Interesting example. As programming languages and tooling such as static analysis become more and more advanced I would think memory leaks or mismanagement of memory is going to become a thing of the past. So I would argue that one way or another this was bound to happen.
AI Stole the Joy of Programming
81–90 of 98 posts
Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn’t answer your questions.
To me the joy of not doing anything productive means just sitting/laying on the couch consuming content in one form or another. I'm sure it can also mean just sitting and enjoying a coffee, which is fine but I don't find that necessarily enjoyable by itself. Making art, music, painting, are all creative and productive endevours, so when you're saying to be okay not being productive to me it means to be okay being a c…
Consuming content is really just another capitalist activity, you’re producing views, impressions, you’re trading away attention in exchange for some entertainment.
Instead, go outside and consume nature. Consume a sunset, not a TV show.
Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming
#83If I were a trained professional software engineer who found joy in writing tests and TDD, maybe I'd feel differently, but I write software to help with basic scientific analysis, and ChatGPT has been an absolute game changer for writing tests. I personally find writing tests to be soul-crushing, boring, work. I never really learned it properly, and when I have a well-documented function, CGPT typically does a decent…
Tests are usually soul crushing and boring for the same reason PHP was in 1999 - a complete lack of structure, tooling and separation of concerns made it tedious and difficult. I find it interesting that when people describe to me how they use LLMs to write code it's either short throwaway scripts or to write the kind of code that would make me retch (e.g. tests stuffed full of horrible mocks, spaghetti boilerplate).
Bear with me here: what if that retch-inducing code works fine? It's generated by an AI, can be understood by an AI (presumably), does what it should, so why should it be palatable for a human? You're not in the loop anymore...
Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
It'll be sad but the brain rot from pervasive social media is getting severe, especially in older generations. If this pushes more people to touch grass, it's a net positive.
I totally agree that many online comments are toxic and many people should go touch grass. However I also see this as the next step in a series of humans getting their communications cut off by computers. Talking to people online is in fact a way that some people get socialization and develop writing skills. If my prognostication is correct and people give up even trying to interact on most websites because "it's not…
Whether the "sharing themselves" age was a peak or a low is still up for debate.
Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tests are usually soul crushing and boring for the same reason PHP was in 1999 - a complete lack of structure, tooling and separation of concerns made it tedious and difficult. I find it interesting that when people describe to me how they use LLMs to write code it's either short throwaway scripts or to write the kind of code that would make me retch (e.g. tests stuffed full of horrible mocks, spaghetti boilerplate).
Bear with me here: what if that retch-inducing code works fine? It's generated by an AI, can be understood by an AI (presumably), does what it should, so why should it be palatable for a human? You're not in the loop anymore...
If it remains perfectly bug free until the end of time then yes it's fine /s
Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bear with me here: what if that retch-inducing code works fine? It's generated by an AI, can be understood by an AI (presumably), does what it should, so why should it be palatable for a human? You're not in the loop anymore...
If it remains perfectly bug free until the end of time then yes it's fine /s
And when a bug shows up (as they always do), some AI will fix it.
Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming
#87I've had the absolute opposite experience, AI has brought back a lot of the joy of programming and building products for me. I've been using Cursor extensively these past few months, for anything ranging from scaffolding to complex UIs. The trick, I've found, is to treat the AI like I would work with a junior engineer, giving in concrete detailed tasks to accomplish, breaking the problem down myself into manageable c…
> In both cases, having the AI generate the code enabled me to focus on designing the games, both visually and from an interaction perspective. I also chose to manually code some parts myself, because these were fun.
…so not programming?
Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming
#88I've had the absolute opposite experience, AI has brought back a lot of the joy of programming and building products for me. I've been using Cursor extensively these past few months, for anything ranging from scaffolding to complex UIs. The trick, I've found, is to treat the AI like I would work with a junior engineer, giving in concrete detailed tasks to accomplish, breaking the problem down myself into manageable c…
Exactly. AI lets me focus on the most interesting part of programming. Coming up with how I want to solve the problem, not wasting time searching docs to find out if a particular function will do what I want and many other tasks I didn't even know were not my favourite before.
That’s a big part of programming though, IMO. Always has been.
Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A lot of people don't/didn't set out in life to be a hyper-adaptiver worker who puts 110% into the latest thing they can be the best at all the time This used to be life for 99% of human history. Don't take the past 30 years lifestyle for granted just because we created government, free market or whatever. Human nature is to be a hyper-adaptiver worker who puts 110% into the latest thing they can be the best at all…
Humans never needed to be hyper-adaptive. 80+% of people in the far past were farmers their whole life, just like their parents, and their children, and everyone they associated with. Prior to farming, dumber means of food gathering. You worked your ass off or died but it was never about the latest thing, that's a purely modern invention. Hardly anybody went to "school" or learned a trade, nobody expected job changes…
any worn down farmer you are describing as having it easier would change lives with the modern human. They would not complain as much, that's for sure. At least not until they get used to it.
Re: AI Stole the Joy of Programming
#90It's just the start, it's about to steal the joy of everything in life pretty soon.
This is my big fear about pervasive use of AI. I'm afraid that companies, policy makers, regulators, etc. all start letting AI make important decisions without any human understanding of the reasoning behind the decision and the human puppets hiding behind it with no accountability. I imagine scenarios where AI could be given complete authority to decide who is hired/fired, who gets medical care, who gets food, who g…
Haven’t books been written about this exact scenario?