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I'm not the OP, but from what he said I can tell you two things: 1. He is using computers to solve other peoples problems, and they are similar problems so al

I'm not the OP, but from what he said I can tell you two things: 1. He is using computers to solve other peoples problems, and they are similar problems so all the code looks the same, and 2. He is NOT using computers to solve his own problems. Every top notch software engineer I've met does not write the same code more than a few times, because doing repetitive stuff is something a computer should be doing.

tptacek 1y ago
What a weird set of claims to make. I like how you worked backwards from "couldn't be a top not software engineer", whatever that means.
- kasey_junk 1y ago
  It’s the standard response anytime someone claims they get productivity boosts from ai. Either you are inexperienced or bad at your job. On a board that would deride any other no true Scotsman take, this one happens on every ai discussion. It’s no longer worth engaging with. I’m now just posting basic statements like “I’ve been programming professionally for 25 years and I find ai to be extremely helpful”. That way there is at least someone claiming the opposite. But you aren’t going to convince anyone as they already shut that door with their statements.
  - camgunz 1y ago
    I agree; I think there's a huge veil of perception thing happening here like. I've worked directly with dozens of coders and indirectly with hundreds, and like, no one does their job like I do? It's like we all show up to the job site, you have a drill, another person has a hammer, and I have a feather duster and a bottle of glue, and we all have the exact same job. No wonder what makes the drill person more productive doesn't do shit for the feather duster/glue person.
  - rstuart4133 1y ago
    For what is worth, it had nothing to do with whether he uses AI. I'm north of 60yo, started on punched cards and paper tape and have been programming ever since. My experience suggests if you aren't keeping up by using AI now there is a good chance you won't be a relevant software engineer in a decades time. The bit that triggered my response is this: > Guess what: a lot of the work programmers do, maybe even most of it, is rote. Yes, I know a lot of programmers who do that. In fact it seems most programmers I see in the industry do that. Many of them are very good at it, in the sense that a good brick layer will be content to devote his lifetime to laying bricks in a straight line and will be far more reliable and conscientious at it than I could every be. However, that personality type is unlikely to become a top engineer or architect. To be good at those jobs you need to get bored in a couple of years at most. You have to be internally driven to try new things, and experiment with new ideas. When such a person is confronted with the prospect of a lifetime of churning out code that almost follows a template (and I daresay could easily be produced by today's LLM's) he doesn't sit still and do it. He finds something more interesting to do. Since he's a computer programmer and the task is well suited a computer doing it, he probably take up a skunk works project of churning out the repetitive parts of that code, so he didn't have to do it. It's far more fun, saves time in the long run, and if he is a good software engineer in the long run the systems it produces will be more reliable, and use less code than something programmer code have produced by churning out the same stuff every day for years. Going by the OP's comment, he hasn't done that, despite apparently being bored shitless with what he does do. There is a solution, but it isn't the LLM's he suggests. All using LLM's change is the language are giving to the "compiler". The end result is still him creating the same CRUD app using the same platforms, libraries and tools his is using now.
    - kasey_junk 1y ago
      There are lots and lots of us who have gone down the road of generalizing code and have decided the outcomes, for the business that pays for the software, are worse. Frequently it devolves into code that is hard to reason about, architecture that is overblown for purpose or that does something just about, but not exactly, what you want it to do. But more importantly, by dismissing the comment that way, you’ve made an implicit claim. You are claiming to be able to judge a persons capability or the challenges they are working on off of a couple hn comments. Thats bad engineering and anti-social behavior. Imagine telling someone that learning to touch type was the sign of a bad software engineer because you don’t type that much because your libraries are all named with single letters. Thats what these arguments sound like to me.

tptacek 1y ago

What a weird set of claims to make. I like how you worked backwards from "couldn't be a top not software engineer", whatever that means.

kasey_junk 1y ago
It’s the standard response anytime someone claims they get productivity boosts from ai. Either you are inexperienced or bad at your job. On a board that would deride any other no true Scotsman take, this one happens on every ai discussion. It’s no longer worth engaging with. I’m now just posting basic statements like “I’ve been programming professionally for 25 years and I find ai to be extremely helpful”. That way there is at least someone claiming the opposite. But you aren’t going to convince anyone as they already shut that door with their statements.
- camgunz 1y ago
  I agree; I think there's a huge veil of perception thing happening here like. I've worked directly with dozens of coders and indirectly with hundreds, and like, no one does their job like I do? It's like we all show up to the job site, you have a drill, another person has a hammer, and I have a feather duster and a bottle of glue, and we all have the exact same job. No wonder what makes the drill person more productive doesn't do shit for the feather duster/glue person.
- rstuart4133 1y ago
  For what is worth, it had nothing to do with whether he uses AI. I'm north of 60yo, started on punched cards and paper tape and have been programming ever since. My experience suggests if you aren't keeping up by using AI now there is a good chance you won't be a relevant software engineer in a decades time. The bit that triggered my response is this: > Guess what: a lot of the work programmers do, maybe even most of it, is rote. Yes, I know a lot of programmers who do that. In fact it seems most programmers I see in the industry do that. Many of them are very good at it, in the sense that a good brick layer will be content to devote his lifetime to laying bricks in a straight line and will be far more reliable and conscientious at it than I could every be. However, that personality type is unlikely to become a top engineer or architect. To be good at those jobs you need to get bored in a couple of years at most. You have to be internally driven to try new things, and experiment with new ideas. When such a person is confronted with the prospect of a lifetime of churning out code that almost follows a template (and I daresay could easily be produced by today's LLM's) he doesn't sit still and do it. He finds something more interesting to do. Since he's a computer programmer and the task is well suited a computer doing it, he probably take up a skunk works project of churning out the repetitive parts of that code, so he didn't have to do it. It's far more fun, saves time in the long run, and if he is a good software engineer in the long run the systems it produces will be more reliable, and use less code than something programmer code have produced by churning out the same stuff every day for years. Going by the OP's comment, he hasn't done that, despite apparently being bored shitless with what he does do. There is a solution, but it isn't the LLM's he suggests. All using LLM's change is the language are giving to the "compiler". The end result is still him creating the same CRUD app using the same platforms, libraries and tools his is using now.
  - kasey_junk 1y ago
    There are lots and lots of us who have gone down the road of generalizing code and have decided the outcomes, for the business that pays for the software, are worse. Frequently it devolves into code that is hard to reason about, architecture that is overblown for purpose or that does something just about, but not exactly, what you want it to do. But more importantly, by dismissing the comment that way, you’ve made an implicit claim. You are claiming to be able to judge a persons capability or the challenges they are working on off of a couple hn comments. Thats bad engineering and anti-social behavior. Imagine telling someone that learning to touch type was the sign of a bad software engineer because you don’t type that much because your libraries are all named with single letters. Thats what these arguments sound like to me.