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Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

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Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#341

Post by hananova »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #98
al_borland wrote: post #10

I spent the last 2 days primarily using Claude instead of coding things myself at work. I felt the exact opposite way. It was so unfulfilling. I’d equate it to the feeling of getting an A on a test, knowing I cheated. I didn’t accomplish anything. I didn’t learn anything. I got the end result with none of the satisfaction and learned nothing in the process. I’m probably going to go back and redo everything with my ow…

You're paid by a company to create software, so they can use it to drive business value and make a profit. You did so effortlessly. But it didn't make you feel personally fulfilled. So you're going to go back and re-do it, so you feel better? How do you think your company's CEO is going to feel when you tell them you could be finishing the software much faster, but you'd rather not, because it feels better to do it b…

Why would I give a rat’s ass what my CEO thinks. I do my job the way I want to in a way that allows me to keep going. If the CEO wants it a different way he can fire me, and pay me 10 months worth of wages while I look for a different job.

I know the code I produce is damn good, and I take pride in my extremely low defect rate. I will not be rushed. I will not be pushed. And I will do so until the day I retire.

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#342

Post by luke5441 »

nextaccountic wrote: post #325
samiv wrote: post #51

As a principal engineer I feel completely let down. I've spent decades building up and accumulating expert knowledge and now that has been massively devalued. Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software. I feel depressed and very unmotivated and expect to retire soon. Talk about a rug pull! My experience is that people who weren't very good at writing software are the ones now "most excited" to "create" w…

For me this is a painting vs photography thing Painting used to be the main way to make portraits, and photography massively democratized this activity. Now everyone can have as many portraits as they want Photography became something so much larger Painting didn't disappear though

Compared to painting, software allows you to solve the problem once, then distribute the solution to the problem basically for free.

Market frictions cause the problem to be solved multiple times.

LLMs learn the solution patterns and apply it devaluing coming up with solutions in the first place.

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#343

Post by guitarlimeo »

samiv wrote: post #51

As a principal engineer I feel completely let down. I've spent decades building up and accumulating expert knowledge and now that has been massively devalued. Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software. I feel depressed and very unmotivated and expect to retire soon. Talk about a rug pull! My experience is that people who weren't very good at writing software are the ones now "most excited" to "create" w…

You summed up my feelings pretty well, thanks for this counterpoint to usual comments in HN

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#344

Post by mikkupikku »

3rodents wrote: post #339
KellyCriterion wrote: post #324

++1 Was able to build a large financial application just with the 20 USD subscription in the last 12 month - without Claude, I would have required 5 - 6 people and at least 1 year of funding. This was by far my best investment in my whole life 12x20 USD vs. 750.000 salary :-) It is especially inspiring since it brings you usually a few new ideas into your context; also just joking around with it can yield new inspira…

Would you have needed 6 people? I find that Claude, Codex etc. are able to output so much because they do a lot of reinventing the wheel whereas a human, given constraints, would make much more pragmatic choices around which technology to use. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and regardless, you’ve been able to achieve something you’re happy with, which is what matters. But, I’d still like to hear more about what…

These models making bad / tasteless decisions about what dependencies to pull in is one of the main reasons they work best in the hands of experienced developers. You've got to know what you want it to use and tell it, and anticipate what shortcuts it will want to take and tell it not to do those things. For these reasons we're not yet at the point where inexperienced non-programmers can get high quality software out of these tools. I do think this will improve with time though.

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#345

Post by conwy »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #324

++1 Was able to build a large financial application just with the 20 USD subscription in the last 12 month - without Claude, I would have required 5 - 6 people and at least 1 year of funding. This was by far my best investment in my whole life 12x20 USD vs. 750.000 salary :-) It is especially inspiring since it brings you usually a few new ideas into your context; also just joking around with it can yield new inspira…

Can you provide a link to this app? Or alternately, share a few of the prompts by which you built it? I only ask because, if it's really that easy/simple, I'd like to do the same thing!

