Thread

1. Schnitz · 1785984517 · focus · HN ↗

   Because people that enjoy programming for programming's sake don't want an LLM to do the programming for them - isn't it obvious? It's just like with any other hobby, people who like car racing created rules that force you to drive yourself, even though they'd get faster lap times with electronic driver aids. People who enjoy grappling created rules that force you to grapple, even though striking could win a fight faster. People that enjoy chess don't allow you to bring a computer to the chess table. The list is endless and the people that enjoy programming will create rules that force you to program, why shouldn't they? It's their hobby.

   1. fenprace · 1785989586 · focus · HN ↗

      People programme for 2 reasons:

      1. Some programme because it’s the one of 2 ways to get the things they want (another way is hiring a team to code for them). Now that they have vibe coding, they’d happily never touch a line of code again. 2. Other people programmes because they just enjoy it. Vibe coding ruins the best part for them. Like telling a foodie, "Good news! I built a robot to eat your food for you."

      Most people getting paid to code are probably somewhere in the middle?

      But nowadays hand-writing code at work is starting to feel kinda 'illegal'. The manager is gonna ping you just because you fall behind on the company's token waste leaderboard.

      Maybe it's just another "hobby should never become job" story?

      1. djtango · 1785992009 · focus · HN ↗

         Hobby should only become job if you enjoy the craft of it and if the profession / job rewards craftsmanship.

         People in it just for the money won't care about craft - you see the same thing in plumbing. And when there's enough money and scale on the line, craft becomes progressively more niche - that is why Ikea furniture is a thing. And you can even say that there is craft in Ikea, just not along the axes a traditional furniture maker or user would consider.

         1. Schnitz · 1785997319 · focus · HN ↗

            This is such a great point and raises existential career questions for everyone who got into a programming career because they love the craft. Either find your niche where craft will matter until you retire, leave the profession or accept that it’s now mostly about prompting. It’s almost like everyone’s being promoted into management or tech leading and can’t refuse…

            1. dividedbyzero · 1786008320 · focus · HN ↗

               We're not that far into this new era and I already see people go back to hand-writing the important bits and manually designing their architecture because it turns out that unless you have them spit out yet another boring web app, they aren't very good engineers at all, their errors and bad decisions are very hard to predict and accumulate over time, and the resulting mess becomes unmaintainable at some point, and it appears all the harness engineering in the world can only stave that off somewhat, not prevent it from happening. So perhaps IT won't become a monoculture of agent prompters after all.

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