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The Programmer Identity Crisis

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Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#81

Post by wing-_-nuts »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #63
MountDoom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The honest answer that applies to almost everyone here is that as a kid, they liked playing computer games and heard that the job pays well. It's interesting, because to become a plumber, you pretty much need a plumber parent or a friend to get you interested in the trade show you the ropes. Meanwhile, software engineering is closer to the universal childhood dream of "I want to become an astronaut" or "I want to be…

I think you're grossly underestimating the number of people here who fell into software development because it's one of the best outlets for "the knack" in existence. Sure, this site is split between the "tech-bro entrepreneur"-types and developers, and there are plenty of developers who got into this for the cash, but in my experience about a quarter of developers (so maybe 10-15% of users on this site) got into thi…

I got stupidly lucky that one of my hobbies as an avid indoorsman was not only valued by the private sector but also happened to pay well. This career was literally the only thing that saved me from a life of poverty.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#82

Post by BubbleRings »

Hi op. “Conform or be cast out” ha. Read your article then right after got an email announcing Rush tickets going on sale. Must be a sign I should go.

I forwarded your article to my son the dev, since your post captured the magic of being a programmer so well.

And yes Levy’s book Hackers is most excellent.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#83

Post by cool_man_bob »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #81
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're grossly underestimating the number of people here who fell into software development because it's one of the best outlets for "the knack" in existence. Sure, this site is split between the "tech-bro entrepreneur"-types and developers, and there are plenty of developers who got into this for the cash, but in my experience about a quarter of developers (so maybe 10-15% of users on this site) got into thi…

I got stupidly lucky that one of my hobbies as an avid indoorsman was not only valued by the private sector but also happened to pay well. This career was literally the only thing that saved me from a life of poverty.

Don’t worry, once you’re no longer needed you’ll get to experience that life of poverty you missed out.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#84

Post by sharadov »

Great read, unlike technologies of the past that automated away the dangerous/boring/repetitive/soul-sucking jobs, LLM's are an assault on our thinking.

Social media already reduced our attention spans to that of goldfish, open offices made any sort of deep meaningful work impossible.

I hope this madness dies before it devours us.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#85

Post by bloppe »

People have long talked about how reading code is far more important than writing code when working as a professional SWE. LLMs have only increased the relative importance of code review. If you're not doing a detailed code review of every line your LLM generates (just like you should have always been doing while reviewing human-generated code), you're doing a bad job. Sure, it's less fun, but that's not the point. You're a professional.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#86

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

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…

> "...without somehow realizing that most of us have our jobs because we need to pay bills..."

Oh, I wouldn't say that. The hacker culture of the 1970s from which the word hacker originated often poked fun at incurious corporate programmers and IIRC even Edsger Dijkstra wrote a fair bit of acerbic comments about them and their disinterest in the craft and science of computing.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#87

Post by psunavy03 »

gdulli wrote: post #52
psunavy03 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a silly take, just because they existed and were proper grammar before AI slop popularized them doesn't mean they're not statistically likely to indicate slop today, depending on the context.

What's sillier is people associating em-dashes with AI slop specifically because they are unsophisticated enough never to have learned how to use them as part of their writing, and assuming everyone else must be as poor of a writer as they are.

It's the literary equivalent of thinking someone must be a "hacker" because they have a Bash terminal open.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#88

Post by senordevnyc »

codyb wrote: post #77
senordevnyc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think that's really the point of this post; it's all about how LLMs are destroying our craft (ie, "I really like using knives!"), not really about whether the food is better.

I think the real problem is that it's actually increasingly difficult to defend the artisanal "no-AI" approach. I say this as a prior staff-level engineer at a big tech company who has spent the last six months growing my SaaS to ~$100k in ARR, and it never could have happened without AI. I like the kind of coding the OP is talking about too, but ultimately I'm getting paid to solve a problem for my customers. Getting too attached to the knives is missing the point.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#89

Post by Etheryte »

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…

In my opinion this is another case where people look at it as a technical problem when it's actually a people problem. If someone does it once, they get a stern message about it. If it happens twice, it gets rejected and sent to their manager. Regardless of how you authored a pull request, you are signing off on it with your name. If it's garbage, then you're responsible.

Re: The Programmer Identity Crisis

#90

Post by jay_kyburz »

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?

A closer analogy would be a chef who chooses to have a robot cut his tomatoes. If the robot did it perfect every time I'm sure he would use the robot. If the robot mushed the tomatoes some of the time, would he spend time carefully inspecting the tomatoes? or would he just cut them himself?
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