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> Also, I've personally seen more interest in AI in devs that have little interest in technology, but a big interest in delivering. PMs love them though. Bingo

> Also, I've personally seen more interest in AI in devs that have little interest in technology, but a big interest in delivering. PMs love them though. Bingo, this, so much this. Every dev i know who loves AI stuff was a dev that I had very little technical respect for pre AI. They got some stuff done but there was no craft or quality to it.

chasd00 2y ago
i'm certainly skeptical of genai but your argument sounds very familiar to assembler dev feelings towards c++ devs back in the day.
- acedTrex 2y ago
  I am not necessarily arguing against GenAI. I am sure it will have somewhat similar effects to how the explosion in popularity of garbage collected languages et al had on software back in the 90s. More stuff will get done, the barrier of entry will be lower etc. The craft of programming took a significant quality/care hit when it transitioned from "only people who care enough to learn the ins and outs of memory management can feasibly do this" to "now anyone with a technical brain and a business use case can do it". Which makes sense, the code was no longer the point. The C++ devs rightly felt superior to the new java devs in the narrow niche of "ability to craft code." But that feeling doesn't move the needle business wise in the vast majority of circumstances. Which is always the schism between large technology leaps. Basically, the argument of "its worse" is not WRONG. Just, the same as it did not really matter in the mid 90s. Does not matter as much now, compared to the ability to "just get something that kinda works."
wahnfrieden 2y ago
You're playing status games
- acedTrex 2y ago
  I mean... in a way yes. The status of being someone who cares about the craft of programming. In the scheme of things however, that status hardly matters compared to the "ability to get something shipped quickly" which is what the vast majority of people are paid to do. So while I might judge those people for not meeting my personal standards or bar. In many cases that does not actually matter. They got something out there, thats all that matters.
Delk 2y ago
For what it's worth, a (former) team mate who was one of the more enthusiastic adopters of gen AI at the time was in fact a pretty good developer who knew his stuff and wrote good code. He was also big on delivering and productivity. In terms of directly generating technical content, I think he mostly used gen AI for more mechanical stuff such as drafting data schemas or class structures, or for converting this or that to JSON, and perhaps not so much for generating actual program code. Maybe there's a difference to someone who likes to have lots of program logic generated.
- acedTrex 2y ago
  I have certainly used it for different mechanical things. I have copilot, pay for gpt4o etc. I do think there is a difference between a skilled engineer using it for the mechanical things, and an engineer that OFFLOADS thinking/designing to it. Theres nuance everywhere, but my original comment was definitely implying the people that attempt to lean on it very hard for their core work.
  - trashtester 2y ago
    Those bad engineers who offload critical thinking to copilot will be the first to leave....
simonw 2y ago
I’m a developer who loves using AI, and I’m confident that I was a capable developer producing high quality code long before I started using AI tools.
- mistrial9 2y ago
  ok but you are not the sort that most of these comments are talking about.. Wasn't your demo at PyCon making jaws drop among hard core techies ?
  - williamcotton 2y ago
    Generalizing the talent and enthusiasm of your peers based on the tools they enjoy to use is going to cause friction.
    - mistrial9 2y ago
      this is fun but also sort of startling to see https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/writing-web-applications-with-llms https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/writing-web-applicati... .. the exact same content for a screensaver with Todd Rundgren in 1987 on the then-new color Apple Macintosh II in Sausalito, California. A different screensaver called "Flow Fazer" was more popular and sold many copies. The rival at the time was "After Dark" .. whose founder had a PhD in physics from UC Berkeley but also turned out to be independently wealthy, and then one of the wealthiest men in the Bay Area after the dot-com boom.
      - williamcotton 2y ago
        Wouldn’t you know it, there’s a Flowfazer screensaver app for iOS! $0.99! Thanks for reading my post. It’s nice to know I’m not writing to a complete void!
- ben_w 2y ago
  If it were not for all the things in your profile, I would aver that the only devs I know that think otherwise of their coding abilities were students at the time.
Workaccount2 2y ago
SWE has a huge draw because frankly it's not that hard to learn programming, and the bar to clear in order to land a $100-120k work-from-home salary is pretty low. I know more than a few people who career hopped into software engineering after a lackluster non-tech career (that they paid through the nose to get a degree in, but were still making $70k after 5 years). By and large these people seem to just not be "into it", and like you said are more about delivering than actually making good products/services. However, it does look like LLM's are racing to make these junior devs unnecessary.
- trashtester 2y ago
  > However, it does look like LLM's are racing to make these junior devs unnecessary. The main utility of "junior devs" (regardless of age) is that they can serve as an interface to non-technical business "users". Give them the right tools, and their value will be similar to good business controllers or similar in the org. A salary of $100-$150k is really low for someone who is really a competent developer. It's kept down by those "junior devs" (of all ages) that apply for the same jobs. Both kinds of developers will be required until companies use AI in most of those roles, including the controllers, the developers and the business side.
trashtester 2y ago
> was a dev that I had very little technical respect for pre AI There are two interpretations of this: 1) Those people are imposters 2) It's about you, not them I've been personally interested in AI since the early 80's, neural nets since the 90's, and vigilant about "AI" since Alexnet. I've also been in a tech lead role for the past ~25 years. If someone is talking about newer "AI" models in a nonsensical way, I cringe.

