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Our efforts, in part, define us

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Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#41

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

sfn42 wrote: post #39
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #5

I can relate. I treat my coding as a craft. That has become much easier, since retiring. I'm quite aware that doing things my way isn't commercially viable, but no one pays me to do it. I do it for myself. That said, I find that it's important to always be challenging myself[0]. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

I'm not sure what your way is exactly but I also treat coding as a craft and I'd say it's far more commercially viable than what most other devs are doing. I design systems that are efficient, do what they need to do and nothing else, are well tested, quite easy to understand, work with and change etc. The only thing about my way of working that I have commercial viability issues with is when I take over someone else…

The biggest thing, is that I insist on doing things my way, which is a hideous chimera of cutting-edge, buzzword-compliant techniques, melded with ancient techniques I learned when I was programming in Machine Code.

Also, I insist on doing extremely high Quality work, and that seems to be very much out of favor, these days.

Just try starting a discussion on improving software Quality, hereabouts, and see how it goes.

For some reason, folks are actually actively against improving code Quality, and that is something that I can't comprehend, so I have to admit that I'm very much a "dinosaur."

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#43

Post by tolerance »

bonoboTP wrote: post #29
tolerance wrote: post #2

Was the pleasure of writing code that the author describes tied to the actual practice or its profits? My impression is that many white collar workers felt that their jobs and accompanying status were immutable. They’re not. Couldn’t they have seen this coming? Nothing prevents people from continuing on with their trades or interests how they did before the AI bubble bloomed. But if they want to earn a living doing i…

I'm not sure we are built for this on a societal scale. I understand the reasoning rationally. Sure, nobody pitied the horseshoe-maker blacksmith who was proud of his craft when the car was invented. Or the tailors when clothing became cheaply mass-produced. Or even the miners after many mines closed. Yeah I get it. "You learned a craft and it's no longer needed. Sucks to suck. Try to be useful in some other way or g…

The loss of self that comes with being effectively severed from society through labor exclusion is…a radical process.

I read in a book titled The Technology Trap about how in the past, rulers withheld technological advancements and gave strategic deference to the people whose labor would be most affected by them, so as it not put their own necks at risk.

That doesn’t seem to be a concern today.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#45

Post by cainxinth »

The effort is up to you on your own time. I have an e-bike and a regular bike. The regular bike gets way more use because I prefer the satisfaction I get from it.

Also, speaking as someone that uses LLMs every day, they take effort! They cannot spin straw into gold. The terrible work I see coming from AI is usually from someone who doesn’t realize that.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#46

Post by nuancebydefault »

bsenftner wrote: post #9

Maybe this is a neurodivergent thing, but I have, as long as I can remember, always had the following progression in my mind: "What are you doing? No, that's this situation's name, what is this really?" and I'd continue a few times seeking the "larger problem, the more basic problem being solved" that whatever I was doing "really is". That "basic problem" was "communicating" far more frequently than I expected, and t…

Indeed. If we SW developers define ourselves as 'coders', we could easily end up into this identity crisis which the article seems to refer to. But in fact we are much more than that. We are problem solvers and a big part of it is understanding, defining and refining the problem itself and in finding an elegant solution. The meaningfulness comes from all the communication and experimenting involved with that process, and in the creativity needed to design an elegant solution. In fact the more boring part is often the coding itself.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#47

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

makerofthings wrote: post #19
andrewstuart wrote: post #13

I became a computer programmer because I want the computer to do things. I’m not a programmer because I wanted to program. Thus AI is incredibly exciting to me because it makes it easier to make computers do things.

I became a programmer because I like to write code. Having an llm write code for me is like building a robot that eats cake.

The kind of things that LLMs can make without tremendous amounts of hand holding... Are they the kind of projects that you like to write code for?

I became a programmer because I want to explore the edge of what's possible. I'm finding it still satisfying when I'm doing it via LLM. They're only good at spitting out entire projects when those projects resemble many that already exist.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#48

Post by deadbabe »

andrewstuart wrote: post #13

I became a computer programmer because I want the computer to do things. I’m not a programmer because I wanted to program. Thus AI is incredibly exciting to me because it makes it easier to make computers do things.

So you’re just a user. You don’t have to be a computer programmer to make computers do things and computer science isn’t even about doing things.

Some will go into computer science to push the limits of what is possible. That takes a rigorous understanding of the science, not just throwing stuff into an AI.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#49

Post by heliographe »

eloisius wrote: post #37
heliographe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm quite aware that doing things my way isn't commercially viable Depends what you mean by “commercially viable”. I’ve been making high quality products as an independent software developer in the photography space for a bit over 2 years now, and while I’m nowhere near my former big tech company salary, I still make more than needed to pay for life every month (not living an extravagant lifestyle somewhere with ri…

Cool apps btw. The trichromy one is a lot of fun. Cool that you’re earning money making this.

Cheers! Got an update coming out soon for that one, it's actually the one that makes the least money haha. I think it's way too nerdy and weird to ever hope to reach a broad audience even amongst photographers, unlike the others that are more approachable.

But I still use it on a weekly basis myself so I just can't stop refining it. I've been obsessed with the trichromatic process for 10+ years, ever since I discovered the work of Prokudin Gorsky (even built a website about the process and history: https://trichromy.com, due for a refresh some time). Such a clever approach to color photography that results in such a unique aesthetic.

Re: Our efforts, in part, define us

#50

Post by skydhash »

latexr wrote: post #30
andrewstuart wrote: post #13

I became a computer programmer because I want the computer to do things. I’m not a programmer because I wanted to program. Thus AI is incredibly exciting to me because it makes it easier to make computers do things.

I became a computer programmer because I was frustrated “the computer” (i.e. other people’s programs) didn’t do things exactly as I wanted them. That could mean current solutions didn’t do it efficiently, or correctly, or maybe it was just different from what I wanted. In other words, I did it for the same reason as you: to get the computer to do things. But I, on the other hand, do not find LLMs “incredibly exciting…

I started on computers because I wanted to do stuff (photo manipulation and 3d modelling) and then I was fascinated by how to get the computers to do stuff (games and scripts). But just like you, I want things to be done correctly and efficiently.

Coding for me is more reading than typing, because any time I'm not exactly clear on the code I want to write, it's because there's some aspects of the problem or the tools to solve it that I do not grasp well. So, I usually have a lot of documentations around me for the stuff I'm working on. And that means I don't like LLM for that, because there's no clear signal for wrongness.

And when I'm clear on the code to write and I find it tedious, that usually means that it's time to abstract away the tediousness. LLMs won't help with that, because it's more of a perspective shift than a clear methodology.

LLMs, in its current forms of offering, is like asking a random stranger in a bar. They may know the answer or not. They may give you an incoherent answer even if they know or fabricate stuff when they don't know. But there's still a plus, is that you may still get "I don't know" or silence instead of a wrong answer. Like getting an empty list when making a web search. Which is a good signal by itself.

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