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I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

jamesdrandall.com

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Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#251

Post by randcraw »

alt227 wrote: post #110
abraxas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example wood carvers, blacksmiths, butchers, bakers, candlestickmakers etc etc. Very, very few of those professions are thriving. Especially if we are talking true craftsmanship and not stuffing the oven with frozen pastries to create the smell and the corresponding illusion of artisinal work.

They are thriving where I live. There is a huge artisinal market for hand crafted things. There are many markets, craft centers, art fairs, regular classes from professionals teaching amateurs etc. In most rural communities I have visited it is similar.

The problem for software artisans is that unlike other handmade craftwork, nobody else ever sees your code. There's no way to differentiate your work from that which is factory-made or LLM-generated.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#252

Post by layer8 »

TimPC wrote: post #57

I think more than ever programmers need jobs where performance matters and the naive way the AI does things doesn't cut it. When no one cares about things other than correctness your job turns into AI Slop. The good news right now is that AI tends to produce things that AI struggles to do well with so large scale projects often descend into crap. You can write a C-compiler for $20,000 with an explosive stack of agent…

> When no one cares about things other than correctness

I don’t get the impression that the majority particularly cares about correctness. In fact, it’s one of the weak points of AI.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#253

Post by mrandish »

mosburger wrote: post #177
samiv wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just told my gardener to cut the grass and work on some flower installations. I'm so excited about gardening again. Can't wait to do some. Employing a gardener to do my gardening for me is really making me enjoy gardening again!

this is a great analogy despite it possibly coming off as snark. I think it's hard for some people to grasp that programmers are motivated by different things. Some are motivated by shipping products to users, others are motivated to make code that's a giant elegant cathedral, still others love glorious hacks to bend the machine into doing things it was never really intended to do. And I'm sure I'm missing a few othe…

> people ... are motivated by different things.

I agree and would add that it's not just different people, it can be the same person in different modes. Sometimes I enjoying making the thing, other times I just want to enjoy having the thing.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#254

Post by chasd00 »

pixelsort wrote: post #188

I was 7 in 1987, learned LOGO and C64 BASIC that year, and I relate to this article as well. It feels as though a window is closing upon the feeling that software can be a powerful voice for the true needs of humanity. Those of us who can sense the deepest problems and implications well in advance are already rare. We are no more immune to the atrophy of forgetting than anyone. But there is a third option beyond embr…

> We can go back to the metal and create a new kind of computer; one that does have a kind of permanence.

it's kind of strange to think about but i guess now there's a new incentive to do something truly new and innovative. The llms won't be able to do it for you.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#255

Post by toprerules »

jonas21 wrote: post #204
JeremyNT wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a part of it, but I also feel like a Luddite (the historical meaning, not the derogatory slang). I do use these tools, clearly see their potential, and know full well where this is going: capital is devaluing labor. My skills will become worthless. Maybe GP is right that at first only skilled developers can wield them to full effect, but it's obviously not going to stop there. If I could destroy these things…

> If I could destroy these things - as the Luddites tried - I would do so, but that's obviously impossible. Certainly, you must realize how much worse life would be for all of us had the Luddites succeeded.

If the human race is wiped out by global warming I'm not so sure I would agree with this statement. Technology rarely fails to have downsides that are only discovered in hindsight IMO.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#256

Post by neom »

ineedasername wrote: post #213
anonymous908213 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't personally think there is magic in building a Docker container. Call me old-fashioned. This seems like a false dichotomy. You don't have to do this. It is still possible to build magical things. But agents aren't it, I don't think. It is honestly extremely depressing to read this coming from a founder of Relic. Relic built magic. Dawn of War and Company of Heroes formed an important part of my teenage years…

>The idea of potentially relating this personal anecdote to an impersonator is rather embarrassing Good news! You've also related it to the roughly ~3-10M monthly HN readers who are not (potentially) impersonating the founder of a beloved game studio. Also: I think you're probably safe. I'm sure someone at some point has come to HN to LARP as some prominent person in tech that they don't happen, at that specific mome…

Good news is, no need to be embarrassed: https://s.h4x.club/L1uZqNW4

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#257

Post by skydhash »

zozbot234 wrote: post #193
skydhash wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any change that I’ve done which resulted in more than a a 10 lines diff are done with tools (copy-paste, vim-fu, refactor tools or script, snippets, code generators,…) Why would I spend time babysitting an LLM when I could have just done it myself? The purpose of automation is to lighten my workload, not to add to it.

An LLM is also a code generator. There is a scale of changes where using one is just not worthwhile (quite possibly around the 10 lines mark, as you said) but other than that, why would you want to write code yourself line-by-line that you could just generate?

Who even write their code line by line?

Snippets and other code generation tool has been here for decades. If you’re writing Java in IDEA, it’s basically a tab-fest with completion. And if you’re fluent in your editor, you do much more complex than editing lines.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#258

Post by [deleted] »

ineedasername wrote: post #213
anonymous908213 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't personally think there is magic in building a Docker container. Call me old-fashioned. This seems like a false dichotomy. You don't have to do this. It is still possible to build magical things. But agents aren't it, I don't think. It is honestly extremely depressing to read this coming from a founder of Relic. Relic built magic. Dawn of War and Company of Heroes formed an important part of my teenage years…

>The idea of potentially relating this personal anecdote to an impersonator is rather embarrassing Good news! You've also related it to the roughly ~3-10M monthly HN readers who are not (potentially) impersonating the founder of a beloved game studio. Also: I think you're probably safe. I'm sure someone at some point has come to HN to LARP as some prominent person in tech that they don't happen, at that specific mome…

[deleted]

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#259

Post by tjr »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #245
jmalicki wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that AI allows me to get into algorithm design more, and the intersection of math and programming more, by avoiding boilerplate. You can indulge even more by letting AI take care of the easy stuff so you can focus on the hard stuff.

What happens when the AI does the hard stuff as well?

As described above, I think with AI coding, our role shifts from "programmer" to "project manager", but even as a project manager, you can still choose to delegate some tasks to yourself. Whether if you want to do the hard stuff yourself, or the easy stuff, or the stuff that happens on Thursdays. It's not about what AI is capable of doing, but rather, what you choose to have it do.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#260

Post by visarga »

kccqzy wrote: post #113
FeteCommuniste wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The equivalent of "employee development" with AI is just the release schedule of new models, I guess.

But the release of new models are generic. They don’t represent understanding in your specific codebase. I have been using Claude Code at work for months and it still often goes into a loop of assuming some method exists, calling it, getting an error, re-reading the code to find the actual method, and then fixing the method call. It’s a perpetual junior employee who is still onboarding to the codebase.

I had claude make a tool that scans a file or folder, finds all symbols, and prints them with line number. It can scan a whole repo and present a compact map. From there the model has no issue knowing where to look at.

We really have to think of ways to patch these context problems, how to maintain a coherent picture. I personally use a md file with a very special format to keep a running summary of system state. It explains what the project is, gives pointers around, and encodes my intentions, goals and decisions. It's usually 20-50 long paragraphs of text. Each one with an [id] and citing each other. Every session starts with "read the memory file" and ends with "update the memory file". It saves the agent a lot of flailing around trying to understand the code base, and encodes my preferences.

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