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I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

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Re: I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

#71

Post by pyman »

ofjcihen wrote: post #42
pyman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but I've studied the history of computers and keyboards. There's plenty of evidence that writing with typewriters was much slower than using a computer. Writers were also more limited creatively, since they couldn't easily edit or move things around once the page was written.

Slow doesn’t necessarily mean less creative. In fact it’s been argued that being slow and deliberate actually pulls you out of automated patterns of thinking and gives you time to mull over what you want to say. This is even enhanced when you create a superficial barrier such as writing in all caps.

I'm not saying fast is better than slow, or slow is better than fast. I'm just saying time changes the shape of creativity.

Shakespeare wrote under pressure because he had deadlines. His creativity was shaped by the need to deliver.

Einstein, on the other hand, had no real deadlines. His creativity was shaped by the need to understand. He had time to sit with ideas, rethink assumptions, and see patterns no one else saw.

Shakespeare would say: "Creativity is all about time. And writing by hand takes time."

And Einstein would reply: "Time does not exist my friend. So take your time and write it again."

Re: I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

#72

Post by pyman »

danaris wrote: post #26
pyman wrote: post #6

Feels like we're heading towards a world where computer languages disappear, and we just use human language to tell machines what to do. Kinda like how typewriters got replaced by computers in the 80s. Back then, people spent so much time making sure there were no typos, they'd lose focus on the actual story they were trying to write. Same thing's happening now with code. We waste so much time dealing with syntax, fi…

Sorry, this is implausible. English is just too poorly-specified. Programs need to be able to know exactly what they're supposed to do next, what their output is supposed to be, etc. Even humans need to ask each other for clarification and such all the time. If you want to use English to specify a program, by the time you've adjusted it to be clear and specific enough to actually be able to do that...it turns out you…

We live in a world with 7,000 human languages and around 8,000 programming languages. Most people only learn a handful, which limits how effectively they can express intent. This is inefficient.

In theory, one universal language would solve that, for both humans and machines.

Maybe the best solution isn't one language (English, Spanish, Golang, or Python), but one interface that understands all of them. And that's what LLMs might become.

Re: I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

#73

Post by danaris »

pyman wrote: post #72
danaris wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, this is implausible. English is just too poorly-specified. Programs need to be able to know exactly what they're supposed to do next, what their output is supposed to be, etc. Even humans need to ask each other for clarification and such all the time. If you want to use English to specify a program, by the time you've adjusted it to be clear and specific enough to actually be able to do that...it turns out you…

We live in a world with 7,000 human languages and around 8,000 programming languages. Most people only learn a handful, which limits how effectively they can express intent. This is inefficient. In theory, one universal language would solve that, for both humans and machines. Maybe the best solution isn't one language (English, Spanish, Golang, or Python), but one interface that understands all of them. And that's wh…

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/927/

Re: I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

#74

Post by globnomulous »

xandrius wrote: post #60
globnomulous wrote: post #57

Students of ancient languages fall into one of two camps: those who use translations for 'assistance' and those who don't. Classroom experiences have shown me that the two groups of students learn vastly different skills. The group who struggle through texts by themselves with relying on any shortcuts -- they just sit with the text -- probably won't become top-shelf philologists, but when you give them a sentence the…

One could say this about absolutely any technology. Using a hoe is making you weaker than if you just used your bare hands. Using a calculator is making your brain lose skill in doing complicated arithmetic in your head. Most have never built a fire completely from scratch, they surely are lacking certain skills but do/should they care? But as with everything else, you can take technology to do more, things that migh…

> One could say this about absolutely any technology.

What do I become worse at when I learn metallurgy, woodworking, optics, painting, or cooking?

> But as with everything else, you can take technology to do more, things that might be impossible for you to do without it, and that's ok.

Whether LLMs are helpful or enable anybody to do 'more' is beside the point.

I don't care about doing more -- or the 'more' I care about is only tangentially related to my actual output as an engineer. I care about developing my skill as an SWE and deepening my understanding. LLMs stand in the way of that. They poison it. Anybody who loves and values the skill as I do does themselves a disservice by letting an LLM do the work, particularly the thinking and problem solving. And even if you don't care about the skill, and are delighted to find that LLMs increase your output while you're using them, I'd wager you'll pay a hefty long-term intellectual and personal cost, in that you'll become a worse, lazier, less engaged engineer.

That's what this guy's post is about: losing the ability to do the work, or finding yourself bewildered by it, because you're no longer practicing it.

If code is just an obstacle to your goals but also the means of reaching them, and LLMs help you reach your goals, great, more power to you. My goal is to program. I just want to continue to do what I love and, day by day, problem by problem, become better at it. When I can no longer do that as an SWE, and I'm expected (let alone required) to let an obnoxious, chipper chatbot do the work, while I line the pockets of some charlatan 'thought leader,' I'll retire or blow my brains out.

