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

I’m spending months coding the old way

miguelconner.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 387 posts

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#371

Post by icedchai »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #353
icedchai wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a real issue we'll face soon enough. It's less of a problem for senior+ developers that have experience and muscle memory. For people just starting in the industry, they won't develop the ability to research problems and solve them on their own. I work with some junior level, outsourced developers that write prompts like "fix the tests." The result is, of course, bad. The consulting company charges $200+ hour…

Outsourced staff aug contractors have always been mediocre. From the contracting side, I’ve worked as a staff Aug contractor for six weeks when I was between jobs in 2012 and it was so bad I just walked off with no job lined up within four weeks. For context staff Aug vs consulting is about who owns the project Consulting = the customer gives you high level requirements and statement of work and you control the proje…

Yep, with staff aug the developers are treated like cogs. Nobody good sticks around in that environment.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#372

Post by pydry »

zombot wrote: post #218
sph wrote: post #200

This title is the most depressing thing I have read on this site

And this is only the beginning. Wait until they send you to the insane asylum for talking about coding by hand.

There is a pretty intense campaign to shift the overton window around coding where anchoring is used repeatedly.

When Jensen Huang says you need to spend $500k on tokens per developer per year he knows it will be perceived as bullshit, but by setting such a high he's subtly making spending $0 seem abnormal and irrational.

This article does the same thing.

It's the same reason most companies have an ultra deluxe $150 /month plan nobody buys.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#373

Post by drzaiusx11 »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #360
drzaiusx11 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love having a relationship with the lowest levels of our craft. Access to an electron microscope and decapping chips to make my own reimplementions (in software) is next on my bucket list. If chip lithograph wasn't so prohibitively expensive I'd also try my hand at that...

If you have a couple hundred dollars, you can get a chip made through tiny tapeout [0]. [0] https://tinytapeout.com/

Very cool! I meant more hands on diy fab, like how I make my own pcbs. It seems farming out my designs to be produced (hdl->chip) at reasonable one-off costs is a plausible avenue now, which is exciting as well. I've probably been exposed to too many toxic chemicals already anyways and should readjust my bucketlist plans...

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#374

Post by CivBase »

I strongly believe that code should always be subjected to review before entering production. This does a few things:

1. It increases the chances of any bugs being found and resolved.

2. It encourages the author to be more careful with their code to avoid long reviews with a lot of findings.

3. It ensures at least two people - the author and approverd - have familiarity with the code.

4. It spreads responsibility for the code across at least two people - the author and approvers.

It's clear this article's author does not review their own code. I sure hope that code is not used for anything important.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#375

Post by genewitch »

noosphr wrote: post #103
bhelkey wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There wasn't always an external resource to go to for help. Especially for legacy pieces of software, it was easy to become the person with most context on the team.

This is reaching "you won't always have a calculator" levels of cope.

"not only can this calculator help you with your taxes, it can also show you boobs any time you want!" - AI hype

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#376

Post by lrvick »

weakfish wrote: post #275
rafaelmn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even by pessimistic progress projections AI will be better than most at coding before this is a long term issue. And the output multiplier I'm seeing I suspect the number of SWEs needed to achieve the same task is going to start shrinking fast. I don't think SWE is a promising career to get started in today.

Something I don’t see “SWE-is-Doomed” comments address is this - SWE, I think we can all agree, is one of the more complex white collar jobs. If it gets automated, then likely most other white collar jobs have been too. At that point, don’t we have bigger problems?

Indeed. The bottom 90% of white collar work as it exists today is probably gone over the next decade.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#377

Post by theshrike79 »

armchairhacker wrote: post #258
heyalexhsu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see the logic behind "manual coding" but it feels like driving across country vs taking the airplane. Once I've taken the airplane once, its so hard to go back...

How? I usually code faster with good (next-edit) autocomplete then writing a prompt and waiting for the agent.

The workflow isn't that you "wait for the agent".

This is like saying "EV charging is soooo slooooow" and thinking you need to stand next to the car holding the nozzle in the charging port like with a petrol car.

Of course you go do something else unless it's a literal 30 second operation.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#378

Post by fouc »

apricot wrote: post #86

I am this very term teaching 18-year-old students 6502 assembly programming using an emulated Apple II Plus. They've had intro to Python, data structures, and OO programming courses using a modern programming environment. Now, they are programming a chip from the seventies using an editor/assembler that was written in 1983 and has a line editor, not a full-screen one. We had a total of 10 hours of class + lab where I…

I remember having a fun time with a line editor the one time I tried it, it felt very intuitive. I can't remember if it was 'ed' or forth-based variation though.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#379

Post by heyalexhsu »

justapassenger wrote: post #168
bluefirebrand wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't understand this mentality. If I had the time I would much rather never set foot in an airport again. I would drive everywhere. And I would much rather write my own code than pilot an LLM too

You’re describing extremely valid approach for a hobby. Less for a business.

Exactly. When you're operating as a business you need to be executing and AI helps a lot in brainstorming, developing, testing etc.

I have ADHD and just by brainstorming with AI helps me initiate.

Of course, you need to be the ultimate gatekeeper or else there will be quality issues. But isn't that the same when we write manual code? AI is just another tool in your toolkit.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#380

Post by heyalexhsu »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #206
heyalexhsu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see the logic behind "manual coding" but it feels like driving across country vs taking the airplane. Once I've taken the airplane once, its so hard to go back...

Airplanes are good for certain types of journey, but they're vastly inefficient for almost all of them.

That's why I added "across the country". I guess its a bad analogy.

I agree with the premise of the article but I just don't think going back to manual coding is the solution.

Here's my new attempt using puzzle as an analogy which I wrote yesterday:

Starting last year, I noticed coding was getting less fun. It’s like buying a puzzle set and finding out there’s an auto-complete button. Press it and the puzzle solves itself. Faster than me, better than me, prettier than me. It’s like playing a game with cheats on.

I don’t even have to touch the pieces anymore. I just tell the auto-solver what I want. Tell it I want a bird, it gives me a bird. A pirate ship? Here’s a pirate ship. At first I never imagined it could do a rocket, but with its help, that went from fantasy to reality fast.

Sometimes it doesn’t quite match what I wanted, but usually just telling it what’s wrong fixes things. The whole process is so fast that, if nothing’s broken, I don’t even bother looking at how it actually solved it. That would just waste time.

But coding felt less fun with this new assist mode.

The fun of puzzle-solving is gone. That feeling of trekking through the hard parts and finally reaching the summit is gone. Now it’s like taking a cable car up.

Before, I had to think alone for a long time, try things, experiment, until I finally cracked the problem. Now with the assist mode, it’s like doing college homework where the teacher already has the answer key. I just ask and I get a standard answer.

Coding went from craft to management. “I” went from a craftsman with standards to a foreman watching workers do the job. It’s just not the same. And “foreman” sounds kind of weak.

Post reply on HN