Dev happiness is not the determining factor of how software will be written at scale
Well said
I am happier writing code by hand
71–80 of 334 posts
Re: I am happier writing code by hand
#72Even if Claude writes 100% code, I think there will be a bifurcation between people who are finicky about 10 lines of code. And those finicky about high level product experiences. I think the 10 lines of code people worry their jobs now become obsolete. In cases where the code required googling how to do X with Y technology, that's true. That's just going to be trivially solvable. And it will cause us to not need as…
> I think there will be a bifurcation between people who are finicky about 10 lines of code. And those finicky about high level product experiences.
No ones care about a random 10 lines of code. And the focus of AI hypers on LoC is disturbing. Either the code is correct and good (allows for change later down the line) or it isn't.
> We may weirdly be in a case where it's possible to single-shot a slack clone, but taking time to change the 2 small features we care about is time consuming and requires thoughtfulness.
You do remember how easy it is to do `git clone`?
Re: I am happier writing code by hand
#73This is pointing out one factor of vibecoding that is talked about too little: that it feels good, and that this feeling often clouds people's judgment on what is actually achieved (i.e. you lost control of the code and are running more and more frictionless on hopes and dreams)
> you lost control of the code and are running more and more frictionless on hopes and dreams Your control over the code is your prompt. Write more detailed prompts and the control comes back. (The best part is that you can also work with the AI to come up with better prompts, but unlike with slop-written code, the result is bite-sized and easily surveyable.)
Also, you’re still in control of your code. It’s not an xor thing, the agent does its thing but the code is still there and yours. You can still adjust, fix, enhance etc. you’re still in control. The agent is there to help as much or as little as you want.
Re: I am happier writing code by hand
#74> “What’s the point of it all?” I thought, LLMs can generate decent-ish and correct-ish looking code while I have more time to do what? doomscroll?
You could look back throughout human history at the inventions that made labor more efficient and ask the same question. The time-savings could either result in more time to do even more work, or more time to keep projects on pace at a sane and sustainable rate. It's up to us to choose.
Re: I am happier writing code by hand
#75This is no different then carpentry. Yes, all furniture can now be built by machines. Some people still choose to build it by hand. Does that make them less productive? Yes. Will they ever carve furniture by hand for a business? Probably not. Can they still enjoy the act of working with the wood? Yes. If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do…
Only cutting of the furniture is automated. Still designed and assembled by humans. There is no machine which spits out a sofa.
That is not a technical constraint and may be automated if it made sense financially.
Same with software - for some time software won't be all designed, coded, tested, deployed to production without human supervision or approval. But the pieces in between are more and more filled by AI, as are the logistics of designing, manufacturing and distributing sofas.
Re: I am happier writing code by hand
#76I find it helps me just forced to be focused on a task for a few hours. Just the blocked out attention I spend on it will help refine and discover new problems and angles etc. I don't think just blocking out the time without actually trying to code it (staring at a wall) is as effective.
Re: I am happier writing code by hand
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what I don’t understand: why highly-paid SWEs seem to think that their salaries will remain the same (if they even still have a job) if their role is now a glorified project manager.
This is what I don't understand: everyone who thinks we're still relevant with the same job and salary expectations. Everything just changed. Fundamentally. If you don't adapt to these tools, you will be slower than your peers. Few businesses will tolerate that. This is competitive cycling. Claude is a modern bike with steroids. You can stay on a penny farthing, but that's not advised. You can write 10x the code - go…
I don’t think that the real dichotomy here. You can either produce 2-5x good maintainable code, or 10-50x more dogshit code that works 80-90% of the time, and that will be a maintenance nightmare.
The management has decided that the latter is preferable for short term gains.
Re: I am happier writing code by hand
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do that professionally for much longer. If you can't code by hand professionally anymore, what are you being paid to do? Bring the specs to the LLMs? Deal with the customers so the LLMs don't have to?
This is what I don’t understand: why highly-paid SWEs seem to think that their salaries will remain the same (if they even still have a job) if their role is now a glorified project manager.
Good project managers (with a technical focus) are not low-paid at all, even compared to SWE's.
Re: I am happier writing code by hand
#79[deleted]
Re: I am happier writing code by hand
#80Has anyone got any insights into what hiring software engineers looks like these days? As someone currently with a job and not hiring it is hard to imagine. Has there been any sort of paradigm shift in coding interviews? Is LLM use expected/encouraged or frowned upon? If companies are still looking for people to write code by hand then perhaps the author is onto something, if however we as an industry are moving on,…
I haven’t noticed much change yet at my firm. However, I work at a giant organization (700k+ employees) and they’re struggling to keep up. The lawyers aren’t even sure if we own the IP of agent generated code let alone the legal risk of sending client IP to the model providers.
It’s going to take a while.