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The Programmer Identity Crisis

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Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#71

Post by cool_man_bob »

veegee wrote: post #61
whynotminot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would someone who likes solving problems choose a very lucrative career path solving problems… hmmm You can also solve problems as a local handyman but that doesn’t pad the 401K quite as well as a career in software. I feel like there’s a lot of tech-fetishist right now on the “if you don’t deeply love to write code then just leave!” train without somehow realizing that most of us have our jobs because we need to…

Sounds like a mediocre developer. No respect for people like you.

[flagged]

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#72

Post by CjHuber »

strix_varius wrote: post #57

To me, the most salient point was this: > Code reviewing coworkers are rapidly losing their minds as they come to the crushing realization that they are now the first layer of quality control instead of one of the last. Asked to review; forced to pick apart. Calling out freshly added functions that are never called, hallucinated library additions, and obvious runtime or compilation errors. All while the author—who cl…

I'd say it depends on how coding assistants are used, when on autopilot I'd agree, as they don't really take the time to reflect on the work they've done before going on with the next feature of the spec. But in a collaborative process that's of course different as you are pointing out things you want to have implemented in a different way. But I get your point, most PR's you'd flag as AI generated slop are the ones where someone just ran them on autopilot and was somewhat satisfied with the outcome, while treating the resulting code as blackbox

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#73

Post by jihadjihad »

strix_varius wrote: post #57

To me, the most salient point was this: > Code reviewing coworkers are rapidly losing their minds as they come to the crushing realization that they are now the first layer of quality control instead of one of the last. Asked to review; forced to pick apart. Calling out freshly added functions that are never called, hallucinated library additions, and obvious runtime or compilation errors. All while the author—who cl…

> whereas good senior engineers often remove as much code as they add

https://www.folklore.org/Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.html

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#74

Post by OkayPhysicist »

whynotminot wrote: post #49
bcrosby95 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of most jobs in the world is to "solve problems". So why did you pick software over those?

Why would someone who likes solving problems choose a very lucrative career path solving problems… hmmm You can also solve problems as a local handyman but that doesn’t pad the 401K quite as well as a career in software. I feel like there’s a lot of tech-fetishist right now on the “if you don’t deeply love to write code then just leave!” train without somehow realizing that most of us have our jobs because we need to…

It's because there are a significant number of us for who tinkering with and building shit is basically a compulsion. And software development is vastly more available, and quicker to iterate and thus more satisfying, than any other tinkering discipline. It's probably related to whatever drives some people to make art, the only difference being that the market has decided that the tinkers are worth a hell of a lot more.

For evidence towards the compulsion argument, look at the existence of FOSS software. Or videogame modding. Or all the other freely available software in existence. None of that is made by people who made the rational decision of "software development is a lucrative field that will pay me a comfortable salary, thus I should study software development". It's all made by people for whom there is no alternative but to build.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#75

Post by codyb »

greymalik wrote: post #27

> One could only wonder why they became a programmer in the first place, given their seeming disinterest in coding. To solve problems. Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. > careful configuration of our editor, tinkering with dot files, and dev environments That may be fun for you, but it doesn’t add value. It’s accidental complexity that I am happy to delegate.

Configuring editors, dot files, and dev environments consistently adds value by giving you familiarity with your working environment, honing your skills with your tools, and creating a more productive space tailored to your needs.

Who else becomes the go to person for modifying build scripts?

The amount of people I know who have no idea how to work with Git after decades in the field using it is pretty amazing. It's not helpful for everyone else when you're the one they're delegating their merge conflict bullshit too cause they've never bothered to learn anything about the tools they're using.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#76

Post by cardanome »

thorn wrote: post #39

Thank you, author. This essay made my day. It resonates with my thinking of last months. I tried to use AI at work, but most of times I regrettably scratched whatever it did and did stuff on my own. So many points I agree with. Delegating thinking to AI is the worst thing I can do to my career. AI at best is mediocre text generator. So funny to read how people attack author using non-related to the essay’s message cr…

The worst thing for me is that I am actually good at LLM-based coding

My coworkers that are in love with this new world are producing complete AI slop and still take ages to complete tasks. Meanwhile I can finally play my strength as I actually know software architecture, can ask the LLM to consider important corner case and so on.

Plus, I am naturally good at context management. Being neurodivergent has given me decades of practice in working with entities that have a different way of thinking that me own. I have more mechanical empathy for the LLM because I don't confuse it for a human. My coworkers meanwhile get super frustrated that the LLM can not read their mind.

That said, LLMs are getting better. My advantage will not last. And the more AI slop gets produced the more we need LLMs to cope with all the AI slop in our code bases. A vicious cycle. No one will actually know what the code does. Soon my job will mostly consist of praying to the machine gods.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#77

Post by codyb »

senordevnyc wrote: post #55
dingnuts wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A chef who sharpens his knives should stop because it doesn't add value A contractor who prefers a specific brand of tool is wrong because the tool is a means to an end This is what you sound like. Just because you don't understand the value of a craftsman picking and maintaining their tools doesn't mean the value isn't real.

Yes, but the point of being a chef is the food, not the knives. If there's a better way to prepare food than a knife, but you refuse to change, are you really a chef? Or are you a chef knife enthusiast?

The point is, a lot of us aren't convinced reviewing 8 meals made by agents in parallel _is_ producing better food.

And it also seems exceedingly wasteful to boot.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#78

Post by IncreasePosts »

psunavy03 wrote: post #4
protontypes wrote: post #3

Whenever I see an em dash (—), I suspect the entire text was written by an AI.

That says more about your lack of writing skills and understanding of grammar than AI.

Referring to an orthographic construct as grammar is not a good indication that you understand what grammar is.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#79

Post by 0x457 »

veegee wrote: post #61
whynotminot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would someone who likes solving problems choose a very lucrative career path solving problems… hmmm You can also solve problems as a local handyman but that doesn’t pad the 401K quite as well as a career in software. I feel like there’s a lot of tech-fetishist right now on the “if you don’t deeply love to write code then just leave!” train without somehow realizing that most of us have our jobs because we need to…

Sounds like a mediocre developer. No respect for people like you.

A bit harsh off a single post. I like solving problems, not just software engineering problems and I like writing code as a hobby, but I went to this job field only due to high salary and benefits.

In fact, I usually hate writing code at day job because it is boring things 20 out of 26 sprints.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#80

Post by dugmartin »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #45

Full disclosure: I am old. When I started programming for Corporate™ back 1995, it was a wildly different career than what it has become. Say what you want about the lunatics running the asylum, but we liked it that way. Engineering knew their audience, knew the tech stack, knew what was going on in "the industry", ultimately called the shots. Your code was your private sandbox. Want to rewrite it every other release…

I started around the same time. No unit tests but we did have code reviews because of ISO 9001 requirements. That meant printing out the diffs on the laser printer and corralling 3 people into a meeting room to pour over them and then have them literally sign off on the change. This was for an RTOS that ran big industrial controls in things like steel plants and offshore oil rigs.

Project management was a 40 foot Gantt chart printed out on laser printer paper and taped to the wall. The sweet sound of waterfall.

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