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I was learning a new cloud framework for a side project recently and wanted to ask my dad about it since it's the exact same framework he's used for his job for

I was learning a new cloud framework for a side project recently and wanted to ask my dad about it since it's the exact same framework he's used for his job for many years, so he'd know all sorts of things about it. I was expecting him to give me a few ideas or have a chat about a mutual interest since this wasn't for income or anything. Instead all he said was "DeepSeek's pretty good, have you tried it yet?" So I just went to DeepSeek instead and finished like 25% of my project in a day. It was the first time in my whole life that programming was not fun at all. I was just accomplishing work - for a side project at that. And it seems the LLMs are already more interested in talking to me about code than my dad who's a staff engineer. I am going to use the time saved to practice an instrument and abandon the "programming as a hobby" thing unless there's a specific app I have a need for.

xemdetia 1y ago
I find this to be an interesting anecdote because at a certain level for a long time the most helpful advice you could give is what would be the best reference for the problem at hand which might have been a book or website or wiki or Google for stack overflow and now a particular AI model might be the most efficient way to give someone a 'good reference.' I could certainly see someone recommending a model the same way they may have recommended a book or tutorial. On point of discussing code.. a lot of cloud frameworks are boring but good. It usually isn't the interesting bit and it is a relatively recent quirk that everyone seems to care more about the framework compared to the thing you actually wanted to achieve. It's not a fun algorithm optimization, it's not a fun object modeling exercise, it's not some nichey math thing of note or whatever got them into coding in the first place. While I can't speak for your father I haven't met a programmer who doesn't get excited to talk about at least one coding topic this cloud framework just might not have been it.
- lelanthran 1y ago
  > It usually isn't the interesting bit and it is a relatively recent quirk that everyone seems to care more about the framework compared to the thing you actually wanted to achieve. It's not a fun algorithm optimization, it's not a fun object modeling exercise, it's not some nichey math thing of note or whatever got them into coding in the first place. I only read your comment after I posted mine, but my take is basically the same as yours: the GP thinks the IT learning-treadmill is fun and his dad doesn't. It's not hard to see the real problem here.
lelanthran 1y ago
> It was the first time in my whole life that programming was not fun at all. And learning new technologies in pursuit of resume-driven-development is fun? I gotta say, if learning the intricacies of $LATEST_FAD is "fun" for you, then you're not really going to have a good time, employment-wise, in the age of AI. If learning algorithms and data structures and their applicability in production is fun, then the age of AI is going to leave you with very in-demand skills.
- doright 1y ago
  > And learning new technologies in pursuit of resume-driven-development is fun? Nothing to do with employment. I was just doing a "home-cooked app"[0] thing for fun that served a personal usecase. Putting it on my resume would be a nice-to-have to prove I'm still sharpening my skills, but it isn't the reason I was developing the app to begin with. What I think at least is the administration and fault monitoring of lots of random machines and connected infrastructure in the cloud might be left somewhat untouched by AI for now, but if it's just about slinging some code to have an end product, LLMs are probably going to overtake that hobby in a few years (if anyone has such a weird hobby they'd want to write a bunch of code because it's fun and not to show to employers). [0] https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/
  - ghaff 1y ago
    Tons of AIOps stuff related to observability, monitoring, and remediation going on. In fact, I found that one the big topics at Kubecon in London.
  - gyesxnuibh 1y ago
    I'm not sure that's necessarily true. People still do embroidering even though there's crazy embroidery machines (though the cost barrier there is probably related). Maybe LLMs will be too cost prohibitive in the future (once we start paying the real total cost of LLMs). You're right that a lot less people will be writing code like a lot less people are sewing these days but people still do it for fun. P.S.: I really enjoyed reading moonbound :)
AlwaysRock 1y ago
I'm of two minds about this. I get more done with LLMs. I find the work I do assisted by LLM less satisfying. I'm not sure if I actually enjoyed the work before, or if I just enjoyed accomplishing things. And now that I'm off loading a lot of the work, I'm also off loading a lot of the feeling of accomplishment.
- gyesxnuibh 1y ago
  Accomplishing things for me feels a lot like solving a good puzzle. Like a crossword. I tried using an LLM to help with a small hardware project and ended up throwing out all the code halfway down the line and doing it myself. I don't have a good time with LLMs and mostly only use it for work.
financypants 1y ago
I recently did a side project that at first I thought would be fun, pretty complex (for me, at least), and a good learning experience. I decided to see how far AI would get me. It did the whole project. It was so un-fun and unsatisfying. My conclusion was, it must not have been technically complex enough?
59nadir 1y ago
I think maybe you could try learning more foundational skills instead of surface-level knowledge like APIs/products/platforms. Try building a database, a simple game from scratch or perhaps a bootloader for an OS. There are many hobby programming activities that can teach you very valuable skills about what programming is more fundamentally about.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

