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

Programming Still Sucks

stvn.sh

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 354 posts

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#181

Post by propstober »

Jensson wrote: post #79
propstober wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes and yes. a system can fulfill it’s function while simultaneously having massive impacts on society. we are only now experiencing the consequences of social media running rampant.

Progress have massive impacts on society, printing press was running rampant and caused massive issues, protests, civil wars and in the end democracy. Historically giving people more access to information and communication has always been a good thing even if it caused problems short term.

equating social media and the printing press is tempting but reductive. esp with massive profit incentives, social media is often built for retention and conversion rather than for informative purposes. esp within the modern context. it is not a black and white picture. social media can exist responsibly. just because a technology represents "progress" there is much we can and should pay attention to. just blanket dismissing regulation and criticism for the sake of progress is lazy.

I highly encourage you to read: https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#182

Post by stevenlangbroek »

msie wrote: post #175
stevenlangbroek wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming gives me great joy. I wrote my first batch scripts when I was 6 years old. I got my first job in the industry when I was 20. I'm 41 now. The problem isn't the act of programming. As to juniors, first time I heard someone brag about AI removing the need to hire juniors was in 2022. every junior I know is struggling to find work. It's not hard to find reddit threads with people sharing their experience to t…

"I wrote my first batch scripts when I was 6 years old." - Wow, that's pretty amazing. What did you write when you were 10? Really curious.

Not much for a while, then when I was a teenager I got into Flash / ActionScript, this was around the 2advanced era, if that means anything to you. I did a little bit of that & HTML, CSS and PHP throughout high school, then landed a job in e-mail marketing a few years after I dropped out of school, slicing templates for customers. Been climbing my way up since.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#183

Post by stevenlangbroek »

trhway wrote: post #157
at-fates-hands wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I’m tired of working in an industry hell bent on the destruction of society. People will argue this point. However, when I look at all the things that tech has done thinking it was going to improve society; when in fact, it did the exact opposite is hard to argue. AI is just another item on a very long list of dystopian markers that writers/musicians have warned us about for years. The scary part now is people den…

>However, when I look at all the things that tech has done thinking it was going to improve society; when in fact, it did the exact opposite is hard to argue. Imagine, you invented iron production to improve people lives - better tools (ploughs, axes, knives), etc - and now you see how people immediately use it for better weapons crushing the ones who have still been using bronze. Or for example from the Palantir's K…

"technology is neutral, deployment is not"

is that a reasonable statement? if so, congratulations, welcome to the club bud! you're a luddite now. we meet on tuesdays, please bring cookies if it's your first time.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#184

Post by philipp-gayret »

lproven wrote: post #164
ramon156 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im a medior and I earn 42k/yr. It would be a privilege for me to earn this much, as I cannot afford a home.

> Im a medior I do not know that word. I looked it up and found nothing helpful. What does it mean, and what do you mean? Also, may I ask you to use more punctuation and things like currency symbols, because your message lacks so much context I can't even guess.

In the Netherlands, it's the name for anyone between junior and senior, in software. From my perspective it's more something used by recruiters and employers to tell people they don't get a senior engineer's compensation.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#185

Post by stevenlangbroek »

senordevnyc wrote: post #165
stevenlangbroek wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i dunno. i'm happy to read in the comments here (and elsewhere) that my experience is not unique, many others have similar experiences and are going through the same feelings: grief. i think we're allowed to grieve, don't you?

I hear a lot more rage, envy, cynicism, bitterness, nihilism, and and learned helplessness than grief.

it sounds like you should learn a bit more about grief. also, please, for god's sake, read the original. I've linked to it in at the top of the article. As to envious, I'm a Director of Engineering. What exactly do you think is left for me to be envious of? The levels above (VP, SVP, CTO at a non-startup) are outside of my interest.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#186

Post by coolThingsFirst »

01100011 wrote: post #92
fooqux wrote: post #27

> AI didn't take our jobs. Greed did. Same greed that moved factories to Bangladesh and keeps slaves in cobalt mines in the Congo, wearing a new mask. Tell the nephew to do something else. Anything. It won't save him either, but at least he won't have to pretend the thing destroying his life is a robot. This hit me hard. This article is art. I think I need to sleep on this and read it again in the morning.

Society doesn't owe me over $500k/year for writing some instructions in a cryptic specification language. It's cool that I've been getting that, but I consider that luck and circumstance. When robots take my job I'll go find something else to do. I'm not going to blame evil rich people or some other boogieman.

No, but it owes you around 100K with a great work-life balance and job security because you spent years and years studying and honing your skills for it.

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#187

Post by fransje26 »

arian_ wrote: post #105

Programming has always sucked. The difference now is that we have AI agents that can do the sucking for us, and somehow that made everything worse because now we have to debug code we didn't write, can't fully understand, and definitely can't explain in a code review.

Just use AI to explain the code to you. /s

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#189

Post by alaaalawi »

01100011 wrote: post #92
fooqux wrote: post #27

> AI didn't take our jobs. Greed did. Same greed that moved factories to Bangladesh and keeps slaves in cobalt mines in the Congo, wearing a new mask. Tell the nephew to do something else. Anything. It won't save him either, but at least he won't have to pretend the thing destroying his life is a robot. This hit me hard. This article is art. I think I need to sleep on this and read it again in the morning.

Society doesn't owe me over $500k/year for writing some instructions in a cryptic specification language. It's cool that I've been getting that, but I consider that luck and circumstance. When robots take my job I'll go find something else to do. I'm not going to blame evil rich people or some other boogieman.

is it like society does not owe any body money for puting sand gravel cement and water. we are talking about products not their assembly

Re: Programming Still Sucks

#190

Post by alaaalawi »

socalgal2 wrote: post #81
fooqux wrote: post #27

> AI didn't take our jobs. Greed did. Same greed that moved factories to Bangladesh and keeps slaves in cobalt mines in the Congo, wearing a new mask. Tell the nephew to do something else. Anything. It won't save him either, but at least he won't have to pretend the thing destroying his life is a robot. This hit me hard. This article is art. I think I need to sleep on this and read it again in the morning.

Greed does not take your jobs, progress does. People don’t hand wash clothing for money because we have machines to do that now. We don’t need people delivering news papers because the news is delivered digitally. AI is no different. “IF” your job can be automated away or made more efficient it will. That might not be a benefit for your but it’s a benefit to society at large Note: the above is not claiming AI or LLM…

it is that not that they will take, as they do not have will of their own. greed does put them to work
Post reply on HN