Thread

1. alkonaut · 1785999287 · focus · HN ↗

   Programming has five phases effectively:

   1) You figure out what problem to solve.

   2) You figure out HOW to solve the problem.

   3) You actually implement the solution.

   4) You see the solution work, for yourself.

   5) You ship/deploy/publish the program. This means you see people be happy users and/or you get paid for it and so on.

   If you're an entrepreneur type, you probably enjoy the first and last steps most, and you see steps 2-4 as mostly a chore. If you're a tinkerer, you don't care much for 1 and 5, and you see 2-4 as the whole point of programming. I'm a tinkerer. I'd be happy to just write code and throw it away. Coding is like solving sudokus. I could skip steps 1 and 5 forever. I don't ever need to show any code to anyone. In fact, most of the time when programming I do steps 2 and 3 and even skip 4. I don't even finish! I work weeks on something until I lose interest, and I know that in order to even run it, it would be several more weeks. A PoC is enough. Or just a half one. It's just code-to-structure-thoughts, not to create anything finished.

   The 5 phases look kind of symmetric. The outermost layer (1 and 5) are the entrepreneurial steps. If you're a product owner or CEO, you might work strictly at steps 1,5. Then steps 2-4 are the managerial/architectural steps. If you're a very senior IC at a large company, you might work at this level, without actually doing much coding. Only the inner most step (3) is the manual creation of source code. Even though it's 5 different phases, it's just "3 layers" of programming.

   The problem as I see it is that I enjoy step 3. And LLMs are good at step 3 almost exclusively. So they just pick the best bit of this dish, and leave me with the rest.

   If you're an entrepreneurial type, the LLM appears to take the _worst_ bit of the work from you. Great.

   1. shiomiru · 1786005924 · focus · HN ↗

      There's also the economic problem that programmers had until recently been highly regarded because steps 2-3 were hard. "Open source" solved this partially by utilizing the labor such (relatively) well-paid people gave away "for the love of it", but it was not nearly enough to put most out of work.

      Now there is a plagiarism machine built on top of decades of this work that seemingly solves 3 and promises to solve 2 (badly, but usually this matters little), the programmers that (indirectly) helped build it are told they're fools for doing so, and threatened by losing their status if they don't adapt to the "entrepreneurial way" (well, the full promise is "you'll lose it anyway, but if you cooperate in stuffing sama's pockets then maybe you get to keep it a bit longer").

      So what really surprises me is not that people are upset but that so few are.

      1. pigpop · 1786011717 · focus · HN ↗

         Maybe I'm just old but people talking about being in programming for "status" or to be "highly regarded" really irks me. I'd rather see the entire field burnt to the ground and replaced by robots than to have it become a status profession like lawyering.

         1. bananaflag · 1786012531 · focus · HN ↗

            Could you elaborate?

            I think back in the 90s when I was a teenager I thought it to be a good thing that there is a rise in status for a class of people characterized by clear thinking.

            1. estimator7292 · 1786014005 · focus · HN ↗

               [dead]

            2. embedding-shape · 1786014012 · focus · HN ↗

               The older I get, the more I realize how many problems in society is because there are different "classes" of people. The more we can eschew that, the better it becomes for most people. While yes, I also see myself as having "clearer thinking" than many people , maybe because of the thousands of hours building and maintaining software, I'm not of the impression that my life deserves a higher status than others merely because of this. It's not "they think right and they think wrong", it's just "everyone thinks differently, but it's all valid thinking".

               1. elmer2 · 1786014725 · focus · HN ↗

                  We all should be in the same 'class', but some people will be paid more for a job that takes intelligence or years of study.

                  The older I get, I realize some people never change, will always have the same backwards or harmful thinking, and I avoid them instead of just accepting it.

                  1. embedding-shape · 1786015472 · focus · HN ↗

                     > some people will be paid more for a job that takes intelligence or years of study.

                     Sadly, it seems so, even if the effects of the jobs on daily life differ a great deal sometimes. The world would succumb faster if we had no garbage collectors, yet they get less pay than a programmer who the world could easily survive without? Makes no sense to me.

                     1. GTP · 1786019788 · focus · HN ↗

                        The basic services that keep us alive (e.g. farmers producing our food) tend to also be "easy" (it is physically demanding, but doesn't require years of study to start and you quickly learn by doing). This also means that the vast majority of people would be able to do this kind of jobs. Our economy pays more for scarcity, i.e. jobs that are in demand and at the same time require more qualification, so that the number of people needed in that position tends to be less than the current amount. Both views have sense, they just start from two different points.

                        1. Tanoc · 1786022329 · focus · HN ↗

                           From having worked with farmers, the actual logistics of running a farm are very complex. Farming's no longer an easy job because the demand for productivity means you have to harness a whole stable of technologies and understand to some degree advanced finances, floral biology, geotechnics, and meteorology. And yet farmers still get paid little relative to the breadth of knowledge and skills required for running a farm. It's just that farming is still considered a blue-collar job because it was the domain of the poorest for millenia, where as software engineering in any form is relatively new and thus specialized and so considered white-collar.

