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I'm OK being left behind, thanks

shkspr.mobi

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Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#441

Post by fermentation »

wolframhempel wrote: post #50

There's value in being early - in the right thing. - If you'd invested in Bitcoin in 2016, you'd have made a 200x return - If you'd specialized in neural networks before the transformer paper, you'd be one of the most sought-after specialists right now - If you'd started making mobile games when the iPhone was released, you could have built the first Candy Crush Of course, you could just as well have - become an Acti…

There's really no need to be "early" for something like this. I've seen coworkers who've never used agentic coding pick it up and know everything that need to in ~2 days. The people who really dive in and are running orchestrated agents overnight are in general not building much of real value.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#442

Post by tehjoker »

nightski wrote: post #422
toomuchtodo wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you objectively measuring success? 93% of Developers Use AI Coding Tools. Productivity Hasn't Moved. - https://philippdubach.com/posts/93-of-developers-use-ai-codi... - March 4th, 2026

They measured 16 developers and called it a "study"? That is amusing. Not to mention it was conducted almost a year ago, the tools have already changed dramatically.

So just run a new study this year. I do think the tools have improved, but it should show up empirically. The only people for whom the urgency of "right now" is present is for the C-suite and investor class who are fighting to make sure they survive, but it might also be a crisis of their own making. Don't confuse your identity as a worker with the identity of the capitalist class.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#443

Post by simianwords »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #204
simianwords wrote: post #26

Its interesting to see this author's historical takes about AI. IMO it reads a little desperate and very much like the hype bros but from opposite side. Take a look at the articles if you don't believe. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/ai/ - I'm OK being left behind, thanks! - Unstructured Data and the Joy of having Something Else think for you - This time is different - How close are we to a vision for 2010? - AI is a N…

> IMO it reads a little desperate and very much like the hype bros but from opposite side. I would coin it Chill Guys, and I claim on average they are more often correct than hype bros. We all know the old saying that nobody ever was fired for selecting an established solution/technology. Being chill, staying safe, it's more beneficial in real business. Just wait until the hype has normalized and then start dabbling…

this particular person seems to be more wrong than right though.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#444

Post by etwigg »

I don't think the "craftsman" self-identification is going to work for software engineers anymore. The tool capabilities are too dynamic, you have to be some sort of opportunistic pirate/entrepreneur. Sure you can jump in and get up to speed on some aspect of the toolchain later on, but the identity shift is the hard and slow part that I think it's wise to get started on ASAP.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#445

Post by bondarchuk »

augusto-moura wrote: post #164
stiiv wrote: post #33

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. Broadly speaking, I think this is a wise assessment. There are opportunities for productivity gains right now, but it I don't think it's a knockout for anyone using the tech, and I think that onboarding might be challenging for some people in the tech's current state. It is safe to…

What I get a bit annoyed is companies forcing AI tools, getting usage metrics and actively hunting the engineers that don't use the tool "enough", I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool. Even in the past, aside from technical limitaions, you were not required to use enough of a tool. It just sounds like a giant scheme to burn through tokens and give money to the AI corps, and tech directors…

>I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool

If you broaden the comparison (only a little bit) it looks suspiciously like employees being forced to train their own replacement (be that other employees, or factory automation), a regular occurrence.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#446

Post by chasd00 »

samiv wrote: post #301
bonoboTP wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They complained about the skill leveling where now lower skilled people can also do what needed higher skill before. You toiled to learn the craft, now there is a fast track to those results. That's what the rug pull is. Yes, producing software was value. (It of course still is as of today, we are talking about what may be coming). My plead is to continue searching for ways to contribute value. Don't resign to a feel…

The problem is that we don't live in a society where the benefits of new technology benefit all. We're about to pull the rug underneath all knowledge workers. This will disrupt wage earners lives. This will disrupt the economy. You might feel great about when things become cheaper but remember that when things are cheap it's only because costs are low and when costs are low the revenues are low and when revenues are…

> We're about to pull the rug underneath all knowledge workers. This will disrupt wage earners lives. This will disrupt the economy.

to tie back to the actually article, if you believe a rug pull is imminent then you got to get off the rug. Idk, you have to make a decision because we're certainly at a fork in the road. There's no guarantee waiting will result in a better outcome nor one saying it will be a worse outcome. There's going to be winners and losers always and lot of it is really just luck in timing. I guess, in reality, the careers we've built come down to a flip of a coin; stay on the rug, get off the rug.

/i'm thinking of buying a welding truck and getting in to that, then hire a welder and rinse repeat until i have a welding business. There's plenty of pipe fence in my neck of the woods and i see "welder wanted" all over the place so there's opportuntiy too.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#447

Post by ErroneousBosh »

gradus_ad wrote: post #193
stiiv wrote: post #33

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. Broadly speaking, I think this is a wise assessment. There are opportunities for productivity gains right now, but it I don't think it's a knockout for anyone using the tech, and I think that onboarding might be challenging for some people in the tech's current state. It is safe to…

But it's so easy to try something like Claude Code. It's not like you need to get up to speed. There is no learning curve*, that's the nature of AI. Just start using it and you'll see why it has attracted so much hype. *I should qualify that "using" CC in the strict sense has no learning curve, but really getting the most out of it may take some time as you see its limitations. But it's not learning tech in the tradi…

I tried it. Either I don't know how to use it, or it just doesn't work.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#449

Post by samiv »

chasd00 wrote: post #419
samiv wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you like it or not but the society is built on certain social constructs and agreements. Do you think it's fair that when the society moves underneath, the capitalistic system moves its tectonic plates it's the individual who has to bear the cost of that? Abd let's be clear only software devs are just sucking it up. You think lawyers and doctors would allow themselves to be laid off en masse and be replaced w…

i made this point a few comments up but i think what's happening to the software dev industry is what happened to the journalism industry when the web really came into its own and everyone was now a journalist. There were even books written by tech people about how great "creative destruction" is heh now the shoe is on the other foot. How many "old dinosaurs" did web development and software dev in general put out of…

yep you're absolutely right. the value in journalism and journalistic output was based on the scarcity, i.e. the cost of publishing reduced the amount of available content. With web the costs were obliterated so the content exploded and the value of any individual piece dropped to essentially zero. When it's worth zero your revenues are zero and zero revenues you can't really pay for any journalism.

So then you have no choice but to seek alternative revenue streams (ads, data mining) and in fact this becomes the thing, since the original thing no longer produces a revenue.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#450

Post by ErroneousBosh »

heytakeiteasy wrote: post #14

Feels like a false equivalency. It's just my experience, but I've completely ignored crypto and the metaverse, and I don't get the sense I'm missing out on much. In contrast, LLMs in their current state have (for me) dramatically reduced the distance between an idea and a working implementation, which has been legitimately transformative in my software dev life. Transformative for the better? Time will tell I suppose…

> In contrast, LLMs in their current state have (for me) dramatically reduced the distance between an idea and a working implementation, which has been legitimately transformative in my software dev life.

I can't really agree. I've never seen anything from an LLM that I would consider even helpful, never mind transformative.

How are you supposed to use them?

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