201–210 of 537 posts
This was incredibly vague and a waste of time. What type of code? What types of tools? What sort of configuration? What messaging app? What projects? It answers none of these questions.
I am somewhat worried that this is the moment AI psychosis has come for programmers.
I have always failed to understand the obsessive dream of many engineers to become managers. It seems not to have to do merely with an increase in revenue. Is it really to escape from "getting bogged down in the specifics" and being able to "focus on the higher-level, abstract work", to quote OP's words? I thought naively that engineering always has been about dealing with the specifics and the joy of problem solving…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of more senior coders when they actively try vibe coding a greenfield project find that it does actually work. But only for the first ~10kloc. After that the AI, no matter how well you try to prompt it, will start to destroy existing features accidentally, will add unnecessary convoluted logic to the code, will leave benhind dead code, add random traces "for backwards compatibility", will avoid doing the correc…
> only for the first ~10kloc. After that the AI, no matter how well you try to prompt it, will start to destroy existing features accidentally I am using them in projects with >100kloc, this is not my experience. at the moment, I am babysitting for any kloc, but I am sure they will get better and better.
You also need a reasonably modular architecture which isn't incredibly interdependent, because that's hard to reason about, even for humans.
You also need lots and lots (and LOTS) of unit tests to prevent regressions.
Even then, the architecture will be horrible unless you chat _a lot_ about it upfront. At some point, it’s easier to just look in the terminal.
My pet peeve with AI is that it just accelerates whatever has already been automated or can be automated easily, but could not touch the bastions of government service, financial service, schools and health services that are way less automated. They keep eating ourselves’ lunch without touching the real problems. For me the pain point has always been with non-IT people/companies. They are way more accustomed with pho…
[0] https://vapi.ai/
I have always failed to understand the obsessive dream of many engineers to become managers. It seems not to have to do merely with an increase in revenue. Is it really to escape from "getting bogged down in the specifics" and being able to "focus on the higher-level, abstract work", to quote OP's words? I thought naively that engineering always has been about dealing with the specifics and the joy of problem solving…
And when you're in an existing company, stuck in thing X, knowing that it's obsolete, and the people doing the latest Y that's hot in the job market are in another department and jealously guard access to Y projects?
How about when you go to interview, and you not ONLY have to know Y, but the Leetcode from 15 years ago?
So maybe I've given you another alternative to 'it has to be power, there's no other rational reason to go into management'.
Here's a gentler one: if you want to build big things, involving many people, you need to be in management.
Do you enjoy brick laying and calculating angles around doorways? You're the engineer. Do you want to be the architect hiring engineers, working with project managers, and assessing the budget while worrying about approvals? They're different types of work, and it's not about 'power' like you are suggesting. Autonomy and decision-making power are more the 'power' engineers often don't get (unless they are lucky, very very smart or in a small startup-like environment).
I have always failed to understand the obsessive dream of many engineers to become managers. It seems not to have to do merely with an increase in revenue. Is it really to escape from "getting bogged down in the specifics" and being able to "focus on the higher-level, abstract work", to quote OP's words? I thought naively that engineering always has been about dealing with the specifics and the joy of problem solving…
You want to write a book about people's deepest motivations. Formative experiences, relationships, desires. Society, expectations, disappointment. Characters need to meet and talk at certain times. The plot needs to make sense.
You bring it to your editor. He finds you forgot to capitalise a proper noun. You also missed an Oxford comma. You used "their" instead of "they're".
He sends you back. You didn't get any feedback about whether it makes sense that the characters did what they did.
You are in hell, you won't hear anything about the structure until you fix your commas.
Eventually someone invents an automatic editor. It fixes all the little grammar and spelling and punctuation issues for you.
Now you can bring the script to an editor who tells you the character needs more development.
You are making progress.
Your only issue is the Luddites who reckon you aren't a real author, because you tend to fail their LeetGrammar tests, calling you a vibe author.
I have always failed to understand the obsessive dream of many engineers to become managers. It seems not to have to do merely with an increase in revenue. Is it really to escape from "getting bogged down in the specifics" and being able to "focus on the higher-level, abstract work", to quote OP's words? I thought naively that engineering always has been about dealing with the specifics and the joy of problem solving…
But I'm acutely conscious that in the 5+ years that I've been a senior developer, my ability to come up with useful ideas has significantly outstripped the time I have to realize those ideas (and from experience, the same is often true of academics).
At work, I have the choice between remaining hands-on and limiting what I can get done, or acting more like a manager, and having the opportunity to get more done, but only by letting other people do it, in ways that might not reflect my vision. It's pretty frustrating, to be honest.
For side projects, it's worse. Most of them just can't be done, because I don't even have the choice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hold up. This is a funny comment but thinking should be free. It’s when they are trying to sell you something (looking at you “all the AI CEOs”) that unsubstantiated claims are problematic. Then again the problem is that the public has learned nothing from the theranos and WeWorks and even more of a problem is that the vc funding works out for most of these hype trains even if they never develop a real business. The…
> Hold up. This is a funny comment but thinking should be free. Thinking usually happens inside your head.
What is your point?
If you’re trying to say that they should have kept their opinion to themselves, why don’t you do the same?
Edit: tone down the snark