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I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

jamesdrandall.com

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Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#81

Post by dwoldrich »

I am in a very similar boat, age and experience-wise. I would like to work backward from the observation that there is no resource constraints and we're collectively hopelessly lost up the abstraction Jenga tower.

I observe that the way we taught math was not oriented on the idea that everyone would need to know trigonometric functions or how to do derivatives. I like to believe math curricula was centered around standardizing a system of thinking about maths and those of us who were serious about our educational development would all speak the same language. It was about learning a language and laying down processes that everyone else could understand. And that shaped us, and it's foolish to challenge or complain about that or, God forbid, radically change the way we teach math subjects because it damages our ability to think alike. (I know the above is probably completely idealistic verging on personal myth, but that's how I choose to look at it.)

In my opinion, we never approached software engineering the same way. We were so focused on the compiler and the type calculus, and we never taught people about what makes code valuable and robust. If I had FU money to burn today, I'd start a Mathnasium company focused around making kids into systems integrators with great soft skills and the ability to produce high quality software. I would pitch this business under the assumption that the jenga tower is going to be collapsing pretty much continuously for the next 25-50 years and civilization needs absolute unit super developers coming out of nowhere who will be able to make a small fortune helping companies dig their way out of 75 years of tech debt.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#82

Post by tjr »

chasd00 wrote: post #27

What the author describes is also the feeling when you shift from being a developer all day to being a team lead or manager. When you become a lead you have to let go and get comfortable with the idea that the code is not going to be how you would do it. You can look at code produced by your team and attempt to replace it all with your craftsmanship but you're just setting yourself up to fail. The right approach is u…

Most of my career has been as an individual engineer, but the past few years I have been a project manager. I find this to be very much like using AI for coding.

Which also makes me refute the idea that AI coding is just another rung up on the programming abstraction ladder. Depending on how much you delegate to AI, I don't think it's really programming at all. It's project management. That's not a bad thing! But it's not really still programming.

Even just in the context of my human team, I feel less mentally engaged with the code. I don't know what everything does. (In principle, I could know, but I don't.) I see some code written in a way that differs from how I would have done it. But I'm not the one working day-in, day-out with the code. I'll ask questions, make suggestions, but I'm not going to force something unless I think it's really super important.

That said, I don't 100% like this. I enjoy programming. I enjoy computer science. I especially enjoy things more down the paths of algorithm design, Lisp, and the intersection of programming with mathematics. On my team, I do still do some programming. I could delegate it entirely, but I indulge myself and do a little bit.

I personally think that's a good path with AI too. I think we're at the point where, for many software application tasks, the programming could be entirely hands-off. Let AI do it all. But if I wish to, why not indulge in doing some myself also? Yeah, I know, I know, I'll get "left behind in the dust" and all of that. I'm not sure that I'm in that much of a hurry to churn out 50,000 lines of code a day; I'm cool with 45,100.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#84

Post by raphman »

ossa-ma wrote: post #3

The irony of these "My craft is dead" posts is that they consistently, heavily leverage AI for their writing. So you're crying about losing one craft to AI while using AI to kill another. It's disingenuous. And yes it is so damn obvious.

The author admits that they used AI but I found it not that obvious. What are telltale signs in this case? While the writing style is a little bit over-stylized (exactly three examples in a sentence, Blade Runner reference), I might write in a similar style about a topic that im very emotional about. The actual content feels authentic to me.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#86

Post by newsoftheday »

tonymet wrote: post #35

I have the opposite take. There’s nothing stopping you from jumping into any component to polish things up. You can code whatever you wish. And AI takes away nearly all of the drudgery : boilerplate, test cases, inspecting poor documentation, absurd tooling. It also lets me focus more on improving things since I feel more liberated to scrap low quality components. I’m much braver to take on large refactors now – thin…

> In many ways AI has made up for my growing lack of patience and inability to stay on task until 3am.

That is called...programming.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#88

Post by abraxas »

alt227 wrote: post #51

I prefer to see it as the automtion of the IT age. All other professions had their time when technology came and automated things. For example wood carvers, blacksmiths, butchers, bakers, candlestickmakers etc etc. All of those professions have been mostly taken over by machines in factories. I view 'ai' as new machines in factories for producing code. We have reached the point where we have code factories which can…

> For example wood carvers, blacksmiths, butchers, bakers, candlestickmakers etc etc.

Very, very few of those professions are thriving. Especially if we are talking true craftsmanship and not stuffing the oven with frozen pastries to create the smell and the corresponding illusion of artisinal work.

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#89

Post by qsi »

Well-written and it expresses a mood, a feeling, a sense of both loss and awe. I was there too in the 8-bit era, fully understanding every byte of RAM and ROM.

The sense of nostalgia that can turn too easily into a lament is powerful and real. But for me this all came well before AI had become all consuming... It's the just the latest manifestation of the process. I knew I didn't really understand computers anymore, not in the way I used to. I still love coding and building but it's no longer central to my job or lif3. It's useful, I enjoy it but at the same time I also marvel at the future that I find myself living in. I've done things with AI that I wouldn't have dared to start for lack of time. It's amazing and transformative and I love that too.

But I will always miss the Olden Days. I think more than anything it's the nostalgia for the 8-bit era that made me enjoy Stranger Things so much. :)

Re: I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

#90

Post by wiseowise »

ossa-ma wrote: post #60
wiseowise wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if people were complex creatures, feeling different emotions for different things, shocking right? I can hate LLMs for killing my craft while simultaneously using it to write a "happy birthday" message for a relative I hate or some corpo speak.

This is not either of those. This is the equivalent of a eulogy to a passion and a craft. Using an LLM to write it: entire sections, headers, sentences - is an insult to the craft. The post in the same vain, "We mourn our craft", did a much better job at this communicating the point without the AI influence.

Fair enough, agree on your second paragraph.
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