This seems to be a fairly common opinion, as does the opinion that this sits as a counterpoint to.
There has been a divergence that is quite stark. I have seen it argued that this is a reflection of ability, and that as a skill multiplier those lacking in skill are feeling left behind. I'm not certain that this is accurate. I definitely see people who have made things that impressed me in the past have been more likely to embrace AI. It may just be a measure of a type of personality.
I have noticed that people who have a strong sense of possessiveness over what they create are more resistant, but those who create in order to have the world contain the thing they are making are happy to have anything that will enable them to contribute to the world.
I think the biggest differentiator is simply that there are people for whom the act of typing the code into the editor was the part they enjoyed, and LLMs have basically killed that, by making it woefully inefficient by comparison.
> I think the biggest differentiator is simply that there are people for whom the act of typing the code into the editor was the part they enjoyed, and LLMs have basically killed that, by making it woefully inefficient by comparison.
This is a very uncharitable take; I see it mostly from devs who are all-in on AI (not saying you are one), not from devs who just use AI while programming. Basically, I see it from devs who want to never touch a keyboard again.
Maybe they never liked programming in the first place, but liked managing instead, so now they can manage instead of programming.
Maybe they never liked programming, but they did like delivering; now they can work as a product manager, delivering only.
Whatever the reason, they never really liked programming[1]. My experience in programming, since the mid-90s, is that my design is refined as I type out the programs. I gain insight into the problem as I create the program. My thoughts are refined as I read what I type (and not just with programs, with prose as well).
Possibly the all-in devs never read what they typed anyway, so the act of programming never caused them to refine their ideas. Maybe they never read what they typed as they typed it in. Maybe they did, but it never triggered introspection.
Whatever the case is, it's a very uncharitable take to trivialise those engaging in more thought, due to actually writing, as simply enjoying the act of typing.
They are not. They are enjoying the iterative process of deep thinking.
TBH, maybe this is why so many of the all-in AI vibers are trying to trivialise the typing part - if they can convince themselves that typing is so trivial and bereft of thought, then they don't have to admit to themselves that they are thinking less, and the thinking they do do, is not as deep.
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[1] All advances in programming, such as in data structures, algorithms, languages, theory, etc came mostly from people who liked programming. As these people can not hone their skills by working at it for money in the future, who knows if we ever get any more advances.
I definitely agree with you about this for certain problems but I think for a large number of people, they are just using an ORM to bind to a form to later save back with some validation. There is not much deep thinking they need to do other than which columns to index.
> I definitely agree with you about this for certain problems but I think for a large number of people, they are just using an ORM to bind to a form to later save back with some validation. There is not much deep thinking they need to do other than which columns to index.
I dunno; unless it's an extremely trivial case (single table, no joins), they are still thinking about this: does this new form make sense as a standalone form? Does the functionality overlap with a current form (and if so, should we rather refactor the workflow than add a new step), etc.
There's also nitty-gritty stuff: should I make this a common function callable by other form-generating code, or keep it as a single-caller function?
More often, when writing code you often get a good sense of what is currently broken in the design. In greenfield, you can just go ahead and modify the design. In brownfield you are going to try to minimise the modifications in design as much as possible. This is still thought.
Lerc · · focus · HN ↗
There has been a divergence that is quite stark. I have seen it argued that this is a reflection of ability, and that as a skill multiplier those lacking in skill are feeling left behind. I'm not certain that this is accurate. I definitely see people who have made things that impressed me in the past have been more likely to embrace AI. It may just be a measure of a type of personality.
I have noticed that people who have a strong sense of possessiveness over what they create are more resistant, but those who create in order to have the world contain the thing they are making are happy to have anything that will enable them to contribute to the world.
stackghost · · focus · HN ↗
lelanthran · · focus · HN ↗
This is a very uncharitable take; I see it mostly from devs who are all-in on AI (not saying you are one), not from devs who just use AI while programming. Basically, I see it from devs who want to never touch a keyboard again.
Maybe they never liked programming in the first place, but liked managing instead, so now they can manage instead of programming.
Maybe they never liked programming, but they did like delivering; now they can work as a product manager, delivering only.
Whatever the reason, they never really liked programming[1]. My experience in programming, since the mid-90s, is that my design is refined as I type out the programs. I gain insight into the problem as I create the program. My thoughts are refined as I read what I type (and not just with programs, with prose as well).
Possibly the all-in devs never read what they typed anyway, so the act of programming never caused them to refine their ideas. Maybe they never read what they typed as they typed it in. Maybe they did, but it never triggered introspection.
Whatever the case is, it's a very uncharitable take to trivialise those engaging in more thought, due to actually writing, as simply enjoying the act of typing.
They are not. They are enjoying the iterative process of deep thinking.
TBH, maybe this is why so many of the all-in AI vibers are trying to trivialise the typing part - if they can convince themselves that typing is so trivial and bereft of thought, then they don't have to admit to themselves that they are thinking less, and the thinking they do do, is not as deep.
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[1] All advances in programming, such as in data structures, algorithms, languages, theory, etc came mostly from people who liked programming. As these people can not hone their skills by working at it for money in the future, who knows if we ever get any more advances.
asp_hornet · · focus · HN ↗
lelanthran · · focus · HN ↗
I dunno; unless it's an extremely trivial case (single table, no joins), they are still thinking about this: does this new form make sense as a standalone form? Does the functionality overlap with a current form (and if so, should we rather refactor the workflow than add a new step), etc.
There's also nitty-gritty stuff: should I make this a common function callable by other form-generating code, or keep it as a single-caller function?
More often, when writing code you often get a good sense of what is currently broken in the design. In greenfield, you can just go ahead and modify the design. In brownfield you are going to try to minimise the modifications in design as much as possible. This is still thought.
asp_hornet · · focus · HN ↗