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What *is* code? (2015)

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Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#21

Post by danieltanfh95 »

iqp wrote: post #5

Beautifully written, a joy to read but, sadly, it feels like something from a bygone era. Nobody chants "Developers! Developers! Developers!" anymore now that everything is dominated by AI, and the joy of coding is gone too. People like Steve Yegge, who I used to aspire to be like back in 2006, when I started my career as a developer, now writes about how he uses 10+ concurrent LLM agents to code, review, and ship &…

Why not just let the product manager use some no-code tool?

I think software engineers are having an identity disconnect from their roles as engineers vs coders. Engineering is about solving problems via tools and knowledge through constraints. An engineer is not diminished by having other engineers or better tooling as assistants. If you are having problems understanding your role in the problem, frankly you need to review your skillset and adjust.

Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#22

Post by tjr »

christoph-heiss wrote: post #17
iqp wrote: post #5

Beautifully written, a joy to read but, sadly, it feels like something from a bygone era. Nobody chants "Developers! Developers! Developers!" anymore now that everything is dominated by AI, and the joy of coding is gone too. People like Steve Yegge, who I used to aspire to be like back in 2006, when I started my career as a developer, now writes about how he uses 10+ concurrent LLM agents to code, review, and ship &…

Why are you using LLMs then, if you enjoy the actual process of thinking about a problem and solving it by writing code? It's definitely a more enjoyable world this way.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46424585

Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#23

Post by wavemode »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #18
olowe wrote: post #6

I was lost, literally, hitchhiking across the Australian outback when this article was published. Going home felt scary because I was afraid to be alone with no one else sharing my interests. Travelling made life enjoyable again because just surviving felt like an achievement. But I felt so, so isolated (again, literally!) from modern society. I wanted to find out why I was so deeply interested in computers but not i…

>some Linux nerds found me working as a receptionist answering phones and scanning paper records in at a failing medical practice. They got me doing desktop Windows and Linux server support. I’m an official software engineer now There is a gap between receptionist and official software engineer. Please, give us more details about your journey and what happened in between

> There is a gap between receptionist and official software engineer.

At many companies (especially old, stodgy companies) this gap is artificial. The day you get asked "hey, I've got some data .... and I need ..." and you successfully solve the person's problem, is the day you become the office's live-in software engineer. That person you helped will be back, and they will bring friends.

The rest after that is just job title shuffling.

Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#24

Post by christoph-heiss »

tjr wrote: post #22
christoph-heiss wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you using LLMs then, if you enjoy the actual process of thinking about a problem and solving it by writing code? It's definitely a more enjoyable world this way.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46424585

Fortunately, at least in Europe, there are definitely companies still around who either don't force the usage of slop machines or even have a culture of rejecting them completely (yes, that's a thing, and I'm glad to be working at such a company).

So no, this isn't universally true.

Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#25

Post by wiseowise »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #15
iqp wrote: post #5

Beautifully written, a joy to read but, sadly, it feels like something from a bygone era. Nobody chants "Developers! Developers! Developers!" anymore now that everything is dominated by AI, and the joy of coding is gone too. People like Steve Yegge, who I used to aspire to be like back in 2006, when I started my career as a developer, now writes about how he uses 10+ concurrent LLM agents to code, review, and ship &…

> It makes me think, "What am I even doing here - Why not just let the product manager prompt the LLM?". It feels different if you replace "LLM" with "outsourcing". Thing is, instructing a team of software engineers what you want is a lot more work (they need a lot more handholding), a lot more expensive, and a lot slower. But I'd argue that the work is the same - writing specifications, adjusting accordingly. Minus…

The difference is that before nobody forced you to be the manager of outsourced team, either you're fired or you're still working with code. Now you'll be expected to generate everything and oversee 10 agents.

Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#26

Post by wiseowise »

christoph-heiss wrote: post #24
tjr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46424585

Fortunately, at least in Europe, there are definitely companies still around who either don't force the usage of slop machines or even have a culture of rejecting them completely (yes, that's a thing, and I'm glad to be working at such a company). So no, this isn't universally true.

It's because you're working in a retirement home (I do too), Europe lags a couple of years before US. Give it time.

Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#27

Post by [deleted] »

christoph-heiss wrote: post #24
tjr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46424585

Fortunately, at least in Europe, there are definitely companies still around who either don't force the usage of slop machines or even have a culture of rejecting them completely (yes, that's a thing, and I'm glad to be working at such a company). So no, this isn't universally true.

[deleted]

Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#28

Post by bossyTeacher »

wavemode wrote: post #23
bossyTeacher wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>some Linux nerds found me working as a receptionist answering phones and scanning paper records in at a failing medical practice. They got me doing desktop Windows and Linux server support. I’m an official software engineer now There is a gap between receptionist and official software engineer. Please, give us more details about your journey and what happened in between

> There is a gap between receptionist and official software engineer. At many companies (especially old, stodgy companies) this gap is artificial. The day you get asked "hey, I've got some data .... and I need ..." and you successfully solve the person's problem, is the day you become the office's live-in software engineer. That person you helped will be back, and they will bring friends. The rest after that is just…

Not sure what country you live in, but where I live, a receptionist doesn't have access to any data processing tools that are not within the realm of a receptionist, and therefore this mobility does not happen. The receptionist ends up redirect the query to someone who has access to the relevant systems.

What sort of companies are those were receptionists have access to tools beyond their role? and why are people approaching the receptionists asking for data queries?

Like having to run a script on that data when your machine doesn't have the permissions to run arbitrary software without permission from the IT team

Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#29

Post by afavour »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #18
olowe wrote: post #6

I was lost, literally, hitchhiking across the Australian outback when this article was published. Going home felt scary because I was afraid to be alone with no one else sharing my interests. Travelling made life enjoyable again because just surviving felt like an achievement. But I felt so, so isolated (again, literally!) from modern society. I wanted to find out why I was so deeply interested in computers but not i…

>some Linux nerds found me working as a receptionist answering phones and scanning paper records in at a failing medical practice. They got me doing desktop Windows and Linux server support. I’m an official software engineer now There is a gap between receptionist and official software engineer. Please, give us more details about your journey and what happened in between

Particularly those of us who don't have computer science training kind of end up falling into this stuff.

One of my first jobs was as an admin assistant at a utilities company. We logged data about pipe replacement, which was done in something like five different spreadsheets, each optimized for its printed form (legal requirements for paper copies of various things). I knew just about enough about Access to know that entering the same thing in 5 different spreadsheets is a waste of everyone's time so set up a database where people entered the information once and Access forms generated the five printable versions. Management were impressed and asked me what else I think might be possible. Cue me diving into the world of complex forms, eventually VBA, then once I got frustrated with that, VB.NET via SharpDevelop (they sure as hell weren't paying for Visual Studio), on and on. I was doing software engineering while still keeping the job title of admin assistant.

...then I went and got a real engineering job with a real salary.

Re: What *is* code? (2015)

#30

Post by throw0101d »

One answer to the question, from Bryan Cantrill:

> The thing that is remarkable about it is that it has this property of being information—that we made it up—but it is also machine, and it has these engineered properties. And this is where software is unlikely anything we have ever done, and we're still grappling on that that means. What does it mean to have information that functions as machine? It's got this duality: you can see it as both.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHPa5-BWd4w&t=4m37s

> We suffer -- tremendously -- from a bias from traditional engineering that writing code is like digging a ditch: that it is a mundane activity best left to day labor -- and certainly beneath the Gentleman Engineer. This belief is profoundly wrong because software is not like a dam or a superhighway or a power plant: in software, the blueprints _are_ the thing; the abstraction _is_ the machine.

* https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2007/07/28/on-the-beauty-in-bea...

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