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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

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's _relatively_ democratic when compared to these counterfactual gatekeeping scenarios: - What if these centralized providers had restricted their LLMs to a small set of corporations / nations / qualified individuals? - What if Google that invented the core transformer architecture had kept the research paper to themselves instead of openly publishing it? - What if the universities / corporations, who had worked on…

> - What if Google that invented the core transformer architecture had kept the research paper to themselves instead of openly publishing it? I'm pretty sure that someone else would have come around the corner with a similar idea some time later, because the fundamentals of these stuff were already discussed decases before "Attention is all you need" paper, the novel thing they did was combining existing knowhow into…

> I'm pretty sure that someone else would have come around the corner with a similar idea some time later, because the fundamentals of these stuff were already discussed decases before

I am not trying to be dismissive, but this could apply to all research ever

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

#392
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…

That's how progress looks like! We need less to produce more. The less includes less skill and human capital.

For me, LLMs just help a lot with overcoming writer's block and other ADHD related issues.

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

#393
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…

Good engineers are way more important than they’ve ever been and the job market tells the story. Engineering job posts are up 10% year over year. The work is changing but that’s what happens when a new technology wave comes ashore. Don’t give up, ride the new wave. You’re uniquely qualified.

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

#394
This and a lot of similar HN comments, often by fresh accounts, just read like viral marketing. Not least because of the capitalisation.

Claude Code sure is great. Claud Code and my Codex reignited my passion for programming. Codex and Claude.

Ugh.

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

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, slightly different take: it's like telling an artist the world doesn't need another song about love, these already exist and can be re-heard as needed. Sharper formulated: a CRM or TODO-list is a solved problem in theory, right? tons of solutions even free ones to use out there. still look at what people are doing and selling - CRMs and TODO-list variations. because, in fact, its not solved, and always has certain tradeoffs that doesn't fit some people.

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

#396
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…

Indeed, and I noticed companies now are focusing on hiring coops, paying them peanuts and just use AI, and have maybe one senior and one wrangler (engineering/project manager), that’s basically what I have noticed what neo-teams are.

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

#398
post #315
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…

Nah man. I understand the frustration, but this is a glass is half empty view. You have decades of expert knowledge, which you can use to drive the LLMs in an expert way. Thats where the value is. The industry or narrative might not have figured that out yet, but its inevitable. Garbage in, garbage out still very much applies in this new world. And just to add, the key metric to good software hasn't changed, and won'…

Glass half empty view? Their whole skill set built up over decades, digitized, and now they have to shift everything they do, and who knows humans will even be in the loop, if they’re not c-suite or brown nosers. Their whole magic and skill is now capable of being done by a PM in 5 minutes with some tokens. How is that supposed to make skillful coders feel?

Massive job cuts, bad job market, AI tools everywhere, probable bubble, it seems naive to be optimistic at this juncture.

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

#399
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…

Yes, anyone can generate code, but real engineering remains about judgment and structure. AI amplifies throughput, but the bottleneck is still problem framing, abstraction choice, and trade-off reasoning. Capabilities without these foundations produce fragile, short-lived results. Only those who anchor their work in proper abstractions are actually engineering, no matter who’s writing the code.

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

#400
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…

> Any idiot can now prompt their way to the same software.

No they can't. They think they can, but they will still need to put in the elbow grease to get it done right.

But, in my case (also decades of experience), I have had to reconcile with the fact that I'll need to put down the quill pen, and learn to use a typewriter. The creativity, ideas, and obsession with Quality are still all mine, but the execution is something that I can delegate.

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