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> One could only wonder why they became a programmer in the first place, given their seeming disinterest in coding. To solve problems. Coding is the means to a

> One could only wonder why they became a programmer in the first place, given their seeming disinterest in coding. To solve problems. Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. > careful configuration of our editor, tinkering with dot files, and dev environments That may be fun for you, but it doesn’t add value. It’s accidental complexity that I am happy to delegate.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
GaryBluto 1y ago
These are my thoughts exactly. Whenever I use agents to assist me in creating a simple program for myself, I carefully guide it through everything I want created, with me usually writing pages and pages of detailed plaintext instructions and specifications when it comes to the backends of things, I then modify it and design a user interface. I very much enjoy the end product and I also enjoy designing (not necessarily programming) a program that fits my needs, but rarely implementing, as I have issues focusing on things.
whynotminot 1y ago
I got a few paragraphs into this piece before rolling my eyes and putting it down. I consider myself an engineer — a problem solver. Like you said, code is just the means to solve the problems put before me. I’m just as content if solving the problem turns out to be a process change or user education instead of a code commit. I have no fetish for my terminal window or IDE.
- NewsaHackO 1y ago
  The issue is that a lot of “programmers” think bike-shedding is the essence of programming. Fifty years ago, they would have been the ones saying that not using punch cards takes away from the art of programming, and then proudly showing off multiple intricate hole punchers they designed for different scenarios. Good problem solvers... solve problems. The technological environment will never devalue their skills. It’s only those who rest on their laurels who have this issue.
bcrosby95 1y ago
The point of most jobs in the world is to "solve problems". So why did you pick software over those?
- MountDoom 1y ago
  The honest answer that applies to almost everyone here is that as a kid, they liked playing computer games and heard that the job pays well. It's interesting, because to become a plumber, you pretty much need a plumber parent or a friend to get you interested in the trade show you the ropes. Meanwhile, software engineering is closer to the universal childhood dream of "I want to become an astronaut" or "I want to be a pop star", except more attainable. It's very commoditized by now, so if you're looking for that old-school hacker ethos, you're gonna be disappointed.
  - OkayPhysicist 1y ago
    I think you're grossly underestimating the number of people here who fell into software development because it's one of the best outlets for "the knack" in existence. Sure, this site is split between the "tech-bro entrepreneur"-types and developers, and there are plenty of developers who got into this for the cash, but in my experience about a quarter of developers (so maybe 10-15% of users on this site) got into this profession due to getting into programming because it fed an innate need to tinker, and then after they spent a ton of time on it discovered that it was the best way to pay the bills available to them.
    - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
      I got stupidly lucky that one of my hobbies as an avid indoorsman was not only valued by the private sector but also happened to pay well. This career was literally the only thing that saved me from a life of poverty.
      - cool_man_bob 1y ago
        Don’t worry, once you’re no longer needed you’ll get to experience that life of poverty you missed out.
blashyrk 1y ago
> coding is the means to an end ... > doesn't add value What about intrinsic value? So many programmers on HN seem to just want to be MBAs in their heart of hearts
- NeutralCrane 1y ago
  Some of you have never been laid off and it shows. Intrinsic value is great, where achievable. Companies do not care at all about intrinsic value. I take pride in my work and my craft to the extent I am allowed to, but the reality is that those of us who can’t adapt to the businesses desires will be made obsolete and cut loose, regardless of whatever values we hold.
dingnuts 1y ago
A chef who sharpens his knives should stop because it doesn't add value A contractor who prefers a specific brand of tool is wrong because the tool is a means to an end This is what you sound like. Just because you don't understand the value of a craftsman picking and maintaining their tools doesn't mean the value isn't real.
- senordevnyc 1y ago
  Yes, but the point of being a chef is the food, not the knives. If there's a better way to prepare food than a knife, but you refuse to change, are you really a chef? Or are you a chef knife enthusiast?
  - NewsaHackO 1y ago
    >The point of being a chef is the food, not the knives They will never be able to undestand this, unfortunately
    - pmg101 1y ago
