The backlash against agentic coding comes from the split that has already existed among professional software engineers. The ones who are most resistant to it are the ones for whom it has been "just a job", but the ones who love it are the ones who love solving problems. It's now possible for a small team (one person, a few) to solve truly daunting software problems with the help of agentic methods. If you were a 9 to 5er who valued craft but didn't dream about solving problems, AI is a buzz kill.
> The ones who are most resistant to it are the ones for whom it has been "just a job", but the ones who love it are the ones who love solving problems.
Wow, what a simplistic, uncalled for view of the world. This is just so ignorantly and offensively incorrect.
I really don't think anybody in these "debates", on either side, has a high horse to ride with respect to rhetoric and solemnity.
This in particular is a really silly hill to die on, because literally every debate about software development, from AI to language choice to tabs vs. spaces, eventually settles into a gravity well of asserting that all the good developers agree with your take.
> This in particular is a really silly hill to die on,
Stating that people can't love software development or solving problems because they are resistant to AI taking over their entire job is a silly hill to die on?
I really enjoy what I do, and have done, for the past 20 years. When I first wrote code I literally thought I discovered magic. In many ways, AI has re-triggered some of those feelings!
I also really care about building quality software for our customers.
And it infuriates me to no end when I see huge amounts of objectively incorrect code being written by AI, and the developer behind it stating they have no idea what it's doing, or when people say they can't solve a problem because they are out of AI tokens, etc.
But supposedly these are the people who care about solving problems? Not just that - they are the only people who care about solving problems.
You can choose to take offense if you want, but since I've seen literally the same sentiment expressed about whether people choose Emacs or vi, I have a very hard time taking that offense seriously.
There is nothing wrong with practicing craft, but when craft starts to matter more than vision/ambition (as it has for many engineers, even very good ones) there is going to be resistance to any method that de-emphasizes craft and emphasizes vision.
Even things like Ruby on Rails and node.js (in their early days) irritated some software crafspeople for the same reason, the tools felt like the happy path was somehow a mediocre one that was willfully ignorant of craft.
Suddenly, agentic coding has seemed to remove much of the craft from software engineering, and those who have been showing up every day celebrating craft are feeling it like a gut punch.
This is illusory bc craft still matters -- rust is a superb example of how craft matters more than ever in an agentic world, fwiw.
No, this isn’t what you said. You said that those resistant only view this as a job and don’t love solving problems - this is a completely ridiculous opinion/propaganda.
The world isn’t so black and white. It’s possible to be excited about what AI can help accelerate and simultaneously be resistant to the idea that 100% of software engineering (from premise -> shipped and maintained) can and should be offloaded purely to AI. And more importantly, AI reminds me a lot of leverage - it amplifies the good, but possibly more importantly it really amplifies the bad.
Software engineering is much more than just writing code.
Oh yeah let’s play this game. The ones resistant care about their work and pour long hours getting the details just right. The ones who love it are the ones who just want to close tickets. It’s now possible for a small team (one person, a few) to create an avalanche of slop with the help of agentic methods. If you were a 9 to 5er who valued sprint velocity but never once pondered how a monad is like a burrito back in the day, AI is the All-Mother
Im one of the more mid to resistant folks and this has never been just a job to me. I did take immense satisfaction from learning, deeply understanding how things work and the consist and repeatable behavior, which is just not there with ai. Especially the consist/repeatable behavior, which to me computers that behave inconsistently aren't nearly as worthwhile.
In my opinion, you’ve got the situation backwards. The people who see it as “just a job” are the ones who like AI because they just want to get the work done and get paid. The people who genuinely enjoy solving problems, on the other hand, don’t like AI because it takes away the problem-solving part of the job.
It's a shame you package your speculation inside an insult 'cause the "problem solver" as LLM booster isn't entirely wrong and aren't entirely bad.
A LLM seems like a powerful but dangerous tool. It's dangerous even in problem solving terms since one day can output something that advances your project significantly and the next day is can output vacuous verbiage that seems like a solution but is nothing.
They deserve a critical view but they make it hard to maintain that critical view.
see my clarification: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49942421">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49942421
resters · · focus · HN ↗
dbalatero · · focus · HN ↗
ar_lan · · focus · HN ↗
Wow, what a simplistic, uncalled for view of the world. This is just so ignorantly and offensively incorrect.
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
This in particular is a really silly hill to die on, because literally every debate about software development, from AI to language choice to tabs vs. spaces, eventually settles into a gravity well of asserting that all the good developers agree with your take.
ar_lan · · focus · HN ↗
Stating that people can't love software development or solving problems because they are resistant to AI taking over their entire job is a silly hill to die on?
I really enjoy what I do, and have done, for the past 20 years. When I first wrote code I literally thought I discovered magic. In many ways, AI has re-triggered some of those feelings!
I also really care about building quality software for our customers.
And it infuriates me to no end when I see huge amounts of objectively incorrect code being written by AI, and the developer behind it stating they have no idea what it's doing, or when people say they can't solve a problem because they are out of AI tokens, etc.
But supposedly these are the people who care about solving problems? Not just that - they are the only people who care about solving problems.
---
Yeah, it's offensive.
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
baron3dl · · focus · HN ↗
ar_lan · · focus · HN ↗
Empathy can be a tough skill to learn, but I think it’s worth it!
resters · · focus · HN ↗
There is nothing wrong with practicing craft, but when craft starts to matter more than vision/ambition (as it has for many engineers, even very good ones) there is going to be resistance to any method that de-emphasizes craft and emphasizes vision.
Even things like Ruby on Rails and node.js (in their early days) irritated some software crafspeople for the same reason, the tools felt like the happy path was somehow a mediocre one that was willfully ignorant of craft.
Suddenly, agentic coding has seemed to remove much of the craft from software engineering, and those who have been showing up every day celebrating craft are feeling it like a gut punch.
This is illusory bc craft still matters -- rust is a superb example of how craft matters more than ever in an agentic world, fwiw.
ar_lan · · focus · HN ↗
The world isn’t so black and white. It’s possible to be excited about what AI can help accelerate and simultaneously be resistant to the idea that 100% of software engineering (from premise -> shipped and maintained) can and should be offloaded purely to AI. And more importantly, AI reminds me a lot of leverage - it amplifies the good, but possibly more importantly it really amplifies the bad.
Software engineering is much more than just writing code.
wonnage · · focus · HN ↗
walt_grata · · focus · HN ↗
lirolero · · focus · HN ↗
joe_the_user · · focus · HN ↗
A LLM seems like a powerful but dangerous tool. It's dangerous even in problem solving terms since one day can output something that advances your project significantly and the next day is can output vacuous verbiage that seems like a solution but is nothing.
They deserve a critical view but they make it hard to maintain that critical view.
resters · · focus · HN ↗