone pressing any keys. Something had logged into my machine and was writting code. I ran to my boss and told him my computer had been hacked. He looked at me, concern…

Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money? As usual, what one brings to the company is value, and if AI-generated code needs to be prompted first and reviewed later, I don’t see how prompters in the future could earn less than software engineers now. Prompt engineering is like singing: sure thing everyone can physically sing… now whether it’s pleasant listening to them is another topic.

The first thing any big technical revolution causes is suffering for a lot of people.

It can bounce back over time and maybe leave us better off than before but the short term will not be pretty. Think industrial revolution where we had to stop companies by law from working children to literal death.

Whether the working man or the capital class profits from the rise of productivity is a questions of political power.

We have seen that productivity rises do not increase work compensation anymore: https://substack.com/home/post/p-165655726

Especially we as software engineers are not prepared for this fight as unions barely exist in our field.

We already saw mass layoffs by the big tech leaders and we will see it in smaller companies as well.

Sure there will always be need for experienced devs in some fields that a security critical or that need to scale but that simple CRUD app that serves 4 consecutive users? Yeah, Greg from marketing will be able to prompt that.

It doesn't need be the case that prompt engineers are paid less money, true. But with us being so disorganized the corporations will take the opportunity to cut cost.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#168

Post by al_borland »

RugnirViking wrote: post #164
dakiol wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money? As usual, what one brings to the company is value, and if AI-generated code needs to be prompted first and reviewed later, I don’t see how prompters in the future could earn less than software engineers now. Prompt engineering is like singing: sure thing everyone can physically sing… now whether it’s pleasant listening to them is another topic.

There are people trying very hard (and succeeding) to CREATE the impression it will pay less money. Pay in general is extremely vibes based. A look at well... anything in the economy shows that. There are constant shortages of low paying jobs, and gluts of high paying jobs

I suspect it only looks like there are a lot of high paying jobs, because they are so much harder to fill, due to a there being so few qualified candidates... hence the high pay. Supply and demand.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#169

Post by paulcole »

cardanome wrote: post #167
dakiol wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money? As usual, what one brings to the company is value, and if AI-generated code needs to be prompted first and reviewed later, I don’t see how prompters in the future could earn less than software engineers now. Prompt engineering is like singing: sure thing everyone can physically sing… now whether it’s pleasant listening to them is another topic.

The first thing any big technical revolution causes is suffering for a lot of people. It can bounce back over time and maybe leave us better off than before but the short term will not be pretty. Think industrial revolution where we had to stop companies by law from working children to literal death. Whether the working man or the capital class profits from the rise of productivity is a questions of political power.…

> The first thing any big technical revolution causes is suffering for a lot of people.

Didn’t Greg-from-marketing’s life just get a lot better at the same time?

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#170

Post by bgwalter »

cardanome wrote: post #167
dakiol wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money? As usual, what one brings to the company is value, and if AI-generated code needs to be prompted first and reviewed later, I don’t see how prompters in the future could earn less than software engineers now. Prompt engineering is like singing: sure thing everyone can physically sing… now whether it’s pleasant listening to them is another topic.

The first thing any big technical revolution causes is suffering for a lot of people. It can bounce back over time and maybe leave us better off than before but the short term will not be pretty. Think industrial revolution where we had to stop companies by law from working children to literal death. Whether the working man or the capital class profits from the rise of productivity is a questions of political power.…

> Especially we as software engineers are not prepared for this fight as unions barely exist in our field.

You can fight without unions. Tell the truth about LLMs: They are crutches for power users that do not really work but are used as excuses for firing people.

You can refuse to work with anyone writing vapid pro-LLM blog posts. You can blacklist them in hiring.

This addresses the union part. It is true that software engineers tend to be conflict averse and not very socially aware, so many of them follow the current industry opinion like lemmings.

If you want to know how to fight these fights, look at the permanent government bureaucracies. They prevail in the face of "new" ideas every 4 years.

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