> "But it booted straight into BASIC. That’s all it did. I was, like, 8 years old. I wasn’t about to learn BASIC. What I learned instead: computers were not as awesome as I’d imagined."
You were the exception. Most kids felt awe. We started learning BASIC and creating "dumb games". That's the origin story of most people my age who ended up in this doomed industry.
There's nothing to be excited for. Even if AI works as well as people say (and to be clear: it very much doesn't), that future sucks ass. No more fun making things, no fun solving problems, just hand it off to the machine that does things for you. That's an awful future where every shred of joy is gone from computing.
It might genuinely suck for you. It's amazing for people who couldn't build anything before, but now can. And there's more of them than you.
If I tell you to build me a house and you do so, I have not built the house.
I can give you requirements, give you feedback during the process, and otherwise contribute to the design, but at the end of the day I did not build the house.
I have no idea what this analogy is meant to communicate. If you're trying to suggest that software construction is only intentional or attributable if you write source code by hand, I'll just come back and say you haven't legitimately build anything unless you hex-edited it in machine code.
It's meant to communicate that building is something that requires effort on the part of the builder.
I don't write assembly, but I still had to learn how to code. I had to practice and put in the effort to develop it as a skill. Then, when I write something, I have to put in the effort to do it.
Of course, building things with AI generally takes varying levels of domain knowledge and guiding for now, but if we're talking about ordinary users making their own software, the implication is that in some cases existing skill won't be necessary, if not now then eventually.
At that point it would be truly effortless, and I don't think that you can rightfully say you built something if it required zero effort on your part.
It is not good to make things ordinary people use hard just for the sake of making it hard, or even in the pursuit of a perceived quality threshold if that threshold is beyond what the users will perceive. The cart is extremely dragging the horse in our field.
Is it? I mean I can always run to home depot and cobble something together based on books, youtube, and AI guidance, but I know when I need a professional.
I don't think any trade was ever harmed by the existence of hardware stores. Much the same, AI is not harming dev work. It's filling gaps where no product could exist before.
Big tech does not like DIY unless they control it and that's the actual story, not attacking devs and telling them they're obsolete. Why do you insist on avoiding that story and coming back here to argue with devs?
meredithbloom · · focus · HN ↗
You were the exception. Most kids felt awe. We started learning BASIC and creating "dumb games". That's the origin story of most people my age who ended up in this doomed industry.
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
echelon · · focus · HN ↗
Adopters feel the future is brighter than ever.
Article author is excited. I am too.
bigstrat2003 · · focus · HN ↗
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
ejj28 · · focus · HN ↗
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
ejj28 · · focus · HN ↗
I can give you requirements, give you feedback during the process, and otherwise contribute to the design, but at the end of the day I did not build the house.
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
ejj28 · · focus · HN ↗
I don't write assembly, but I still had to learn how to code. I had to practice and put in the effort to develop it as a skill. Then, when I write something, I have to put in the effort to do it.
Of course, building things with AI generally takes varying levels of domain knowledge and guiding for now, but if we're talking about ordinary users making their own software, the implication is that in some cases existing skill won't be necessary, if not now then eventually.
At that point it would be truly effortless, and I don't think that you can rightfully say you built something if it required zero effort on your part.
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
sublinear · · focus · HN ↗
I don't think any trade was ever harmed by the existence of hardware stores. Much the same, AI is not harming dev work. It's filling gaps where no product could exist before.
Big tech does not like DIY unless they control it and that's the actual story, not attacking devs and telling them they're obsolete. Why do you insist on avoiding that story and coming back here to argue with devs?