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If this was a website for artists instead of programmers you'd see the exact opposite pattern. Unfortunately, people only seem to care when it threatens their o

by bakugo 4y ago

If this was a website for artists instead of programmers you'd see the exact opposite pattern. Unfortunately, people only seem to care when it threatens their own livelihood, not when it threatens that of the people around them.

egypturnash 4y ago
The average HN denizen gets so pissed off when I ask them to save their comment rejoicing in the inevitability of the elimination of my entire field, and take it out when next year's descendant of CodePilot gives them the same horrible sinking feeling that these things give me.
- tombert 4y ago
  If Copilot can replace my job, I think that job should be replaced by copilot. I don't think that saving jobs should be a reason to not hinder progress. I hope that what I contribute to my company is more than whatever future version of Copilot can create, but if not I will try and find another career. Will I be sad if I lose my job to AI/ML? Yeah, probably, but at some fundamental level that's why I've always tried to keep myself up to date with stuff that's harder to automate.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hot_gril 4y ago
I don't care either way. If an AI can do your programmer job, it means you aren't using your brain enough. An AI can probably do half of my day job because it's stupidly repetitive. Leadership imposes old ways, and they dismiss anything "new" (i.e. newer than 2005). For example, writing all these high-level data pipelines and even web backends in C++ despite having no special performance need for it. Even though I'm not literally copy-pasting code, I'm copy-pasting something in my mind only a little higher-level than that, then relying on some procedural and muscle memory to pump it out. It's a skill that anyone can learn, just takes time. If I didn't have side projects, I'd forget what it's like to think about my code. Some old-school programmers complain about kids with high-level languages doing their job more efficiently, so they work on lower-level stuff instead. It's been that way for decades. Now AI is knocking on that door. But before AI, C was the high-level thing, and we got compiler optimizations obviating much of the need for asm expertise, undoubtedly pissing off some who really invested in that skillset. If I'm working on something needing the performance guarantees of C or Asm, and the computer can assist me, I'm all for it. Please take this repetitive job so I can use my brain instead. And the copyright thing is just an excuse. Programmers usually don't give a darn about copyright other than being legally obligated to comply with it. So much of programming is copy-paste. GPL had its day, and it makes less and less sense as services take over. GPL locks small-time devs out of including the code in a for-profit project but does nothing to stop big corps from using it in a SaaS. The biggest irony is how Microsoft not only uses GPL'd code for profit but also ships WSL, all legally.

by bakugo 4y ago

egypturnash 4y ago

The average HN denizen gets so pissed off when I ask them to save their comment rejoicing in the inevitability of the elimination of my entire field, and take it out when next year's descendant of CodePilot gives them the same horrible sinking feeling that these things give me.

tombert 4y ago
If Copilot can replace my job, I think that job should be replaced by copilot. I don't think that saving jobs should be a reason to not hinder progress. I hope that what I contribute to my company is more than whatever future version of Copilot can create, but if not I will try and find another career. Will I be sad if I lose my job to AI/ML? Yeah, probably, but at some fundamental level that's why I've always tried to keep myself up to date with stuff that's harder to automate.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hot_gril 4y ago

I don't care either way. If an AI can do your programmer job, it means you aren't using your brain enough. An AI can probably do half of my day job because it's stupidly repetitive. Leadership imposes old ways, and they dismiss anything "new" (i.e. newer than 2005). For example, writing all these high-level data pipelines and even web backends in C++ despite having no special performance need for it. Even though I'm not literally copy-pasting code, I'm copy-pasting something in my mind only a little higher-level than that, then relying on some procedural and muscle memory to pump it out. It's a skill that anyone can learn, just takes time. If I didn't have side projects, I'd forget what it's like to think about my code. Some old-school programmers complain about kids with high-level languages doing their job more efficiently, so they work on lower-level stuff instead. It's been that way for decades. Now AI is knocking on that door. But before AI, C was the high-level thing, and we got compiler optimizations obviating much of the need for asm expertise, undoubtedly pissing off some who really invested in that skillset. If I'm working on something needing the performance guarantees of C or Asm, and the computer can assist me, I'm all for it. Please take this repetitive job so I can use my brain instead. And the copyright thing is just an excuse. Programmers usually don't give a darn about copyright other than being legally obligated to comply with it. So much of programming is copy-paste. GPL had its day, and it makes less and less sense as services take over. GPL locks small-time devs out of including the code in a for-profit project but does nothing to stop big corps from using it in a SaaS. The biggest irony is how Microsoft not only uses GPL'd code for profit but also ships WSL, all legally.