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A Programmer's Loss of Identity

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Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#31

Post by jongjong »

For me it's weird because I was obsessed with software architecture. At university, I majored in software design. I was obsessed with UMl diagrams, sequence diagrams and architectural philosophies like loose coupling and high cohesion... I went to uni, majored in software design. My dream position was software architect...

But then it's like the software architect role got phased out completely soon after I graduated. The radical ideology that software architecture doesn't matter started becoming mainstream... And code quality got really bad. I swear, I thought this industry had become a pure "job creation factory" just churning out unnecessary complexity to create jobs. Is still think it is the case.

Byt anyway now with AI, a lot of people are finally acknowledging that architecture is important, that coding is the easy part... Yada yada... Now everyone is finally saying what I'd been saying for over a decade... And it's like I'm finally able to shed this coder /code monkey identify which was shoved upon me and I can now start to use words like "software engineering" and "software architecture" again...

Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#32

Post by prhn »

You can still be a programmer and identify with and participate in that group. AI hasn't eliminated programmers or programming, and it never will.

However, my best advice as someone with many distinct interests is to avoid tying any one of these external things to your identity. Not a Buddhist, but I think that's the correct approach.

He sort of comes to this conclusion in the final "So then, who am I?" section. The answer is you are many things and you are nothing. You can live deeply in many groups and circles without making your identity dependent on them.

If you're a programmer, what happens when programming isn't needed anymore?

If you're a runner, what happens if you get injured?

It's always been helpful personally to remind myself that

I am not a programmer. I am a person who programs.

I am not a runner. I am a person who runs.

Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#33

Post by praptak »

big-chungus4 wrote: post #10

I am not sure what the loss is. Not everyone is using AI. No one is forcing you to use AI.

The post doesn't mention AI, it's not about AI and it's not even about implications of applying AI to software development.

AI happens to work in the same direction as the one the author is worried about but none of their theses would be much different without AI.

Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#34

Post by visarga »

smartmic wrote: post #29

> For the first time in my life, I’m suddenly wary of meeting other "computer programmers" in the wild. I feel like there’s a decent chance we won’t actually have much in common, let alone values or morality. Maybe the social group the author is referring to has split up (forked)? For example, I wouldn't call anyone producing vibe coded AI stuff a "programmer". That noun will be reserved for the original group.

> I wouldn't call anyone producing vibe coded AI stuff a "programmer"

How about "software developer"?

Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#35

Post by Swizec »

jonahrd wrote: post #27
golly_ned wrote: post #2

I’m wary about the exuberance of AI displacing quality. But some of the worst experiences I’ve had with coworkers were with those who made programming part of their identity. Every technical disagreement on a PR became a threat to identity or principles, and ceased being about making the right decision in that moment. Identity means: there’s us, and them, and they don’t get it. ‘Programmer’ is much better off as a de…

I agree with your comment. While reading the article, I had sympathy for the author, but also unintendedly pictured them as a mix of all of the "wizard" seniors I have worked with over the years. These are the type of people who when pair programming, constantly point out what they perceive as problems with your development setup, IDE, keyboard-macro skills, lack of tiling layout, etc etc. Not to mention what they wi…

> At the end of the day, I like the mental model of programming, and I am somewhat uninterested in shaving every millimeter of friction off of every surface I touch on my computer. Does that make me a worse programmer? Maybe? I still delivered plenty of high quality code.

In every pursuit there are secretly 3 different communities. Those who love doing the thing, those who love tinkering with the gear, those who love talking about it.

HackerNews and the internet in general are dominated by people who like to nerd out about the gear of programming (IDEs, text editors, languages, agent setups, …) and the people who like to talk about programming. The people doing most of the work are off on the side too busy doing the thing to be noticed.

Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#36

Post by SecretDreams »

prhn wrote: post #32

You can still be a programmer and identify with and participate in that group. AI hasn't eliminated programmers or programming, and it never will. However, my best advice as someone with many distinct interests is to avoid tying any one of these external things to your identity. Not a Buddhist, but I think that's the correct approach. He sort of comes to this conclusion in the final "So then, who am I?" section. The…

I align to everything in this post except the below excerpt. I think it's important to be a lot of things and nothing at the same time and to tie fulfilment to internal metrics rather than externalities.

> AI hasn't eliminated programmers or programming, and it never will.

It might not fully eliminate them tomorrow, but this technology is being pitched as at least displacing a lot of them and probably putting downwards pressure on their wages, which is really just as harmful to the profession. AI as it's being pushed is a direct attack on white collar CS jobs. There will always be winners and losers, but this is a field that will change in many ways in the not so distant future because of this technology - and most current CS prospects will probably not be happy with the direction the overall field goes.

Even if you do not personally believe this, you should be concerned all the same because this is the narrative major CEOs are pushing and we know that they can remain crazy longer than we can remain solvent, so to speak.

Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#37

Post by philipwhiuk »

jongjong wrote: post #31

For me it's weird because I was obsessed with software architecture. At university, I majored in software design. I was obsessed with UMl diagrams, sequence diagrams and architectural philosophies like loose coupling and high cohesion... I went to uni, majored in software design. My dream position was software architect... But then it's like the software architect role got phased out completely soon after I graduated…

> But then it's like the software architect role got phased out completely soon after I graduated. The radical ideology that software architecture doesn't matter started becoming mainstream.

I don't think that's true. What I do think is there's not historically been space for junior software architects. It's long been seen as the senior role you graduate to, not a position for a new grad who knows lots of theory but has little practical exposure.

Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#38

Post by acedTrex »

softwaredoug wrote: post #13

> Which is to say that the pleasure I get from programming is mostly about learning the underlying truths about computation and applying what I’ve learned. Always improving the craft. This, to me, is the practice of programming. I guess when you get to a certain age (I'm 45) I stop caring whether something like this has social value. I enjoy it anyways. Wanting to know how things work always brings me back. I don't c…

I love this take, i feel similarly. LLMs can never rob me of my personal enjoyment of computing.

Sure they might make my work life hell, but i've always considering my programming hobby to be completely separate from work.

Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#39

Post by aleph_minus_one »

pjmlp wrote: post #23
softwaredoug wrote: post #13

> Which is to say that the pleasure I get from programming is mostly about learning the underlying truths about computation and applying what I’ve learned. Always improving the craft. This, to me, is the practice of programming. I guess when you get to a certain age (I'm 45) I stop caring whether something like this has social value. I enjoy it anyways. Wanting to know how things work always brings me back. I don't c…

It kind of depends on where in the globe one is, many countries see programmers as a white collar job that happens to be better paid than a plain secretary, a mere transition phase into management, that is the success story for most families, the programmer turned boss. So those of us that fight against becoming managers, it was for love of programming and the related technical details, as it usually comes with a pay…

> So those of us that fight against becoming managers, it was for love of programming and the related technical details, as it usually comes with a payment and career ceiling.

I think quite a lot of these programmers don't fight against becoming a manager, but it's rather that they don't have traits (character traits, demeanour, low on dark triad traits (it is known that the selection process and work reality for managers actively selects for these), ...) that are necessary to get "selected" to become a manager.

Re: A Programmer's Loss of Identity

#40

Post by lacedeconstruct »

mobiuscog wrote: post #30
raincole wrote: post #14

I don't know, perhaps we really shouldn't treat our jobs as our identities at the first place?

For many of us, we took those jobs because they aligned with our existing identities... we went into coding jobs because we enjoyed coding. Unfortunately, most of the jobs (and the industry as a whole) evolved into something else that was all about money and growth and image, and not at all about the craft of programming or the creative nature it provided.

> evolved into something else that was all about money and growth and image

I feel like this happened long before LLMs became a thing

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