                           1. GTP · 1786024452 · focus · HN ↗

                              You're right, running now a farm that is profitable and can stay on the market is very different from doing so 200 years ago. But knowledge is just one aspect. The other aspect I mentioned is having less people in the field than what the market asks for. In the specific case of farmers, I think that modern farms are so much more efficient that we need way less than before, even if the world's population grew. So, while there's a gap between the knowledge required and the earnings, I think this can be explained by farms having a much greater output now, and so the market doesn't ask for more farms than what we have. This could be false at a global scale, but I think it is true at a country-level scale in most of the developed countries. Hence why farmers aren't paid much in those countries.

                              1. pigpop · 1786031052 · focus · HN ↗

                                 Farmers aren't really paid, they sell goods at market prices. Modern farms are more similar to operating a manufacturing business than they are to a salaried position or profession. They don't earn high incomes compared to white collar professions but they do have high revenues and they pay themselves a reasonable middle class income on average with some added benefits from owning large assets and land. The important part about comparing farmers to programmers is that they are both now operating in highly competitive markets with high automation where a single individual can leverage their knowledge and ability using that automation to produce many times more what a person could using only their own labor.

                                 1. win311fwg · 1786034098 · focus · HN ↗

                                    > Farmers aren't really paid, they sell goods at market prices.

                                    "Programmers aren't really paid, they sell services at market prices." — I guess nobody gets paid?

                                    As a farmer myself, when I give someone something I produced and they give me back something in return, I consider myself to be paid. If I did not receive much value in return for what I gave, I'd reasonably consider myself to have not been paid well. I have never met a farmer that would consider that usage unusual. Payment refers to a transaction within the realm of a human activity. The good or service that is being traded between humans is immaterial. While you are free to define words as you see fit, your assertion doesn't really reflect how this is actually used in practice, generally. The rest of the earlier comment makes it clear that the commenter understands how a farm business works.

                                    1. arzig · 1786040213 · focus · HN ↗

                                       What he means to say is that because you are a farmer you are a member of the capital holding classes rather than the lumpen proletariat.

                                       </sarcasm>

                                       1. win311fwg · 1786041799 · focus · HN ↗

                                          Most programmers are of the capital holding class too. At very least they will own a computer, which is all the capital you need for 99% of what programmers do. There are exceptions, but there are also exceptions in farming.

                                          1. inigyou · 1786050638 · focus · HN ↗

                                             The capital holding class isn't anyone who holds capital. It's anyone whose main function in society is based on holding capital. Think of a landlord.
                                    2. hunterpayne · 1786049267 · focus · HN ↗

                                       Did someone seriously just down-mod a farmer in a sub-discussion about running a farm?

                                       1. inigyou · 1786050602 · focus · HN ↗

                                          Did you seriously just appeal to authority yourself?
                        2. hunterpayne · 1786049018 · focus · HN ↗

                           "The basic services that keep us alive (e.g. farmers producing our food) tend to also be "easy""

                           The reason you think that is that you know nothing about agriculture. But it isn't true. Right now, farmers in the US grow about 5x as much food per acre as farmers in other countries. If you were in charge of farming in the US, that surplus would likely disappear in a single season. You would also likely damage the soil which would make cleaning up after you take 4-6 years.

                           Everyone thinks thing they know nothing about are easy. But they rarely are.

                           PS This is why I never tell people I'm a programmer. I don't want to be associated with people who think like you.

                     2. derektank · 1786023220 · focus · HN ↗

                        We would all die in a week if we went without water, yet water is cheaper per gallon than gasoline or printer ink or perfume. It’s a question of scarcity and supply curves. Water, even clean water, is not particularly scarce if you leverage industrial systems to purify it. Other products require much more complicated supply chains and are produced at a much smaller scale than water, which makes them more rarer and more expensive.

                        The skills necessary to develop efficient and effective software are much more scarce than those needed to remove trash, or pick crops, or provide elder care. That’s why the former is paid so much more.

                        1. hlynurd · 1786027132 · focus · HN ↗

                           You're explaining how things are but the parent is indicating that's not how things should be.

                           1. somenameforme · 1786036528 · focus · HN ↗

                              He's not describing how but why. And at a fundamental level it's something that can't be overcome. If you can only have 10 of one thing, yet can have 5000 of another, and both have even remotely comparable levels of demand/necessity/etc, then the 10 is always going to end up much more valued.

                              Even take some sort of idealized anarcho-communal society. Imagine two people have a dispute and threaten to leave over it. One's a highly skilled doctor, and the other's a garbage collector. Our equal society's going to suddenly become just as unequal as any other simply because the doctor leaving would have a much greater negative effect than the garbage collector. And that reality would permeate in the day-to-day happenings, creating classes even in an idealized classless society.

                              1. inigyou · 1786050535 · focus · HN ↗

                                 A society with no garbage collected will fall apart much more quickly than one without healthcare.
                     3. pluralmonad · 1786027544 · focus · HN ↗

                        Maybe no garbage collection is the back pressure missing from the voracious consumption machine.
               2. bananaflag · 1786017605 · focus · HN ↗

                  I thought it more in the sense of: if a clearer-thinking group has higher status, then clear thinking would be encouraged among the population.