      But what if the New Way to prepare food was to put a box into a microwave , wait 60 seconds, then hand it to the customer? Sure the customer still gets fed but it's a far inferior product... And is that chef really cheffing?
      - NewsaHackO 1y ago
        This is a strawman. The point is that the original poster was going on about knives, forgetting that the final product is the actual thing that matters, not whatever tool is used to create it. In your example, if the food is inferior, then the food is inferior.
      - senordevnyc 1y ago
        If that's your analogy, then shouldn't you be able to dominate the market by not using AI?
ares623 1y ago
Careful with the “doesn’t add value” talk. If you follow it far enough to its logical end, you get to “Existence doesn’t add value”
- cool_man_bob 1y ago
  That’s the point lol.
- jckahn 11mo ago
  This is one of those random internet comments that I'll be thinking about for decades. Thank you for sharing it!
veegee 1y ago
[flagged]
codyb 1y ago
Configuring editors, dot files, and dev environments consistently adds value by giving you familiarity with your working environment, honing your skills with your tools, and creating a more productive space tailored to your needs. Who else becomes the go to person for modifying build scripts? The amount of people I know who have no idea how to work with Git after decades in the field using it is pretty amazing. It's not helpful for everyone else when you're the one they're delegating their merge conflict bullshit too cause they've never bothered to learn anything about the tools they're using.
- mupuff1234 1y ago
  Have you considered that the problem is with Git and not the users?
  - rpcope1 1y ago
    How dumbed down does everything need to be? Git has warts for sure, but this whole ideas guy no actual understanding of anything is how you get trainwrecks. There is no free lunch, and you're going to pay one way or another for not understanding the tools of the craft, and that not everything can be ridiculously simple.
    - mupuff1234 1y ago
      But it's not that people don't grasp the concept of merge conflicts, it's just that the UX of git is bad.
      - codyb 1y ago
        It's pretty great if you understand how to do resets, interactive rebases, understand the differences between merges and rebases, keep your commit history fairly clean, and just work with the tool. I haven't had a problem with Git since I spent a day going through the git book something like 10 years ago. Meanwhile this is in a discussion about tools which people spend incalculable amounts of hours tuning, for reference. The number of articles on Hacker News about how people have tuned their LLM setups is... grand to say the least.
wolvesechoes 1y ago
> but it doesn’t add value Sad to see people reduce themselves willingly to cogs inside business machine.
- keeda 1y ago
  You can spend as much time as you want on "configuration of our editor, tinkering with dot files, and dev environments" and otherwise honing your craft, the business machine will still look at you as cogs. May seem depressing, but the bright side is that you as an individual are then free to find joy in your work wherever you can find it... whether its in delivering high-quality code, or just collecting a paycheck.
  - wolvesechoes 1y ago
    > the business machine will still look at you as cogs Of course, but I said that people see themselves this way. To be clear, personally I do not find fiddling with configs particularly exciting, but some people do.
kiitos 1y ago
> To solve problems. Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. solving problems is an outcome of programming, not the purpose of programming
gr4vityWall 1y ago
> Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. > That may be fun for you, but it doesn’t add value I'm not disagreeing with you per se, but those statements are subjective, not an objective truth. Lots of people fundamentally enjoy the process of coding, and would keep doing it even in a hypothetical world with no problems left to solve, or if they had UBI.
davidw 1y ago
I think the author makes a decent point with regards to 'problem solving' and better tools and how LLM's somehow feel different. Fortran is a better tool, but you can still reproducibly trace things back to assembly code through the compiler. LLM's feel like a non-deterministic compiler that transforms English into code of some sort.
CuriouslyC 1y ago
> To solve problems. Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. 100% this. I think a lot of the people who are angry at AI coding for them are "code calligraphers" who care more about the form of the thing they're making than the problem that it solves. I can't see how someone's who's primarily solution focused would shed a tear at AI coding for them.
toprerules 11mo ago
> Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. For the early MIT hackers, and for many of us still today, it absolutely is. It's also not about the input mechanisms, which have changed over the years. Solving problems, turning complexity into simplicity, cool hacks, that's what the hacker ethos is about. It's not about driving "value". I suppose you also feel that there's no value in learning a musical instrument either.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

