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

I quit. The clankers won

dbushell.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 515 posts

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#471

Post by mckn1ght »

ikr678 wrote: post #456
bitmasher9 wrote: post #8

Picking out my favorite idea out of many: we do need ways to stay mentally sharp in the age of AI. Writing and publishing is a good one. I also recommend stimulating human conversations and long-form reading. More and more the bar is being lowered. Don’t fall to brain rot. Don’t quite quit. Stay active and engaged, and you’ll begin to stand out among your peers.

Another one is: Don't use GPS in your own city. Try to learn where you live. Read the map in advance if you are going somewhere new and memorise the turns. A shocking number of my coworkers plot every single trip (even to work!) and claim this helps with traffic or undercover cameras or some other cope. But the traffic will be there regardless, and they shouldnt need Google Maps to remind them not to speed. They'd ra…

I love playing lost and found: get yourself lost and then find your way back home without GPS.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#472

Post by thedevilslawyer »

DrinkyBird wrote: post #408
prplfsh wrote: post #280

I honestly don't get it - how isn't everyone having a blast with AI? Every one of those side projects you never had time for you can build in a weekend. You can explore five ideas at once. You can do big refactors/cleanups you'd never be able to dream of in the past. As a software engineer it's been fantastic.

Because some of us actually enjoy programming. For some people those side projects aren't about the destination, but the journey of learning how something works by making it with your bare hands.

but that is still possible, so what makes you sad? is it that others can build theirs without bare hands? or you are no longer rewarded for bare hand programming? if the latter was it really the "journey"?

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#473

Post by nunez »

prplfsh wrote: post #412
nunez wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Claude for a side project I've been trying to write for some time. Seeing it generate features at a much faster clip than I can (that actually compiles) has definitely been addictive. However, the joy I used to get from seeing something that I wrote work is all but gone, and it sucks big time to lose that. The back and forth is more annoying now as well. Instead of trying different approaches to code…

I get to spend more time working on the things I enjoy. For example, data modeling and workflow orchestration, and building product to solve customer problems. And really, that comes down to spending a lot of my time just thinking really hard - because once I have a clear plan, it's actually not that hard to build it. Not only that, but I can build something, react to it, rebuild it, react to it, and come up with som…

Can't disagree that Claude ships much much faster. It is also nice to be able to type up a plan of what I'd like to build and have it go after verifying the plan it generates.

I guess it's iterating in plain English instead of iterating in code that I'm having trouble latching onto. It's a "left brain vs right brain" kind of situation for me (not sure how valid that trope is, but it best expresses what I'm feeling).

I'm pretty good at outlining what I want to accomplish and how to get there, but cracking open vim and getting into it is super duper exciting for me, and I'm pretty good at communicating what is and isn't working with the agent when I use it. Claude (or any agent, I suppose) takes that away and doesn't fill that gap.

It's also been harder for me to stay focused with Claude since I'm basically printing code and reading the results. Claude's changesets err towards being pretty large (though I have rules [^1] to try and keep that at bay). When I use it, my mind shifts from "writing code that others might (probably won't) maintain someday)" to "writing code that builds the thing". Given those heavy diffs, I'm less inclined to pore through them than I would be if I were actively writing the code. I fear that this will lead to having less understanding of what my code is doing over time, which is sweeping the bugs and tech debt under the rug (especially since Claude, atm, likes to solve bugs with adding more code). This is probably one of those things that will just take some adjustment.

Then again, maybe part of this has to do with me being a long-time a Vim user and not having used a proper IDE for everyday development in a long time...

Okay, I think I finally came up with a good anecdote for how I'm feeling. I wear Mexican huarache sandals [^0] pretty much exclusively when the weather's warm (which is almost all year round in Houston). They are so unique, and getting them to work perfectly with my feet has been a Linux-like experience (i.e. lots and lots and LOTS of experimentation).

I used to buy them from Luna, Xero and others at, like, $150/pair. However, they are INSANELY EASY to make at home for a fraction of the price. I made four pairs at home. They didn't fit quite right, so I'll need to make them again, but I take MASSIVE satisfaction in wearing what I made.

The journey is as exciting as the destination for me; more so, even!

(Selfishly, I took a lot of pride in being able to show others how to do damn nearly everything they do in VSCode in Vim, but that's another victim of the Era of AI.)

[^0] These bad boys: https://xeroshoes.com/pages/tarahumara-sandals

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#474

Post by SoftTalker »

rafterydj wrote: post #376
SoftTalker wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all you got out of a Computer Science undergrad program was "learning C" you were severely shortchanged. An 8-week bootcamp could have done that.

