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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

#401
post #387
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see any fundamental problem with democratization of abilities and removal of gatekeeping. This parroted argument is getting really tired. It signals either astroturfing or someone who just accepts what they are sold without thinking. LLMs aren’t “democratising” anything. There’s no democracy in being mostly beholden to a few companies which own the largest and most powerful models, who can cut you off at an…

Dismissing someone with a different opinion as astroturfing is not productive. There are loads of high performance open source LLMs on the market that compete with the big 3. I have not seen this level of community engagement and collaboration since the open-source boom 20 years ago.

If I believed it was a different opinion I wouldn’t even have written the first paragraph, or maybe the whole reply.

The issue arises from it not being that person’s opinion but a talking point. People didn’t all individually arrive at this “democratisation” argument by themselves, they were sold what to say by the big players with vested interest in succeeding.

I’m very much for discussing thoughts one has come up with themselves, especially if they disagree with mine. But what is not productive is arguing with a proxy.

> I have not seen this level of community engagement and collaboration

Nor this level of spam and bad submissions.

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

#402
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…

> My experience is that people who weren't very good at writing software are the ones now "most excited" to "create" with a LLM.

I consider myself to have been a 'pretty good' programmer in my heyday. Think 'assembly for speed improvements' good.

Then came the time of 'a new framework for everything, relearn a new paradigm every other week. No need to understand the x % 2 == 0 if we can just npm an .iseven()' era ... which completely destroyed my motivation to even start a new project.

LLMs cut the boilerplate away for me. I've been back building software again. And that's good.

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

#403
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…

Based on your comment you’re probably not a very good principal engineer ;)

Hence, you are back in the group of those who should benefit from LLMs. Following your own logic :)

Ps: please don’t take it seriously

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

#405
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creator of OpenClaw had a great line about this: "If your identity is tied to you being an iOS developer, you are going to have a rough time. But if your identity is 'I'm a builder!' it is a very exciting time to be alive." Plus, there is no rule that says you can't keep coding if it's faster for you and/or it's quicker in general. e.g I can write a Perl one liner much faster than Claude can. Heck, even if it's n…

> I’m a builder! I‘m a builder too. I built a house. Ok, I said an architect what I want and he showed me the plans and I gave him feedback for adjustments and then the plans were given to the construction crew and they built the actual house. But is was my prompt, so I‘m a builder.

Also, half of the rooms in the house can’t be accessed because they don’t have a door. And when it starts raining, the house collapses.

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

#406
I feel this so, so much. It is a very exciting time. I have had a very specific goal in mind and I could work out large parts on my own. But there is a lot that I didn't have any basis or time to build expertise on. Using Claude Code to fill out those gaps and educate me along the way has meant I've gotten little sleep in the last two months. And I managed to make the thing I was envisioning: https://gridpaper.org/examples/ :)

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

#407
post #387
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see any fundamental problem with democratization of abilities and removal of gatekeeping. This parroted argument is getting really tired. It signals either astroturfing or someone who just accepts what they are sold without thinking. LLMs aren’t “democratising” anything. There’s no democracy in being mostly beholden to a few companies which own the largest and most powerful models, who can cut you off at an…

Dismissing someone with a different opinion as astroturfing is not productive. There are loads of high performance open source LLMs on the market that compete with the big 3. I have not seen this level of community engagement and collaboration since the open-source boom 20 years ago.

It is a fair note when there are a lot of people with a monetary incentive to hype up a certain piece of technology. And as gp correctly points out: "democratizing" is most commonly used in a very hostile and underhanded manner.

It is what we are talking about, hence not "counterproductive".

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

#408
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

If you really think it's the reality, then your expert knowledge is not that good to begin with.

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

#409
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 som…

This.

LLMs don't always produce correct code - sometimes it's subtly wrong and it takes an expert to notice the mistake(s).

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

#410
I think a lot of people have a biased idea of writing code. When you're a good programmer, you will be able to prompt a pretty good concept and navigate through any missteps.

When you have no fucking idea what you're talking about, you cannot fix those issues. Simply telling opus "its broken, fix it" wont help. Sure, eventually it comes with a solution, but you have no idea if it's good.

Its like renting a bunch of construction tools and building a house. Unless you know what's important, you have no idea if your house will fall down tomorrow. At the end of the day, companies will always need an expert to sit there and confirm the code is good.

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