GaryBluto 1y ago

These are my thoughts exactly. Whenever I use agents to assist me in creating a simple program for myself, I carefully guide it through everything I want created, with me usually writing pages and pages of detailed plaintext instructions and specifications when it comes to the backends of things, I then modify it and design a user interface. I very much enjoy the end product and I also enjoy designing (not necessarily programming) a program that fits my needs, but rarely implementing, as I have issues focusing on things.

whynotminot 1y ago

I got a few paragraphs into this piece before rolling my eyes and putting it down. I consider myself an engineer — a problem solver. Like you said, code is just the means to solve the problems put before me. I’m just as content if solving the problem turns out to be a process change or user education instead of a code commit. I have no fetish for my terminal window or IDE.

NewsaHackO 1y ago
The issue is that a lot of “programmers” think bike-shedding is the essence of programming. Fifty years ago, they would have been the ones saying that not using punch cards takes away from the art of programming, and then proudly showing off multiple intricate hole punchers they designed for different scenarios. Good problem solvers... solve problems. The technological environment will never devalue their skills. It’s only those who rest on their laurels who have this issue.

bcrosby95 1y ago

The point of most jobs in the world is to "solve problems". So why did you pick software over those?

MountDoom 1y ago
The honest answer that applies to almost everyone here is that as a kid, they liked playing computer games and heard that the job pays well. It's interesting, because to become a plumber, you pretty much need a plumber parent or a friend to get you interested in the trade show you the ropes. Meanwhile, software engineering is closer to the universal childhood dream of "I want to become an astronaut" or "I want to be a pop star", except more attainable. It's very commoditized by now, so if you're looking for that old-school hacker ethos, you're gonna be disappointed.
- OkayPhysicist 1y ago
  I think you're grossly underestimating the number of people here who fell into software development because it's one of the best outlets for "the knack" in existence. Sure, this site is split between the "tech-bro entrepreneur"-types and developers, and there are plenty of developers who got into this for the cash, but in my experience about a quarter of developers (so maybe 10-15% of users on this site) got into this profession due to getting into programming because it fed an innate need to tinker, and then after they spent a ton of time on it discovered that it was the best way to pay the bills available to them.
  - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
    I got stupidly lucky that one of my hobbies as an avid indoorsman was not only valued by the private sector but also happened to pay well. This career was literally the only thing that saved me from a life of poverty.
    - cool_man_bob 1y ago
      Don’t worry, once you’re no longer needed you’ll get to experience that life of poverty you missed out.

blashyrk 1y ago

> coding is the means to an end ... > doesn't add value What about intrinsic value? So many programmers on HN seem to just want to be MBAs in their heart of hearts

NeutralCrane 1y ago
Some of you have never been laid off and it shows. Intrinsic value is great, where achievable. Companies do not care at all about intrinsic value. I take pride in my work and my craft to the extent I am allowed to, but the reality is that those of us who can’t adapt to the businesses desires will be made obsolete and cut loose, regardless of whatever values we hold.

dingnuts 1y ago

A chef who sharpens his knives should stop because it doesn't add value A contractor who prefers a specific brand of tool is wrong because the tool is a means to an end This is what you sound like. Just because you don't understand the value of a craftsman picking and maintaining their tools doesn't mean the value isn't real.

senordevnyc 1y ago
Yes, but the point of being a chef is the food, not the knives. If there's a better way to prepare food than a knife, but you refuse to change, are you really a chef? Or are you a chef knife enthusiast?
- NewsaHackO 1y ago
  >The point of being a chef is the food, not the knives They will never be able to undestand this, unfortunately
  - pmg101 1y ago
    But what if the New Way to prepare food was to put a box into a microwave , wait 60 seconds, then hand it to the customer? Sure the customer still gets fed but it's a far inferior product... And is that chef really cheffing?
    - NewsaHackO 1y ago
      This is a strawman. The point is that the original poster was going on about knives, forgetting that the final product is the actual thing that matters, not whatever tool is used to create it. In your example, if the food is inferior, then the food is inferior.
    - senordevnyc 1y ago
      If that's your analogy, then shouldn't you be able to dominate the market by not using AI?