chasd00 2y ago

i'm certainly skeptical of genai but your argument sounds very familiar to assembler dev feelings towards c++ devs back in the day.

acedTrex 2y ago
I am not necessarily arguing against GenAI. I am sure it will have somewhat similar effects to how the explosion in popularity of garbage collected languages et al had on software back in the 90s. More stuff will get done, the barrier of entry will be lower etc. The craft of programming took a significant quality/care hit when it transitioned from "only people who care enough to learn the ins and outs of memory management can feasibly do this" to "now anyone with a technical brain and a business use case can do it". Which makes sense, the code was no longer the point. The C++ devs rightly felt superior to the new java devs in the narrow niche of "ability to craft code." But that feeling doesn't move the needle business wise in the vast majority of circumstances. Which is always the schism between large technology leaps. Basically, the argument of "its worse" is not WRONG. Just, the same as it did not really matter in the mid 90s. Does not matter as much now, compared to the ability to "just get something that kinda works."

wahnfrieden 2y ago

You're playing status games

acedTrex 2y ago
I mean... in a way yes. The status of being someone who cares about the craft of programming. In the scheme of things however, that status hardly matters compared to the "ability to get something shipped quickly" which is what the vast majority of people are paid to do. So while I might judge those people for not meeting my personal standards or bar. In many cases that does not actually matter. They got something out there, thats all that matters.

Delk 2y ago

For what it's worth, a (former) team mate who was one of the more enthusiastic adopters of gen AI at the time was in fact a pretty good developer who knew his stuff and wrote good code. He was also big on delivering and productivity. In terms of directly generating technical content, I think he mostly used gen AI for more mechanical stuff such as drafting data schemas or class structures, or for converting this or that to JSON, and perhaps not so much for generating actual program code. Maybe there's a difference to someone who likes to have lots of program logic generated.

acedTrex 2y ago
I have certainly used it for different mechanical things. I have copilot, pay for gpt4o etc. I do think there is a difference between a skilled engineer using it for the mechanical things, and an engineer that OFFLOADS thinking/designing to it. Theres nuance everywhere, but my original comment was definitely implying the people that attempt to lean on it very hard for their core work.
- trashtester 2y ago
  Those bad engineers who offload critical thinking to copilot will be the first to leave....

simonw 2y ago

I’m a developer who loves using AI, and I’m confident that I was a capable developer producing high quality code long before I started using AI tools.

mistrial9 2y ago
ok but you are not the sort that most of these comments are talking about.. Wasn't your demo at PyCon making jaws drop among hard core techies ?
- williamcotton 2y ago
  Generalizing the talent and enthusiasm of your peers based on the tools they enjoy to use is going to cause friction.
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    this is fun but also sort of startling to see https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/writing-web-applications-with-llms https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/writing-web-applicati... .. the exact same content for a screensaver with Todd Rundgren in 1987 on the then-new color Apple Macintosh II in Sausalito, California. A different screensaver called "Flow Fazer" was more popular and sold many copies. The rival at the time was "After Dark" .. whose founder had a PhD in physics from UC Berkeley but also turned out to be independently wealthy, and then one of the wealthiest men in the Bay Area after the dot-com boom.
    - williamcotton 2y ago
      Wouldn’t you know it, there’s a Flowfazer screensaver app for iOS! $0.99! Thanks for reading my post. It’s nice to know I’m not writing to a complete void!
ben_w 2y ago
If it were not for all the things in your profile, I would aver that the only devs I know that think otherwise of their coding abilities were students at the time.

Workaccount2 2y ago

SWE has a huge draw because frankly it's not that hard to learn programming, and the bar to clear in order to land a $100-120k work-from-home salary is pretty low. I know more than a few people who career hopped into software engineering after a lackluster non-tech career (that they paid through the nose to get a degree in, but were still making $70k after 5 years). By and large these people seem to just not be "into it", and like you said are more about delivering than actually making good products/services. However, it does look like LLM's are racing to make these junior devs unnecessary.

trashtester 2y ago
> However, it does look like LLM's are racing to make these junior devs unnecessary. The main utility of "junior devs" (regardless of age) is that they can serve as an interface to non-technical business "users". Give them the right tools, and their value will be similar to good business controllers or similar in the org. A salary of $100-$150k is really low for someone who is really a competent developer. It's kept down by those "junior devs" (of all ages) that apply for the same jobs. Both kinds of developers will be required until companies use AI in most of those roles, including the controllers, the developers and the business side.

trashtester 2y ago

> was a dev that I had very little technical respect for pre AI There are two interpretations of this: 1) Those people are imposters 2) It's about you, not them I've been personally interested in AI since the early 80's, neural nets since the 90's, and vigilant about "AI" since Alexnet. I've also been in a tech lead role for the past ~25 years. If someone is talking about newer "AI" models in a nonsensical way, I cringe.