40 years of writing code. I didn't see the end coming

22 points by temilson 3 days ago | 22 comments

So I started programming when 'the cloud' was something about the weather and code was shipped on floppy disks. For over 4 decades I've loved writing every line of code.

But now, AI writes most of the code. The advantages of course are many, not the least of which is that I'm able to build and maintain multiple products at once.

But instead of coding, I've turned into a full time reviewer instead. Spending the day reading, questioning and correcting AI is tiring in it's own specific way.

Worst of all, I no longer enjoy the satisfaction of solving hard problems on my own anymore.

For those of you in the same boat, what's your feeling? Has AI given you back your time? Or has it taken something away that you loved?

GreenLightGo 37 minutes ago |

For me, it’s only a good thing, because at the end of the day, it’s still just a job. The things I really love are my hobbies.

stefanos82 3 days ago |

Professionally speaking, at least for me, it's not worth it anymore.

But personally? I won't stop using technology and I do my best to avoid AI as much as possible.

I like exercising my mind, to develop new ways of thinking and above all, cultivate critical thinking!

If there's no critical thinking, there's no creativity, no arts, no nothing!

ensocode 3 days ago | |

Using AI’s naivety can lead to surprisingly creative solutions as well. A bit like going down the rabbit hole with an autistic co-founder.

temilson 3 days ago | |

I'm with you on that ... critical thinking ... exercising our minds ... those are the things that could easily fly out the window if not careful. Great points.

austin-cheney 2 days ago |

Get over it. There is a lot AI cannot do. If you struggle with originality then perhaps your use to the world is over, otherwise continue investigating problems of interest and do things nobody else can.

In my case my passion is high performance in the JavaScript language space. I wrote my own WebSocket library and perf tool. A defect in the perf tool indicated that I could send 3.25m messages in 0.002 seconds if I separated each test of an experiment into a separate call stack. That number was confirmed as valid by Claud. Two weeks later I confirmed it was a defect and after fixing it my actual performance was only 100,000 messages per second. But, now I know the cause of the performance limitations impacting WebSockets. I modified how I manage multiple pending messages and my performance went up to 800,000 messages per second. I then discovered another similar performance hack and my performance went up to 6m messages per second on a single socket, or 5m round trip. So now I have something that is 1.5 orders of magnitude faster than everybody else or 4.5 orders of magnitude faster than http. AI doesn’t have that, I have it. What do you have? There is a lot AI cannot do.

codegeek 3 days ago |

For me, so far AI has been a net positive. It gave me back control of my small company in a way that I really needed to continue. I am going to continue to implement AI across our company to make things more efficient but with the right guardrails. As a previous programmer who was average at best, AI has given me wings. I don't care what others think but it is helping me take my company forward.

carloslfu 3 days ago | |

what does your company do?

grosswait 1 day ago |

Writing code and developing solutions is part of my job, but does not define my job, so I wouldn’t expect my feelings to translate, but AI has allowed me to punch above my weight, tackling and solving problems that weren’t feasible (for any number of reasons) for me before. It has absolutely been a force multiplier. Will there come a day where no one is willing to pay me to solve problems? Maybe. But I’ll just keep tackling harder problems that stretch me. Will that come to an end? Maybe? But I don’t think so - at least not in my lifetime.

svennek 3 days ago |

I think it has move the balance between two things that I love on top of increasing something I don't love that much.

I love(d) to figure out hard code and write it, but I also loved the creative process of searching the solution space and deciding (and optimizing) what to build.

I do not in general like to review code that much, which, granted, has grown.

But I feel that for me, all the former (figure out hard code and write it) has mostly split into the other two (in lack of better word) "solution design" and reviewing.

And also I feel that the endless supply of crappy yolo code for personal project is thrilling. Professionally I watch some code like a hawk and some is yolo, based on a concrete per "job" risk assessment.

And for context, I have administered unixy systems and written software for pay since 1999.

temilson 3 days ago | |

Well said. I have to agree with you ... I do love the creative process as well, and AI has made that much more exciting in many ways, giving ideas/mocks/etc.. that I probably never would have come up with.

scottmas 3 days ago |

Whether it was our career aspiration or not, we’ve turned into middle managers now

temilson 3 days ago | |

Yup. And it wasn't my aspiration. Lol.

p0d 2 days ago |

I am of your vintage and it occurs to me that programming may return as a hobby, which is how I started. Maybe it will fill the gap in the declining number of ham radio hobbyists, of which I am also one.

k310 3 days ago |

Look back at how interpreted languages sped the development cycle, and empowered home users to write working stuff in Basic and Hypercard. Professional work made a leap out of these, but sysadmin people relied on scripting languages to get things done, often in perl and friends.

While the new tools offer a "step up" as noted, turning developers into reviewers, and possibly empowering home users, I see some problems.

AI tends to reinvent the wheel at every turn, and whether I am a professional developer wanting reliable and thoroughly tested routines as building blocks, or the home user not wanting the fridge to launch a DDOS attack on government sites, this seems counter to good practice, and the verbosity makes review difficult, so you have to get your tools to review your tools.

And there's no learning. Our great skill is in confronting the unknown, and ma lose this when everything is a button-push (or prompt) away.

I chug away at piano, rather than letting the MIDI play stuff.

KABRAPRATIK28 1 day ago |

I believe it's a shift from solving problems to finding problems.

maxnyriev 3 days ago |

Started as engineer, converted to manager, and now I'm back to engineer. AI brought me some joy back of "engineering". I feel it is way more easier now to scale yourself, essentially everyone acts a manager now.

platevoltage 3 days ago |

I made a similar post a little bit ago. I've already held the funeral.

benoau 3 days ago |

I think this is just a transient phase and soon enough we'll miss this too.

vinyl7 3 days ago |

Use AI slop at work, handcraft software as a hobby. Funny how capitalism optimizes for crap.

moomoo11 2 days ago | |

so why did you work at a company as a employee or contractor? never understood these kinds of takes..

you should be thankful someone figured out how to capitalize your labor because you certainly were unable to do it on your own.

surely, you can show us how it is done?

platevoltage 3 days ago | |

Yeah that's kind of where I am too. I'm trying to take solace in the fact that I have more time to build weird gadgets with no commercial value.

grosswait 1 day ago | |

It optimizes for value. Art optimizes for quality. Capitalism can also produce surplus, which can purchase art. Yes, I lament the decline in quality of a great many things. I celebrate the new availability and attainability of things previously exotic