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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

#291

Post by QuercusMax »

jmalicki wrote: post #156
tjr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my career has been as an individual engineer, but the past few years I have been a project manager. I find this to be very much like using AI for coding. Which also makes me refute the idea that AI coding is just another rung up on the programming abstraction ladder. Depending on how much you delegate to AI, I don't think it's really programming at all. It's project management. That's not a bad thing! But it'…

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.

Here's an example from my recent experience: I've been building a bunch of mostly throwaway TUIs using AI (using Python and Rich), and a lot of the stuff just works trivially.

But there are some things where the AI just does not understand how to do proper boundary check to prevent busted layouts, and so I can either argue with it for an hour while it goes back and forth breaking the code in the process of trying to fix my layout issues - or I can just go in and fix it myself.

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

#292

Post by skydhash »

visarga wrote: post #260
kccqzy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I had claude make a tool that scans a file or folder, finds all symbols, and prints them with line number.

ctags?

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

#293

Post by QuercusMax »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #140
alt227 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't take this the wrong way but this is more of an age thing rather than a technology advancement thing. I am much younger than the poster you are replying to, but I feel much the same.

LLM are not AI, but are a great context search tool when they work. When people first contact ML, they fool themselves into believing it is intelligent... rather than a massive plagiarism and copyright IP theft machine. Fun is important, but people thinking zero workmanship generated content is sustainable are still in the self-delusion stage marketers promote. https://medium.com/ideas-into-action/ikigai-the-perfect-…

I like coding AIs because they're plagiarism machines. If I ask you to do some basic data manipulation operations, I want you to do it in the most obvious, standard way possible, not come up with some fancy creative solution unless it's needed for some reason.

If I'm dockerizing an app, I want the most simple, basic, standard thing - not somebody's hand-rolled "optimized" version that I can't understand.

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

#294

Post by UtopiaPunk »

visarga wrote: post #215
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…

> know full well where this is going: capital is devaluing labor But now you too can access AI labor. You can use it for yourself directly.

Kind of. But the outcomes likely do not benefit the masses. People "accessing AI labor" is just a race to the bottom. Maybe some new tools get made or small businesses get off the ground, but ultimately this "AI labor" is a machine that is owned by capitalists. They dictate its use, and they will give or deny people access to the machine as it benefits them. Maybe they get the masses dependent on AI tools that are currently either free or underpriced, as alternatives to AI wither away unable to compete on cost, then the prices are raised or the product enshittified. Or maybe AI will be massively useful to the surveillance state and data brokers. Maybe AI will simply replace a large percentage of human labor in large corporations, leading to mass unemployment.

I don't fault anyone for trying to find opportunities to provide for themselves and loved ones in this moment by using AI to make a thing. But don't fool yourself into thinking that the AI labor is yours. The capitalists own it, not us.

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

#295

Post by CoastalCoder »

alexgarden wrote: post #281
CoastalCoder wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original Homeworld team was casting spells! I'm still amazed by how you got ships to usually fly in formation, but also behave independently and rationally when that made sense. That game was a magnificent piece of art. It set a unique and immersive vibe on par with the original Tron movie. I'm really glad I have a chance now to tell you.

Thanks... It was magical at the time... I've thought a lot about why it was magical over the years... I think if you boil away all the space stuff, Homeworld was a story about people who knew in their hearts that they were special and destined for something greater than the universe was willing to allow. And they went through hell to discover that they were right. Looking back, I think that's a story a lot of us on t…

Sounds like there's some overlap with the story of the Jewish people, now that I think of it.

> Here we are. Looks like the dorks won.

I doubt it's permanent, and we all gotta eat.

But you know what? My son still tells me how much he was in awe of that game when he saw me playing it.

No matter what happens next, you gave us that sweet memory of fun and time together. Thank you.

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

#296

Post by aeuropean12 »

Well yes it has changed. But look at everything that can be accomplished with these abstractions/libraries/frameworks that exist.

Why reinvent the wheel.

Yes, there might be less room for the Wild Wild West approach, as mentioned in the article: But that is the structure of compounded knowledge/tooling/code available to developers/others to create more enriched software, in the sense that it runs on what is available now and provides value in today's age of computing.