xemdetia 1y ago

I find this to be an interesting anecdote because at a certain level for a long time the most helpful advice you could give is what would be the best reference for the problem at hand which might have been a book or website or wiki or Google for stack overflow and now a particular AI model might be the most efficient way to give someone a 'good reference.' I could certainly see someone recommending a model the same way they may have recommended a book or tutorial. On point of discussing code.. a lot of cloud frameworks are boring but good. It usually isn't the interesting bit and it is a relatively recent quirk that everyone seems to care more about the framework compared to the thing you actually wanted to achieve. It's not a fun algorithm optimization, it's not a fun object modeling exercise, it's not some nichey math thing of note or whatever got them into coding in the first place. While I can't speak for your father I haven't met a programmer who doesn't get excited to talk about at least one coding topic this cloud framework just might not have been it.

lelanthran 1y ago
> It usually isn't the interesting bit and it is a relatively recent quirk that everyone seems to care more about the framework compared to the thing you actually wanted to achieve. It's not a fun algorithm optimization, it's not a fun object modeling exercise, it's not some nichey math thing of note or whatever got them into coding in the first place. I only read your comment after I posted mine, but my take is basically the same as yours: the GP thinks the IT learning-treadmill is fun and his dad doesn't. It's not hard to see the real problem here.

lelanthran 1y ago

> It was the first time in my whole life that programming was not fun at all. And learning new technologies in pursuit of resume-driven-development is fun? I gotta say, if learning the intricacies of $LATEST_FAD is "fun" for you, then you're not really going to have a good time, employment-wise, in the age of AI. If learning algorithms and data structures and their applicability in production is fun, then the age of AI is going to leave you with very in-demand skills.

doright 1y ago
> And learning new technologies in pursuit of resume-driven-development is fun? Nothing to do with employment. I was just doing a "home-cooked app"[0] thing for fun that served a personal usecase. Putting it on my resume would be a nice-to-have to prove I'm still sharpening my skills, but it isn't the reason I was developing the app to begin with. What I think at least is the administration and fault monitoring of lots of random machines and connected infrastructure in the cloud might be left somewhat untouched by AI for now, but if it's just about slinging some code to have an end product, LLMs are probably going to overtake that hobby in a few years (if anyone has such a weird hobby they'd want to write a bunch of code because it's fun and not to show to employers). [0] https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/
- ghaff 1y ago
  Tons of AIOps stuff related to observability, monitoring, and remediation going on. In fact, I found that one the big topics at Kubecon in London.
- gyesxnuibh 1y ago
  I'm not sure that's necessarily true. People still do embroidering even though there's crazy embroidery machines (though the cost barrier there is probably related). Maybe LLMs will be too cost prohibitive in the future (once we start paying the real total cost of LLMs). You're right that a lot less people will be writing code like a lot less people are sewing these days but people still do it for fun. P.S.: I really enjoyed reading moonbound :)

AlwaysRock 1y ago

I'm of two minds about this. I get more done with LLMs. I find the work I do assisted by LLM less satisfying. I'm not sure if I actually enjoyed the work before, or if I just enjoyed accomplishing things. And now that I'm off loading a lot of the work, I'm also off loading a lot of the feeling of accomplishment.

gyesxnuibh 1y ago
Accomplishing things for me feels a lot like solving a good puzzle. Like a crossword. I tried using an LLM to help with a small hardware project and ended up throwing out all the code halfway down the line and doing it myself. I don't have a good time with LLMs and mostly only use it for work.

financypants 1y ago

I recently did a side project that at first I thought would be fun, pretty complex (for me, at least), and a good learning experience. I decided to see how far AI would get me. It did the whole project. It was so un-fun and unsatisfying. My conclusion was, it must not have been technically complex enough?

59nadir 1y ago

I think maybe you could try learning more foundational skills instead of surface-level knowledge like APIs/products/platforms. Try building a database, a simple game from scratch or perhaps a bootloader for an OS. There are many hobby programming activities that can teach you very valuable skills about what programming is more fundamentally about.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]