Point still stands. You're going to take up the mantle for suggesting a computer science degree from 2000 completely qualifies someone for work in 2026? No further education needed?

If you've been working all that time, probably not, at least not any more than you had to learn any other language your employer was using.

The core concepts covered by a good CS curriculum haven't really changed. Specific languages were never the focus.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#475

Post by nunez »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #448
nunez wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is going to catch some heat, but what if the most important professional “developer skill” to learn or improve is how to effectively use coding agents? Doing so will effectively force a (potentially unwanted) career change for many people and will lead to the end of software engineering (and software as a career), assuming AI continues to improve. "Effectively" using agents means that you're writing specs and…

Doing so will effectively force a (potentially unwanted) career change for many people and will lead to the end of software engineering (and software as a career), assuming AI continues to improve. If you expected things to stay the same forever, maybe software engineering wasn't the right career move for you. Even though it looked safe enough, given that we've spent 50 years writing the same old code the same old wa…

I think you missed the part where I outlined how software engineering will become a business analyst spec-writing kind of job, a job I did and know that I dislike...

But, hey! Different strokes for different folks. This might be for you, and that's cool! I'm allowed to be sad about it, though.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#476

Post by zem »

nunez wrote: post #330
pfisherman wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is going to catch some heat, but what if the most important professional “developer skill” to learn or improve is how to effectively use coding agents? I saw something similar in ML when neural nets came around. The whole “stack moar layerz” thing is a meme, but it was a real sentiment about newer entrants into the field not learning anything about ML theory or best practices. As it turns out, neural nets “won”…

> This is going to catch some heat, but what if the most important professional “developer skill” to learn or improve is how to effectively use coding agents? Doing so will effectively force a (potentially unwanted) career change for many people and will lead to the end of software engineering (and software as a career), assuming AI continues to improve. "Effectively" using agents means that you're writing specs and…

> This requires the ability to write well (or well enough to get what you want from the agent) and clearly communicate intent (in your language of choice, not code; very different IMO).

I do not see why you can't write your spec in pseudocode if you really want to - communicating your intent to the LLM, for how the code should be developed is far closer to programming than writing skillwise.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#477

Post by bravetraveler »

prplfsh wrote: post #280

I honestly don't get it - how isn't everyone having a blast with AI? Every one of those side projects you never had time for you can build in a weekend. You can explore five ideas at once. You can do big refactors/cleanups you'd never be able to dream of in the past. As a software engineer it's been fantastic.

Same reason I've passed along offers for management roles and continue to ignore "fiverr.com". It's less having done "The Thing" and more asking for it/a substitute. With an LLM/freelancers, the muscle memory, skills, or whatever I might develop (along with the thing) have been, well, outsourced.

What's more, I can already explore five ideas at once. There is no backlog formed by incapability, lol.

I don't understand the eagerness for "productivity as a service", celebrating quotas, and lot of other conjecture I could get twisted up with... but I'll skip it this time. Rarely pays off :)

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#478

Post by mtrifonov »

I'm building in the opposite direction. An AI that participates in group conversations but knows when to shut up. The hardest part is making it not talk when humans are handling it. Turns out coding social awareness into an AI is way harder than coding productivity. I get why people feel replaced by the productivity tools. The social side is nowhere close to replacing anyone.

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#479

Post by martin-t »

joquarky wrote: post #441
martin-t wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in exactly the same boat, down to the ~10 years. Only difference is I ended up picking AGPL for my later works. Like it made a difference... The whole situation disgusts me. - They expect me to pay for access to my own stolen code. - Arguing stealing should be legal because China does it and if US companies don't, they'll be left behind. - People like the poster you're replying to who argue you're not entitled t…

How did they steal your code? Don't you have backups?

They used it against my consent. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=steal+meaning&ia=web

Re: I quit. The clankers won

#480

Post by martin-t »

joquarky wrote: post #441
martin-t wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in exactly the same boat, down to the ~10 years. Only difference is I ended up picking AGPL for my later works. Like it made a difference... The whole situation disgusts me. - They expect me to pay for access to my own stolen code. - Arguing stealing should be legal because China does it and if US companies don't, they'll be left behind. - People like the poster you're replying to who argue you're not entitled t…

How did they steal your code? Don't you have backups?

What do you think is the end state? What will society look like 5 or 15 years down the line if somebody creates actual AGI, according to you?
Post reply on HN