I also had a 486DX2-66. And I recall coding in Assembly, Pascal, C etc.

I do not miss it. These days I can create experiences that reach so many more people (a matured Interneet with realtime possibilities - to simplify) and with so much more potential for Good. Good in the sense of usefulness for users, good in the sense of making money (yeah, that aspect still exists).

I do understand your sentiment and the despairing tone. There have been times when I was struck by the same.

But I do not miss 1995 and struggling with a low-level formatted HD and Assembly that screwed up my floppy disks, or the worms that reached my box, or the awful web sites in terms of UX that were around, or pulling coaxial cables around for LAN parties.

It's just a different world now. But I get what you are saying, and respect it. Stay optimistic. :)

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

#297

Post by upmostly »

alexgarden wrote: post #48

Wow... I really relate to this. I'm 50 as well, and I started coding in 1985 when I was 10... I remember literally every evolutionary leap forward and my experience with this change has been a bit different. Steve Yegge recently did an interview on vibe coding ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuJyJP517Uw ) where he says, "arch mage engineers who fell out-of-love with the modern complexity of shipping meaningful code…

First of all, Homeworld was an iconic game for me growing up, so as other people have said, thank you for being apart of its creation.

I could not agree more. It feels like the creativity is back. I grew up building fun little websites in the 90s, building clan websites for Quake 2.

That creativity died somewhere between Node.js, AWS, npm, and GitHub.

Some might say, well, that's growing up and building serious apps.

Maybe. But it doesn't change that I spent the last 15 years doing the same frontend / backend wiring over and over again to churn out a slightly different looking app.

The last 2 years have been amazing for what I do. I'm no longer spending my time wiring up front ends. That's done in minutes now, allowing me to spend my time thinking about solving the real problems.

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

#298

Post by [deleted] »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #241
CamperBob2 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. If you want things to stay the same forever, you shouldn't go into technology, art, or gardening. Try plumbing, masonry, or religion.

The truth is that you wouldn’t be saying that if the change had been in a direction you don’t like.

[deleted]

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

#299

Post by alexgarden »

olegp wrote: post #289
alexgarden wrote: post #48

Wow... I really relate to this. I'm 50 as well, and I started coding in 1985 when I was 10... I remember literally every evolutionary leap forward and my experience with this change has been a bit different. Steve Yegge recently did an interview on vibe coding ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuJyJP517Uw ) where he says, "arch mage engineers who fell out-of-love with the modern complexity of shipping meaningful code…

I couldn't agree more. Also, thanks for making Homeworld, it was great! I was building a 3D space game engine myself as a kid around the time Homeworld came out and realized that rather than using a skybox with texture maps, you had it created out of a bunch of triangles with color interpolation. IIRC, I had problems reverse engineering your data format in order to incorporate them in my engine. I emailed someone on…

The skybox with texture maps was our original plan too. The problem was that GPUs didn't have enough RAM to hold anything high-res, so the universe looked like pixel-soup.

Rob Cunningham (lead artist) had the idea of "painting with light" using giant polygons and spicing them up with pixels to create a convincing distant galaxy that you got closer to with each mission. Genius.

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

#300

Post by bearfox »

sho_hn wrote: post #99
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you were a smart dev before AI, chances are you will remain a smart dev with AI. I don't think that's what people are upset about, or at least it's not for me. For me it's that writing code is really enjoyable, and delegating it to AI is hell on earth.

I resonate with that. I also find writing code super pleasurable. It's immediate stress relief for me, I love the focus and the flow. I end long hands-on coding sessions with a giddy high. What I'm finding is that it's possible to integrate AI tools into your workflow in a big way without giving up on doing that, and I think there's a lot to say for a hybrid approach. The result of a fully-engaged brain (which still…

I'm in the enjoy writing code camp and do see merits of the hybrid approach, but I also worry about the (mental) costs.

I feel that for using AI effectively I need to be fully engaged with both the problem itself and an additional problem of communicating with the LLM - which is more taxing than pre-LLM coding. And if I'm not fully engaged those outcomes usually aren't that great and bring frustration.

In isolation, the shift might be acceptable, but in reality I'm still left with a lot of ineffective meetings - only now without coding sessions to clear my brain.

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