                  (This did not happen that much, ofc.)

               3. vanviegen · 1786027563 · focus · HN ↗

                  > "everyone thinks differently, but it's all valid thinking"

                  I don't agree that all thoughts are created equal.

            3. 27183 · 1786020356 · focus · HN ↗

               I would not characterize software people as particularly "clear-thinking".. there's a huge buzzing cloud of unexamined cognitive biases and thoughtless herd behavior that swirls around every software organization I've worked for.

               1. win311fwg · 1786041689 · focus · HN ↗

                  I'd even go as far as to say that software people, as a group, are particularly bad at clear thinking. What software people tend to be great at is thinking within a space where the inputs are already clear. But where the inputs start messy, they typically struggle to find clarity more than most others.
         2. shiomiru · 1786014231 · focus · HN ↗

            I meant it as an euphemism for "it's universally sought after (i.e., you'll probably find a job)". Few would think being a programmer gives you some kind of special "social status"; it's always been a "nerd" hobby that happened to pay (relatively) well.

            (I guess by now you have a solid retirement plan; maybe if the field had been burnt to the ground while you were younger, you'd have had a different opinion.)

            1. ModernMech · 1786019368 · focus · HN ↗

               Being a good programmer gives you special social status amongst people who value programming. You only have to look at how people talk about others as slop coders and seek to expand their coding reputations. Those people are the most threatened by AI because of how it implicates their carefully crafted personas as coding gurus and keepers of knowledge.

               1. SoftTalker · 1786029366 · focus · HN ↗

                  It also gives you a special social status amongst people who do not understand programming: nobody wants to talk to you, at least not about your job.
         3. 0xpgm · 1786021473 · focus · HN ↗

            This. When programming meant you get just a decent enough salary and enjoyed your work, and could prioritize technical excellence it was fun. But once it became a ticket to millionaire status it attracted the kind and of people who would have otherwise gone to Law, Corporate Consulting and the like, technical excellence diluted. Everyone doing everything possible to get their next higher paying job leaving a trail of technical debt behind them.
         4. rayiner · 1786021949 · focus · HN ↗

            Having done both, lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words. Often very well paid tinkering, but that's true for programmers as well.

            1. pigpop · 1786030379 · focus · HN ↗

               I don't disagree. You can add medical doctors to the list as well, lots of nerds but also a lot of clout chasers and money-grubbers who couldn't care less about the profession. I don't want to see programming take the same path.

               1. ambicapter · 1786043530 · focus · HN ↗

                  It already has? Clout-chasers and money grubbers go for all the big tech jobs in droves.

                  1. hunterpayne · 1786048607 · focus · HN ↗

                     And its been that way for at least a decade.
            2. dctoedt · 1786044665 · focus · HN ↗

               > lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words

               Having also done both: Lawyers who like to tinker with words include contract drafters and litigation counsel, plus lobbyists trying to influence draft legislation and regulations. Such tinkering can fuck things up more often and at greater scale — e.g., by inflicting compulsory burdens and costs on others — than can most programmers.

               In legal drafting work, there's less systematic pre-release testing before the equivalent of a "program" is loosed upon the world. There's not much in the way of counterparts to software unit testing and regression testing, partly because legal-drafting clients prefer that their lawyers keep costs down.

               I'm not-infrequently dismayed by the quality of the contracts I review for clients because of the "tinkering with words" by the lawyers on the other side of the deal. Back when I did IP litigation, I was sometimes likewise dismayed by the bullshit arguments that some lawyers felt free to make in their court papers because what the hell, the worst that can happen is the judge says no. And as mostly a law professor these days, I review court opinions all the time and am regularly amazed how judges (and their law clerks, such as Rayiner used to be) can be so patient in responding to such arguments.

               1. rayiner · 1786047660 · focus · HN ↗

                  [delayed]
         5. doug_durham · 1786029844 · focus · HN ↗

            I could not agree more. Thank you for stating this. Software Engineering is about building things. You don't do it for status, you do it for passion. There are a lot of unhappy individuals who got into CS because of the money or status.
         6. kbelder · 1786035931 · focus · HN ↗

            Well put.

            We need to make lawyering more like programming, in the sense that it should be open to the everyman... not make programming credentialed and licensed like a professional guild.

         7. taude · 1786043604 · focus · HN ↗

            It doesn't irk me. But it's really funny how much the industry has changed, and I kind of think the 2008 financial crisis as that point in time.

            It's also funny to me to think that computer science got to be a trendy degree, vs the small programs back when I went to university, even at a top comp-sci school.

            I have a theory that a lot of people who would have normally gone to Wall Street for their lucrative jobs, couldn't, because of the crash, and Sillicon Vally was about to start booming in big ways....

         8. overgard · 1786045987 · focus · HN ↗

            I've never felt like it's a status profession (I don't think anybody has ever been impressed when I told them what my job was other than "oh sounds like it takes a lot of smarts")

            I do notice a lot of HN commenters seem to think that programmers are smug though, like we deserve to be knocked down a peg. I personally don't see it, but I also try not to work with jerks.

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