AI code and software craft
alexwennerberg.com
AI code and software craft
1–10 of 157 posts
Re: AI code and software craft
#2Enterprise software tends to particularly bad because it's being sold to managers who won't use it themselves. Consumer software tends to be more user-friendly (or it won't sell), but popular software isn't always what you want.
When writing software for yourself, there is a bias towards implementing just the features you want and never mind the rest. Sometimes the result can be pretty sloppy, but it works.
However, code health is a choice. You just need to know what to ask for. A coding agent can be used as a power washer to tidy up a project. This won't result in great art, but like raking leaves or cleaning your steps or plowing a driveway, it can be satisfying.
Just as you wouldn't use a power washer to clean a painting, maybe there's some code that's too delicate to use a coding agent on? But for a project that has good tests and isn't that delicate, which I believe includes most web apps, nobody's going to want to pay for you to do it by hand anymore. It would be like paying someone to clear the snow in a parking lot with a shovel rather than hiring someone with a plow.
Re: AI code and software craft
#3This argument is basically just the 1800s Luddite vs Industrialist argument recast for a new age. Group A thinks quality is about human agency, and that machines are being used to bypass the apprenticeship system and produce inferior goods. Group B thinks efficiency is the highest priority, and craft is just vanity. Of course as we know we went a third way, and human roles just shifted.
I think one promising shift direction is humans do NOT like to talk to bots, especially not for anything important. It's biological. We evolved to learn from and interact with other humans, preferably the same group over a long time, so we really get to understand/mirror/like/support each other.
Re: AI code and software craft
#4This argument is basically just the 1800s Luddite vs Industrialist argument recast for a new age. Group A thinks quality is about human agency, and that machines are being used to bypass the apprenticeship system and produce inferior goods. Group B thinks efficiency is the highest priority, and craft is just vanity. Of course as we know we went a third way, and human roles just shifted. I think one promising shift di…
Maybe kids will end up preferring to talk to bots, much like the generations after my own actually preferred digital compression artifacts in their music.
Re: AI code and software craft
#5This argument is basically just the 1800s Luddite vs Industrialist argument recast for a new age. Group A thinks quality is about human agency, and that machines are being used to bypass the apprenticeship system and produce inferior goods. Group B thinks efficiency is the highest priority, and craft is just vanity. Of course as we know we went a third way, and human roles just shifted. I think one promising shift di…
I dont think it's the same at all. when weaving was displaced, yes some people were pissed about losing their livelihood, but the quality of the cloth didn't diminish.
when CNC came for machining, no one really bitched, because the computers were just removing the time consuming effort of moving screws by hand.
when computers write code, or screenplays, the quality right now is objectively much worse. that might change, but claims that we're at the point where computers can meaningfully displace that work are pretty weak.
sure that might change.
Re: AI code and software craft
#6> People have said that software engineering at large tech companies resembles "plumbing"
> AI code [..] may also free up a space for engineers seeking to restore a genuine sense of craft and creative expression
This resonates with me, as someone who joined the industry circa 2013, and discovered that most of the big tech jobs were essentially glorified plumbers.
In the 2000s, the web felt more fun, more unique, more unhinged. Websites were simple, and Flash was rampant, but it felt like the ratio of creators to consumers was higher than now.
With Claude Code/Codex, I've built a bunch of things that usually would die at a domain name purchase or init commit. Now I actually have the bandwidth to ship them!
This ease of dev also means we'll see an explosion in slopware, which we're already starting to see with App Store submissions up 60% over the last year[0].
My hope is that, with the increase of slop, we'll also see an increase in craft. Even if the proportion drops, the scale should make up for it.
We sit in prefab homes, cherishing the cathedrals of yesteryear, often forgetting that we've built skyscrapers the ancient architects could never dream of.
More software is good. Computers finally work the way we always expected them to!
[0]https://www.a16z.news/p/charts-of-the-week-the-almighty-cons...
Re: AI code and software craft
#7This argument is basically just the 1800s Luddite vs Industrialist argument recast for a new age. Group A thinks quality is about human agency, and that machines are being used to bypass the apprenticeship system and produce inferior goods. Group B thinks efficiency is the highest priority, and craft is just vanity. Of course as we know we went a third way, and human roles just shifted. I think one promising shift di…
Maybe kids will end up preferring to talk to bots, much like the generations after my own actually preferred digital compression artifacts in their music.
Can it get me a job if I get laid off (networking)? Can I crash on its couch for a while? It might displace tv/netflix, which yes is a huge market, but I don't think much more than that.
Re: AI code and software craft
#8This argument is basically just the 1800s Luddite vs Industrialist argument recast for a new age. Group A thinks quality is about human agency, and that machines are being used to bypass the apprenticeship system and produce inferior goods. Group B thinks efficiency is the highest priority, and craft is just vanity. Of course as we know we went a third way, and human roles just shifted. I think one promising shift di…
It has nothing to do with luddites.
Software quality about speed of delivery and lack of bugs.
If you're fine with software which gets a little bit harder to work on every time you make a change and which might blow up in unexpected ways, AI is totally fine.
Ive yet to meet many AI champions who are explicit about their desire to make that trade off though. Even the ones who downplay software quality arent super happy about the bugs.
Re: AI code and software craft
#9This argument is basically just the 1800s Luddite vs Industrialist argument recast for a new age. Group A thinks quality is about human agency, and that machines are being used to bypass the apprenticeship system and produce inferior goods. Group B thinks efficiency is the highest priority, and craft is just vanity. Of course as we know we went a third way, and human roles just shifted. I think one promising shift di…
I dont think it's the same at all. when weaving was displaced, yes some people were pissed about losing their livelihood, but the quality of the cloth didn't diminish. when CNC came for machining, no one really bitched, because the computers were just removing the time consuming effort of moving screws by hand. when computers write code, or screenplays, the quality right now is objectively much worse. that might chan…
The available quality of cloth did, in fact, diminish.
Re: AI code and software craft
#10> People have said that software engineering at large tech companies resembles "plumbing" > AI code [..] may also free up a space for engineers seeking to restore a genuine sense of craft and creative expression This resonates with me, as someone who joined the industry circa 2013, and discovered that most of the big tech jobs were essentially glorified plumbers. In the 2000s, the web felt more fun, more unique, more…
> joined the industry circa 2013, and discovered that most of the big tech jobs were essentially glorified plumbers
Most tech jobs are glorified plumbers. I've worked in big tech and in small startups, and most of the code everywhere is unglamorous, boring, just needs to be written.
Satisfaction with the job also depends on what you want out of it. I know people who love building big data pipelines, and people who love building fancy UIs. Those two groups would find the other's job incredibly tedious.