Re: I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

#75

Post by pyman »

danaris wrote: post #73
pyman wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in a world with 7,000 human languages and around 8,000 programming languages. Most people only learn a handful, which limits how effectively they can express intent. This is inefficient. In theory, one universal language would solve that, for both humans and machines. Maybe the best solution isn't one language (English, Spanish, Golang, or Python), but one interface that understands all of them. And that's wh…

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/927/

This is funny :) But that's exactly why I said that even though having so many languages is inefficient, the real solution is to create an interface that makes the problem obsolete. LLMs only care about intent, not syntax.

Re: I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

#76

Post by nicbou »

hintymad wrote: post #30

A trajectory question: has anyone thought about becoming a journeyman in their day-to-day work? Like a backend engineer switching to building machine learning models. Or a frontend engineer moving into optimizing LLM serving infrastructure. The challenge isn’t so much technical—it’s social. Here's a typical scenario: you're a well-respected senior engineer at your company. Say you're an E8 at Meta. You spend your day…

A few years ago I started living from an informational website I've built. Now software is just a thing I do in support of my work, and it's so much fun. I feel a much greater sense of novelty and agency building little widgets and fiddling with my own static site generator.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is being threatened by Google AI summaries serving the fruit of my labour while denying me the audience.

Re: I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

#77

Post by TeMPOraL »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #39
pyman wrote: post #6

Feels like we're heading towards a world where computer languages disappear, and we just use human language to tell machines what to do. Kinda like how typewriters got replaced by computers in the 80s. Back then, people spent so much time making sure there were no typos, they'd lose focus on the actual story they were trying to write. Same thing's happening now with code. We waste so much time dealing with syntax, fi…

Another good analogy is how calculators, people who performed mathematical calculations, were replaced by machines. Sure they were eventually put out of work, nonetheless, the mechanical and then electronic calculators eventually made entire industries so efficient it increased everyone's wealth and created new positions and jobs. We will be fine.

> We will be fine.

No, we won't. Other people might be.

The new positions and jobs are for the new people. For those automated away half-way through their careers, there's at best competing for entry-level salaries with a much younger cohort freshly out of school.

It's something I see people consistently missing in the whole labor automation discussion space. Luddites didn't rise up because they hated the future either. They rose up because contemporary developments threatened to throw them specifically, and their families and children, into poverty, starvation and death.

Long-term social impact != immediate-term personal impact.

Re: I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

#78

Post by hintymad »

nicbou wrote: post #76
hintymad wrote: post #30

A trajectory question: has anyone thought about becoming a journeyman in their day-to-day work? Like a backend engineer switching to building machine learning models. Or a frontend engineer moving into optimizing LLM serving infrastructure. The challenge isn’t so much technical—it’s social. Here's a typical scenario: you're a well-respected senior engineer at your company. Say you're an E8 at Meta. You spend your day…

A few years ago I started living from an informational website I've built. Now software is just a thing I do in support of my work, and it's so much fun. I feel a much greater sense of novelty and agency building little widgets and fiddling with my own static site generator. Unfortunately, the whole thing is being threatened by Google AI summaries serving the fruit of my labour while denying me the audience.

Thanks! Bootstrapped business is a great path! I hope I know how to make it a success. It looks to me that even finding the PMF of a business is hard.

Re: I want to be a Journey Programmer Again

#79

Post by xandrius »

globnomulous wrote: post #74
xandrius wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could say this about absolutely any technology. Using a hoe is making you weaker than if you just used your bare hands. Using a calculator is making your brain lose skill in doing complicated arithmetic in your head. Most have never built a fire completely from scratch, they surely are lacking certain skills but do/should they care? But as with everything else, you can take technology to do more, things that migh…

> One could say this about absolutely any technology. What do I become worse at when I learn metallurgy, woodworking, optics, painting, or cooking? > But as with everything else, you can take technology to do more, things that might be impossible for you to do without it, and that's ok. Whether LLMs are helpful or enable anybody to do 'more' is beside the point. I don't care about doing more -- or the 'more' I care a…

LLMs are also pretty good at condensing a huge amount of data into a formatted table, that's not coding and that is absolutely time consuming when working with unstructured data from all over the Internet.

That definitely allows me to make certain projects bigger, as the data collection would have made things extremely slow.

Another thing that I started using LLMs more and more is to process huge collections of photos and properly handle them given their filenames and path. I give them the output of ls, my own expected result and I get a series of cp to properly rename and move files around, incredible stuff.

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