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#346

Post by skydhash »

kristiandupont wrote: post #224
codebolt wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any given system will still need people around to steer the AI and ensure the thing gets built and maintained responsibly. I'm working on a small team of in-house devs at a financial company, and not worried about my future at all. As an IC I'm providing more value than ever, and the backlog of potential projects is still basically endless- why would anyone want to fire me?

Why would it need people to steer the AI? I can easily see a future where companies that don't rely on the physical world (like manufacturing) are completely autonomous, just machines making money for their owner.

Yours is a naive sight. You learn a bit about engineering and feedback control and realize that the world is too complex for that.

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#347

Post by luke5441 »

rellfy wrote: post #82
scottLobster wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add "craftsmanship". It isn't just delivering "A" finished product, you want to deliver a "good", if not "the best", finished product. I guess if you're in an iterative MVP mindset then this matters less, but that model has always made me a little queasy. I like testing and verifying the crap out of my stuff so that when I hand it off I know it's the best effort I could possibly give. Relying on AI code denies m…

I don't think AI coding means you stop being a craftsman. It is just a different tool. Manual coding is a hand tool, AI coding is a power tool. You still retain all of the knowledge and as much control over the codebase as you want, same with any tool. It's a different conversation when we talk about people learning to code now though. I'd probably not recommend going for the power tool until you have a solid underst…

Meanwhile Linus argued against Debuggers in 2000: https://lwn.net/2000/0914/a/lt-debugger.php3

But then he changed his tune? Even on LLMs...

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#348

Post by iExploder »

mikkupikku wrote: post #338
iExploder wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see any fundamental problem with democratization of abilities and removal of gatekeeping. It was very democratized before, almost anyone could pick up a book or learn these skills on the internet. Opportunity was democratized for a very long time, all that was needed was the desire to put in the work. OP sounds frustrated but at the same time the societal promise that was working for longest time (spend per…

I'm mad about Ozempic. For years I toiled, eating healthy foods while other people stuffed their faces with pizza and cheese burgers. Everybody had the opportunity to be thin like me, but they didn't take that and earn it like me. So now instead of being happy about their new good fortune and salvaged health, I'm bitter and think society has somehow betrayed me and canceled promises. /s, obviously I would hope except…

is the result the only thing that matters? or does the journey have its place as well?

is there price to be paid for getting any desired result imaginable without effort on a press of a button?

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#349

Post by fma »

Ronsenshi wrote: post #127
pelcg wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a principal engineer I feel completely let down. I've spent decades building up and accumulating expert knowledge and now that has been massively devalued. Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software. I feel depressed and very unmotivated and expect to retire soon. Talk about a rug pull! Really? The vibe coders are running into a dark forest with a bunch of lobsters (OpenClaw) getting lost and confus…

> Do not fall for the AI agent hype. Problem is, it's the people in higher positions who should be aware of that, except they don't care. All they would see is how much more profit company can make if it reduces workforce. Plenty of engineers do realize that AI is not some magical solution to everything - but the money and hype tends to overshadow cooler heads on HN.

This is exactly it. The junior and mids on my team produce Junior and mid quality level vibe code.

Too generic prompts, unaccounted edge casez, inattentive code reviews...

Re: Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion

#350

Post by brabel »

zhoujianfu wrote: post #68

This comment about the OpenClaw guy hits a little too close to home: “Peter Steinberger is a great example of how AI is catnip very specifically for middle-aged tech guys. they spend their 20s and 30s writing code, burn out or do management stuff for a decade, then come back in their late 40s/50s and want to try to throw that fastball again. Claude Code makes them feel like they still got it.”

What an ageist quote. I am in my 40s and never stopped coding even as I've become the principal engineer. Claude just frees me from the mundane tasks I'd done a million times before and never wanted to do again if possible, which it now is. I can still throw a fastball without AI, but why would I when I can throw it much faster, with much less effort now, while still enjoying what I am doing?

It's still coding. If you think it's not you probably think that letting the IDE auto-complete or apply refactorings is also not coding.

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