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“Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

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Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#311

Post by asveikau »

dofm wrote: post #113
woodruffw wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many programmers operate under that kind of regulatory and operational constraint regime? I think most don’t. (In interesting ways this is programming’s greatest boon and curse: if we treated it more like building bridges or cars, the world would be a very different place.)

Any coder with experience or ability imagines a world where software architects are regulated the way real architects are, and acts accordingly. I mean, this was drilled into me at uni — that software was not likely to escape regulation forever and that you can't know with certainty how all the code you're writing will be used when you're not observing the use. For example, under what constraint regime should the cal…

> For example, under what constraint regime should the calculator app bundled with an OS be written? It's just a little bundled toy app. Until someone under pressure uses it to calculate a medicine dose, expecting it to be a calculator like it says.

This captures a sentiment I have often felt when people don't take bugs seriously. Or don't take it seriously that they introduced regressions. You should feel personal responsibility for your bugs. When your shit doesn't work, and people are trying to use it, you are basically hurting them, personally.

But it seems with the increase of AI coding, the industry is going the other direction. Nobody seems to care about bugs introduced by slop coding. Except perhaps the users.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#312

Post by idan »

This post misses the point about what has changed. It's not that coding is or was easy, it's that coding is _more than typing code_.

Typing is easy. Coding is hard. LLMs eliminate the typing and aid with all the other parts of writing code (where is the system that I want to mutate, how does it work today, debate the tradeoffs inherent in the potential plans of action).

What remains after factoring out the typing and the time spent assembling an understanding of code is opportunity cost. That's not an insult any more than memory managers are an insult to languages like C.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#314

Post by fHr »

Depends on what you work, if you optimize algos and low level stuff I think it's an insult if you're like 95% that have fairly easy issues and just juggle data around it isn't and code has never been the problem. Even now the issue where I work is the actual solid requirements and technical plan before the implementation. I move higher up to something like architecture/rm since AI coding is pretty decent and does the job.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#315

Post by chasd00 »

michaelrpeskin wrote: post #253
mempko wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 30 years and "Code was never the hard part" does not offend me. It's something i've been saying for a long time. You can teach anyone the mechanics of coding well in like 6 months. Programming is the hard part! I want to make this distinction because to me programming is about solving problems and coding is a way to express the solution. Designing algorithms, architectures, etc can be done w…

I've also been doing this professionally for about 30 years, plus another 10 as a hobby/learning before then, so I think I have much of the same experience as you, and I do agree. Although, I think with the advent of LLMs, programming is no longer the hard part. The hard part of programming is the convergence of context management for humans while also presenting it to a computer to do something. Much of data structu…

This is a very good comment, one of the best i've read here.

> I would say that "good engineers" or "good coders" found that balance in abstraction to move fast but make abstractions not overkill.

i think this is spot on and could be where the concept of "llm's have no taste" comes from. There is art (and science) in determining the right level of abstraction that satisfies the user story in a performant way while leaving the door open for extension.

> As long as what the LLM writes meets the spec, then we're happy.

going back to just meeting the spec vs the art of perfect abstraction is a bitter pill to swallow and I imagine removes a lot of the joy some found in software development.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#316

Post by heisenbit »

Izkata wrote: post #266
mempko wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 30 years and "Code was never the hard part" does not offend me. It's something i've been saying for a long time. You can teach anyone the mechanics of coding well in like 6 months. Programming is the hard part! I want to make this distinction because to me programming is about solving problems and coding is a way to express the solution. Designing algorithms, architectures, etc can be done w…

Sometime in the past 10-20 years there was a prestige shift where people started using the term "developer" for what you're describing as "programmer", relegating "programmer" to what you're describing as "coder", and "coder" to "hobbyist programmer/developer" (while weirdly "coding" remained colloquially the thing programmers do). Advice to job seekers I remember in the 2010s was to not call yourself a programmer be…

These waves where someone found a new way to focus on the valuable part and leave the grunt work to lowly others comes again and again. As always the truth remains that each step in the process is relatively trivial and is is the overall complexity e2e and scale and handling edge cases that are where value is created. But that won‘t stop groups trying to differentiate themselves by looking down on others even when it is clearly failing. As long as there is a benefit to the group driving it.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#318

Post by ivanjermakov »

bayindirh wrote: post #251
ivanjermakov wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm yet to work on an enterprise project where programming is beyond simple validation, simple SQL, simple sheduling, simple mapping, simple error handling. Might be more about web backend than the whole field, but the challenge always comes from formulating requirements in a rigid form with all edge cases considered. This might be the reason why many personal projects are so technical and impressive - it's the itch…

This is one of my theories why AI is well-suited for these kinds of projects. It's mostly CRUD, written in well-known patterns. This not to discount the programmer or the job in general, it's what the task calls for. Scientific programming, hardware interfacing, embedded, demoscene, game engines, HFT or HPC calls for much different breed of code, and generally way harder to formulate in code w.r.t. these enterprise p…

Yep, LLMs excel here because most of the time analogous solution is already in the codebase. Most of my initial promtps include "look how it's done in X and do the same".

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#319

Post by blub »

The software world has an abundance of mediocre coders that just happen to be good at writing e-mails, meetings, architecture (but not really), powerpoints, navigating customer requirements and product design. It’s in their interest to downplay coding skills.

While the former can certainly be challenging, it’s by far not rocket science. Any reasonably intelligent human can discuss requirements or design a product at a decent level.

Writing code at a decent level is beyond the average reasonably intelligent human. If your mind doesn’t tick a certain way, you will not be able to do it and it will be painfully obvious to anyone that can do it.

Re: “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

#320

Post by bluegatty »

"If coding is easy, how come programmers were in high demand, and have demanded large salaries for years"

It's like saying 'Lawyers write documents!' for their job ... no, that's just an artifact.

Architecture, Systems, State, Integration, Algorithms, Pipelines, Platforms, Ops, Design, Communicating with other Eng, Working on a Team, Understanding Product/Product Marketing Requirements ... and of which the 'code' is just a small bit of the written part.

Honestly ...

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