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Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#21

Post by billylo »

anony-123 wrote: post #19
billylo wrote: post #18

I switched gear to learn how to train AI, design evals and explore neuroscience so we can further apply how our brains better in the new world. I enjoy coding, but it's time to adapt. I came to this realization after I used Cursor to rewrite a 10-year old codebase (I knew every bit of the details.) and it was done in 2 days. Better, fewer technical debt and I was happy to archive the old repo.

Yeah, I am also interested in learning how LLMs works. So planning to spend some time on building a toy LLM to understand the principles. Do you have any resource in your had which you could suggest?

I use this primarily to exercise my brain. https://cs336.stanford.edu/

Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#22

Post by billylo »

billylo wrote: post #18

I switched gear to learn how to train AI, design evals and explore neuroscience so we can further apply how our brains better in the new world. I enjoy coding, but it's time to adapt. I came to this realization after I used Cursor to rewrite a 10-year old codebase (I knew every bit of the details.) and it was done in 2 days. Better, fewer technical debt and I was happy to archive the old repo.

Different kinds of logic puzzles. They are also good stimulus to our brain and valuable skills.

Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#23

Post by rboyd »

Been programming since 12 (now 44). I still remember the pure joy of writing the QBasic and Turbo Pascal programs to draw random colored pixels at random locations on a mode 13h or interface with a sound blaster.

Went through this identity crisis super strong about a year and a half ago.

I feel like I'm mostly over it now. The surface area of interesting things to learn seems ever expansive. It's fun to find the frontier and the spaces where the models still struggle, and then work together to overcome a hurdle and achieve something neither of us could have achieved individually.

I suppose that frontier too will thin and eventually vanish.

For now though I think it's best to take whatever time you need to be nostalgic, but then realize how awesome it is to get to be a programmer at this inflection point.

Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#24

Post by aristofun »

Sorry to dissapoint but “writing code” or “programming” per se was never a goal to begin with. It was and is just an obstacle, a mean to an end at best.

Therefore it’s not AI fault that you built your identity on sand.

The goal had always been - delivering value, solving problems.

How about building your identity around that and see what happens?

In this context AI is nothing but good news, with proper attitude and skill it helps achieving the goal better, faster.

Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#25

Post by anony-123 »

billylo wrote: post #21
anony-123 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I am also interested in learning how LLMs works. So planning to spend some time on building a toy LLM to understand the principles. Do you have any resource in your had which you could suggest?

I use this primarily to exercise my brain. https://cs336.stanford.edu/

Brilliant!!!

Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#26

Post by dofm »

aristofun wrote: post #24

Sorry to dissapoint but “writing code” or “programming” per se was never a goal to begin with. It was and is just an obstacle, a mean to an end at best. Therefore it’s not AI fault that you built your identity on sand. The goal had always been - delivering value, solving problems. How about building your identity around that and see what happens? In this context AI is nothing but good news, with proper attitude and s…

> Sorry to dissapoint but […]

> Therefore it’s not AI fault that you built your identity on sand.

I mean it is a pretty disappointing comment, so you're absolutely not wrong on one axis at least.

But you might consider reading the submission well enough to manage something less thoughtless and belittling.

Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#27

Post by dofm »

bah9 wrote: post #11
dofm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am struggling to be honest, but I am learning how to make stuff with CAD and 3D printers and plotting my escape towards teaching (adults), because I have spoken to enough lifelong learners to know that AI is not satisfying important parts of the adult learning process. I am reconciling myself to the AI future by learning open weights tools, and I hope to learn how to use that in assistive technology. Do you enjoy e…

Sadly, I am not. But I enjoy manual labor. I am leaning towards construction/electrics. But most likely just wait couple more years and retire with enough money to never work again The irony is, my work is to train frontier llm's, so my own "child" killed my lifelong passion

Well, I think those jobs can’t be so easily taken away by AI, physical work is good for low morale and mood, etc., and you don’t have to do it forever?

A family member got out of IT a few years ago, retrained as a specialist gardener, drew from that the confidence to retrain again as a teacher while still gardening, and now teaches.

So it can be done.

Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#28

Post by bah9 »

greenowl wrote: post #20

Most senior level programmers have 2 options. (junior / early-mid level folks may want to consider re-skilling to a different field) 1. Embrace the AI and continue working and earning for as long as you can. Bank as much savings as possible. Lower your cost of living. Hopefully you've already been doing this over the past decade plus, when times were good. FIRE. 2. Don't use AI to write code. Write code yourself, as…

Came to the same conclusion as your point number one. Yes, i don't love my job anymore. It is painful, but... most of the people living like this their whole life and i was blessed to do what i love. And i still have well paying job, so i can retire earlier

Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#29

Post by bah9 »

billylo wrote: post #18

I switched gear to learn how to train AI, design evals and explore neuroscience so we can further apply how our brains better in the new world. I enjoy coding, but it's time to adapt. I came to this realization after I used Cursor to rewrite a 10-year old codebase (I knew every bit of the details.) and it was done in 2 days. Better, fewer technical debt and I was happy to archive the old repo.

I am MLOps in a big tech company. My work is tightly coupled with training and online inferencing SOTA LLM's. Doesn't change anything in the equation

Re: Coding Agents killed my identity. How do you feel?

#30

Post by bah9 »

anony-123 wrote: post #13
bah9 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All code has no worth, any code can be replicated in a short amount of time. Only ideas is valuable. Not saying it is bad thing, but i enjoyed opensource, and now i don't see any value in supporting my project and contributing to other's. No one care anymore. >architecture Give me a reason why agent can't create great architecture when enough context is provided?

Oh yeah, context is the thing. But I believe you need to know what's going-on on architectural level. For example If I ask LLM to build an analytics system where, there is soooo much data to ingest and LLM uses postgresql for the DB but we know ClickHouse is the great fit here, given the analytics queries we need. So, then you are right LLM can definitly figure out ClickHouse or something better, If we provide full c…

>we need understanding of the tech-stack atleast in general

Yes, but i am ~10 years beyond that point. I have solid computer science background, and i feel like anything above that now waste of my time, because i can just ask LLM and apply my fundamental cs knowledge. It might sounds fun for someone, but for me it is not challenging

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