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I am happier writing code by hand

abhinavomprakash.com

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Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#81

Post by agentultra »

woeirua wrote: post #5

This 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…

I’ve heard this metaphor before and I don’t think it works well.

For one, a power tool like a bandsaw is a centaur technology. I, the human, am the top half of the centaur. The tool drives around doing what I tell it to do and helping me to do the task faster (or at all in some cases).

A GenAI tool is a reverse-centaur technology. The algorithm does almost all of the work. I’m the bottom half of the centaur helping the machine drive around and deliver the code to production faster.

So while I may choose to use hand tools in carpentry, I don’t feel bad using power tools. I don’t feel like the boss is hot to replace me with power tools. Or to lay off half my team because we have power tools now.

It’s a bit different.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#82

Post by GiorgioG »

xnx wrote: post #30
sgarland wrote: post #21

Earlier 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.

Salaries might remain the same, but they'll be expected to produce a lot more.

We produce way more than the punch-card wielding developers of yesteryear and we’re doing just fine (better even).

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#83

Post by panzi »

woeirua wrote: post #5

This 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…

If I have to become a factory worker I'm going to look for another job.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#84

Post by cat_plus_plus »

I am TL of an Android app with dozens of screens that expose hundreds of different distinct functions. My task is to expose all of these functions as appfunctions that can be called by an LLM in response to free form user requests. My current plan is to build a little LangGraph pipeline where first step is AI documenting all functions in each app's fragment, second step is extracting them into app functions, then refactoring fragment to call app functions etc. And by build I mean Gemini will build it for me and I will ask for some refinement and edit prompts.

I also like writing code by hand, I just don't want to maintain other people's code. LMK if you need a job referral to hand refactor 20K lines of code in 2 months. Do you also enjoy working on test coverage?

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#85

Post by wazHFsRy »

rf15 wrote: post #9

This 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)

For me, it feels good if I get it right. But unfortunately, there are many times, even with plan mode and everything specced, where after a few hours of chipping away and refactoring the problem by the agent, I realised that I can throw the whole thing away and do over. Then it feels horrible. It feels especially horrible because it feels like you have done nothing for that time and learned nothing.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#86

Post by afavour »

woeirua wrote: post #5

This 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…

I think this comparison isn’t quite correct. The downside with carpentry is that you only ever produce one of the thing you’re making. Factory woodwork can churn out multiple copies of the same thing in a way hand carpentry never can. There is a hard limit on output and output has a direct relationship to how much you sell.

Code isn’t really like that. Hand written code scales just like AI written code does. While some projects are limited by how fast code can be written it’s much more often things like gathering requirements that limits progress. And software is rarely a repeated, one and done thing. You iterate on the existing product. That never happens with furniture.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#88

Post by panarky »

woeirua wrote: post #5

This 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…

Some people like to spin their own wool, weave their own cloth, sew their own clothes.

A few even make a good living by selling their artisanal creations.

Good for them!

It's great when people can earn a living doing what they love.

But wool spinning and cloth weaving are automated and apparel is mass produced.

There will always be some skilled artisans who do it by hand, but the vast majority of decent jobs in textile production are in design, managing machines and factories, sales and distribution.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#89

Post by wazHFsRy »

acedTrex wrote: post #6

I will do what i know gives me the best possible and fastest outcome over the long term, 5-10 year period. And that remains largely neovim and by hand. The process of typing code gives me a deeper understanding of the project that lets me deliver future features FASTER. I'm fundamentally convinced that my investment into deep long term grokking of a project will allow me to surpass primarily LLM projects over the lon…

I love that take and sympathise deeply with it. I also have come to the conclusion to focus my manual work on those areas where I can get learning from and try to automate the rest away as much as possible.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#90

Post by panzi »

candiddevmike wrote: post #10
woeirua wrote: post #5

This 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…

> 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?

Vibe coders being: https://images.kinorium.com/movie/shot/129136/h280_39185160....
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