Coding is not programming.
Typing code is indeed not the hard part, programming is.
"Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
81–90 of 293 posts
Re: "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
#82I agree, the whole 'developers don't code' AI defense was pretty ridiculous. I also concur that development is going to get a lot harder. Anyone that has successfully used AI coding tools knows that you can get massive productivity increases but now I have to figure out how to get a bunch of hyper active child like coding entities with memory deficiencies to build stuff without going off the rail and introducing mass…
Code is the written representation of your idea how to solve a problem.
Now you tell someone else your idea and have to hope they get it. Otherwise you have to argue, rephrase, start all over again.
We are back to the tree-swing project management, but we added another layer
Re: "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
#83It seems to me like two things can be (and are) true: programming can be hard in absolute terms, and is also the easy part of the thing that we call “software engineering.”
Re: "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
>get a bunch of hyper active child like coding entities with memory deficiencies to build stuff without going off the rail and introducing massive security problems or building something completely mismatched to the requirements Development is essentially becoming management.
I see this comparison a lot, but I’m not sure I agree. At least not semantically. The list of what an engineer using agents is responsible for, largely hasn’t changed. Engineering managers haven’t changed responsibilities either. Even with wrangling agents, you’re really just making them right the “correct code”. Something EMs don’t do, or at least the good ones don’t do with their ICs.
It is quite similar to architecture work when others in the team do the actual coding, and lead devs / architects only have time to try out prototypes.
Only now instead of local or offshore devs, it is agents.
Re: "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
#85> If coding is easy, how come programmers were in high demand, and have demanded large salaries for years (even before ZIRP)? Because programmers have generally been forced to wear additional, invisible hats that are essential to making the code happen in the first place. Writing code is not hard. Writing correct code is. Knowing what is correct in a setting with paying customers generally involves interacting with t…
Exactly. Writing code is easy. Junior developers do it all the time. Hell, they write far mode code and do it faster!
I go half the speed of a junior developer, but the code I write lasts five years to a decade with an order of magnitude or two fewer bugs and long-term maintenance burden.
Re: "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
#86I agree, the whole 'developers don't code' AI defense was pretty ridiculous. I also concur that development is going to get a lot harder. Anyone that has successfully used AI coding tools knows that you can get massive productivity increases but now I have to figure out how to get a bunch of hyper active child like coding entities with memory deficiencies to build stuff without going off the rail and introducing mass…
This is all the stuff that the frontier labs are going to ship by default next year. Except for the architecture specifications, which agents can already do adequately for most system today.
Re: "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
#87Maybe the author has a skill issue, as they conflated "software engineering" with "coding".
It is all the parts of maintaining the software with time and engineering with all the moving parts (not the coding) is the point of why software engineering exists.
Re: "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many programmers operate under that kind of regulatory and operational constraint regime? I think most don’t. (In interesting ways this is programming’s greatest boon and curse: if we treated it more like building bridges or cars, the world would be a very different place.)
Touch billing, touch medical data, be at a B2B company that needs to catch all the ISOs to have a chance to land bigger contracts. I don't think it's uncommon.
It might be an unpopular option, but I think the regulatory regimes that control medical and financial privacy as they interact with software are significantly lighter touch than e.g. the regimes that control material quality for bridges and tunnels, much less airplanes.
Re: "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
#89> If coding is easy, how come programmers were in high demand, and have demanded large salaries for years (even before ZIRP)? Because programmers have generally been forced to wear additional, invisible hats that are essential to making the code happen in the first place. Writing code is not hard. Writing correct code is. Knowing what is correct in a setting with paying customers generally involves interacting with t…
After 30+ years in the industry the absolute best programmers I know never spoke to any customers, like ever. so bullshit comment all around. I’ve been coding for 30+, have obscene salary and do not wear any “additional hats” or talk to any “customers.”
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Re: "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers
#90Everybody saying "coding was never the hard part" is really telling on themselves. Coding was never "hard" because most organizations were absolutely unwilling to take on any technical work that was hard. That tells us about business strategy and culture rather than anything about the fundamentals of programming or technical work. The real conclusion is that programming is such a high-leverage activity that even tech…
It is hardly any different from reviewing or debugging the code quality of most offshore deliveries.