Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 829 posts

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#331

Post by wiseowise »

CSMastermind wrote: post #47

There's a weird phenomenon I've seen in a few domains of prideful ignorance. Backend engineers who proudly don't know how to write frontend code and vice versa. Professional engineers who refuse to learn how to use modern IDEs and monitoring platforms. People who don't know how to quickly prototype software as if building something without complete rigor is beneath them. People who refuse to learn or work in certain…

> I suspect we'll see another divide around AI assisted coding with some engineers simply refusing to learn how to use the tools effectively to make themselves more productive as a point of pride.

They will naturally fall behind their colleagues.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#332

Post by fsloth »

I can’t wait to outsource most of the gruntwork I need to do to ChatGPT. Last week I had it write me a poisson disk sampler over the surface of a triangle mesh with C# - and it was 100% correct. Ofc not perfect in the details but a perfect sample solution and scaffolding for final code.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#333

Post by wiseowise »

postsantum wrote: post #233
sgu999 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my (small) experience I've seen that only once, a perfect specimen who fits your description. Unfortunately this person was acting-CTO of a startup. They decided that for a consumer product very close to what a smartphone can do, they didn't need an OS. So they started writing their build system with make only, then an OS, an IP stack, then a GUI, then added support for multithreading,... Of course Android existed…

This could be Terry Davis if he hadn't had a mental illness

Terry actually delivered product.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#334

Post by AdrianB1 »

gregjor wrote: post #205
411111111111111 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine doesn't predate it but it's very confusing for me to read this opinion. From my point of view, it totally did happen? Can you imagine how many programmers the company would've needed to get all the data a business analyst casually queries per day? What you're looking at is the quantity of people actually employed in the industry, not how many SQL made obsolete. The industry just grew so much that it didn't becom…

A few things happened. Relational databases enabled more new development, larger databases, interoperability, all of which needed programmers. With more flexibility in the database companies could collect, store, and use more data. And that data had to get into the DBMS somehow: more code. Setting up and managing databases required DBAs, a role often filled by programmers in smaller companies, and still filled by pro…

In my department I recruited DBAs as recent as last month and this is a permanent position filled by a team of several people that do just DBA work. I saw developers ("programmers") try to do this work in some small companies or in areas where the databases were small (hundreds of MB, a few GB), but I did not see that when the databases exceed 100 GB or when there are dozens of production SQL servers that need to run 24x7. Solutions are implemented based on needs.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#335

Post by IIAOPSW »

dangrover wrote: post #302
IIAOPSW wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPTina already asked me a follow up question. Admittedly, it happened inside of a jailbreak I just kind of stumbled into, and it was a very trivial question, but the fact that she did it was profound. If she can ask one follow up question, there's nothing in the way of her asking a chain of follow up questions. And thus the basic structure needed to organize real conversation arises wholly as an emergent property. No…

It would be funny if, after years of research, that was the only condition it exhibited such behavior under. “Sooooo what fields should be (hiccup) required for users to register an account? Which version of React did you want it written in?”

The secret to AI all along has been to get it liquored up. Amazing how life like it is. Long live Drunk Tina.

https://imgur.com/a/M9ezMWi

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#336

Post by austin-cheney »

RivieraKid wrote: post #283

Here's my current thinking on the impact of GPT-4 on the developer job market: - I expect developer productivity to go up 1.5x - 15x over the next several years assuming GTP-4 based tooling is integrated into IDEs. - There will be two opposing forces acting on developer wages. First, developers will be more productive, therefore the price of one hour of work should go up. But - the supply of developer output will inc…

I completely disagree because of how this batch of AI learns. It learns by studying what is currently available as opposed to supplying something new.

Bad developers on the way of becoming obsolete by AI will see drastic improvements from the thing that’s about to replace them. Otherwise it’s slightly better intellisence integrated in your editor.

The difference is that bad developers are primarily concerned with literacy and their primary intent is chasing easy. Better developers are comfortable reading code no differently than an attorney reading a large contact and their primary intent is chasing better automation. It’s the difference between designing a car engine versus hammering pieces together.

I suspect this will open wage distinctions. Those who can write software will be identified from those who can’t. Those who can will be fewer in number and their wages will increase. Those who can’t will be a lower skilled commodity with depreciated wages, like the way data entry was once a skilled profession many decades ago but no longer.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#338

Post by cableshaft »

zirgs wrote: post #166
amelius wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps coding will become a hobby, while professionals use AI tools.

Back in the 80-90s you could earn money by making games for the NES. You can still do it - lots of documentation, emulators and other tools are available. But nobody is going to pay for it now.

You can still get paid for making NES games today. You just have to crowdfund it.

This one raised over $180,000 just four years ago, for example:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/morphcat-games/micro-ma...

This one raised $32k just this past December:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1222722105/full-quiet-a...

Another that raised $49k:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/megacatstudios/ronius-t...

$55k:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/artix/dungeons-and-doom...

$84k:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/batslyadams/super-russi...

So yeah, far from an isolated incident. If you can make a slick looking campaign, you can definitely get people to pay you to make NES games.

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#339

Post by wiseowise »

nor-and-or-not wrote: post #171
austin-cheney wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they can find employment in industries facing dire shortages like education and nursing. If the only goal is to put unqualified people into seats for a paycheck then it doesn’t matter what they do for income.

Wow, so everyone is qualified as teacher or nurse? It seems to me that you have no respect and knowledge of those jobs and the people doing them.

Well, apparently everyone can lEaRn tO CoDe too, how is that any different?

Re: Build full “product skills” and you'll probably be fine

#340

Post by joenot443 »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #201
cwillu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like telling a musician to become a DJ because the point of performing is to entertain people. It's not wrong, but it's also not applicable to all people who enjoy performing an instrument.

I think it's more like telling a DJ in the 80s, "Don't worry that mixing vinyls won't be a thing forever. It's not about the tools but about the product, as a DJ your job is to mix good music and you can do that with vinyls, cassettes or with MP3s."

This is a pretty funny example because if you follow the DJ scene much, you know the barrier for entry is literally on the floor now. A 10 year old with an iPad app can beat-match and “DJ” a 2h mix together in a way that 20 years ago required thousands of dollars of gear. The tragic part is that unless someone’s got some familiarity with what “good” mixing sounds like, they wouldn’t be able to tell they’re listening to an amateur. Is this better? I donno. I play saxophone. But if there was an digital sax that let children sound as good as I can with no training, I’d definitely be feeling like some of the time I used learning good embouchure and breath control could have been better spent.
Post reply on HN