Thread

1. QuantumNoodle · 1785956641 · focus · HN ↗

   A hobby is something you enjoy the process of doing, not just the end result. Everybody likes a clean home, but cleaning is rarely a hobby. LLMs expedite achieving the end result. Take from that what you will.

   1. ryandvm · 1785958616 · focus · HN ↗

      Yeah, in my experience, the people that got into software engineering because of the money are absolutely thrilled with how LLMs are changing the industry. They mostly just liked getting results and LLMs are great for that.

      The people like me that sort of just stumbled into this career as a result of spending the evenings of our youth trying to get the computer to do interesting things don't seem to have as much appreciation now that the LLMs are taking over the fun part.

      1. orsorna · 1785964004 · focus · HN ↗

         Really hate this characterization, although to be fair I love the ops/infra side of things more. I've used to set up so many parts of my homelab manually, but now I can just get it all done. I've spent countless hours maintaining a Rpi server at the infancy of my interest in computing. Truly a lot of it is maintenance and busywork tasks. I am having more fun than ever. Perhaps some people like those busywork sysadmin tasks and gain enjoyment of the homelab hobby just from that...honestly I can't say I really understand it.
      2. lelanthran · 1785964068 · focus · HN ↗

         > Yeah, in my experience, the people that got into software engineering because of the money are absolutely thrilled with how LLMs are changing the industry. They mostly just liked getting results and LLMs are great for that.

         Those people are in for the biggest shock and largest disappointment: when a bright teenager can replicate, with an LLM, what they produced with an LLM the pay is going to fall off a cliff.

         At least those who really are into development to the point of writing their own OS, Language, etc can still enjoy it as a hobby.

         1. ASalazarMX · 1785968004 · focus · HN ↗

            > Those people are in for the biggest shock and largest disappointment: when a bright teenager can replicate, with an LLM, what they produced with an LLM the pay is going to fall off a cliff.

            The value of an engineer is not what task they work on, but what problems they can solve. To this teen, the code is a black box, the LLM has most of the value in their pairing, and another random teen will replace easily them.

            LLMs were trained on the work of engineers, not prompting teens. The profession will continue to evolve, and the LLMs will improve along, thanks to professional, manual code still being written, not to vibe-coders.

      3. FeteCommuniste · 1785964938 · focus · HN ↗

         I'm the same way. The "grind" makes the successes all the sweeter.
      4. darkstarsys · 1785964988 · focus · HN ↗

         If I&#x27;m any example, I&#x27;m on the other side. I got into computers in the &#x27;70s: plotter art, BASIC, then Z-80s, forth, PDP11s, Amigas and so to now with GPUs and supercomputers and visualization. I&#x27;m recently retired and having enormous fun plowing through my lifetime backlog of &quot;wouldn&#x27;t that be a cool tool&quot; (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pcons.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pcons.org) or a climate visualization (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;globe-viz.oberbrunner.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;globe-viz.oberbrunner.com) or a travel packing list app (packzen) or a bunch of 3d printer tools... so on and so on. Totally co-engineered with Claude. What we&#x27;re doing together, and getting out to the world as useful open source projects, is easily 10x what I could&#x27;ve done on my own, in the limited time available to me in this life.

         1. dboreham · 1785966652 · focus · HN ↗

            Very similar story (right down to the pdp-11s).
      5. deterministic · 1785978490 · focus · HN ↗

         Not my experience at all. I taught myself assembly language when I was 11 just for fun, and I&#x27;m still programming as a hobby more than 40 years later, even though I also do it professionally.

         And I love using LLMs. They take care of all the boring boilerplate, letting me focus on the parts I actually enjoy.

      6. ericd · 1786004093 · focus · HN ↗

         I don&#x27;t think that&#x27;s quite fair. Computers have been my hobby since I was 4, I&#x27;m having a blast, this is so much fun. I&#x27;ve always had way more ideas I wanted to try than I&#x27;ve had time&#x2F;energy to implement, especially true since having kids, now the implementation can almost keep up.

         Computers were on a trajectory of becoming more consumption oriented, and this has shifted it strongly back towards creation. Normal people can make their own custom software again. This is awesome.

      7. antonvs · 1786035854 · focus · HN ↗

         That attitude isn’t universal to everyone who enjoys tinkering and making computers do interesting things. I just had lunch yesterday with one of the most tinkering people I know, who as a side hobby teaches kids to program using robotics etc. to make it interesting for them. Like me, he’s having a blast using LLMs.

         LLMs are amazing tools for learning new skills and technology. I’ve recently moved into an ML adjacent role, am learning tons that I never knew before, and I’m delivering working systems more quickly.

         One thing that’s been an eye-opener is how many details I miss in the code I write. LLMs can almost always suggest improvements, and usually, it’s quite obvious that they’re right. But this is making me a better developer, even though I already have decades of experience.

         LLMs don’t force you to vibe code everything. You can use them as precisely or as vibe-ishly as you want. They can be a skill amplifier rather than a skill replacer, if you use them as such.

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