ares623 1y ago

Careful with the “doesn’t add value” talk. If you follow it far enough to its logical end, you get to “Existence doesn’t add value”

cool_man_bob 1y ago
That’s the point lol.
jckahn 11mo ago
This is one of those random internet comments that I'll be thinking about for decades. Thank you for sharing it!

veegee 1y ago

[flagged]

codyb 1y ago

Configuring editors, dot files, and dev environments consistently adds value by giving you familiarity with your working environment, honing your skills with your tools, and creating a more productive space tailored to your needs. Who else becomes the go to person for modifying build scripts? The amount of people I know who have no idea how to work with Git after decades in the field using it is pretty amazing. It's not helpful for everyone else when you're the one they're delegating their merge conflict bullshit too cause they've never bothered to learn anything about the tools they're using.

mupuff1234 1y ago
Have you considered that the problem is with Git and not the users?
- rpcope1 1y ago
  How dumbed down does everything need to be? Git has warts for sure, but this whole ideas guy no actual understanding of anything is how you get trainwrecks. There is no free lunch, and you're going to pay one way or another for not understanding the tools of the craft, and that not everything can be ridiculously simple.
  - mupuff1234 1y ago
    But it's not that people don't grasp the concept of merge conflicts, it's just that the UX of git is bad.
    - codyb 1y ago
      It's pretty great if you understand how to do resets, interactive rebases, understand the differences between merges and rebases, keep your commit history fairly clean, and just work with the tool. I haven't had a problem with Git since I spent a day going through the git book something like 10 years ago. Meanwhile this is in a discussion about tools which people spend incalculable amounts of hours tuning, for reference. The number of articles on Hacker News about how people have tuned their LLM setups is... grand to say the least.

wolvesechoes 1y ago

> but it doesn’t add value Sad to see people reduce themselves willingly to cogs inside business machine.

keeda 1y ago
You can spend as much time as you want on "configuration of our editor, tinkering with dot files, and dev environments" and otherwise honing your craft, the business machine will still look at you as cogs. May seem depressing, but the bright side is that you as an individual are then free to find joy in your work wherever you can find it... whether its in delivering high-quality code, or just collecting a paycheck.
- wolvesechoes 1y ago
  > the business machine will still look at you as cogs Of course, but I said that people see themselves this way. To be clear, personally I do not find fiddling with configs particularly exciting, but some people do.

kiitos 1y ago

> To solve problems. Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. solving problems is an outcome of programming, not the purpose of programming

gr4vityWall 1y ago

> Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. > That may be fun for you, but it doesn’t add value I'm not disagreeing with you per se, but those statements are subjective, not an objective truth. Lots of people fundamentally enjoy the process of coding, and would keep doing it even in a hypothetical world with no problems left to solve, or if they had UBI.

davidw 1y ago

I think the author makes a decent point with regards to 'problem solving' and better tools and how LLM's somehow feel different. Fortran is a better tool, but you can still reproducibly trace things back to assembly code through the compiler. LLM's feel like a non-deterministic compiler that transforms English into code of some sort.

CuriouslyC 1y ago

> To solve problems. Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. 100% this. I think a lot of the people who are angry at AI coding for them are "code calligraphers" who care more about the form of the thing they're making than the problem that it solves. I can't see how someone's who's primarily solution focused would shed a tear at AI coding for them.

toprerules 11mo ago

> Coding is the means to an end, not the end itself. For the early MIT hackers, and for many of us still today, it absolutely is. It's also not about the input mechanisms, which have changed over the years. Solving problems, turning complexity into simplicity, cool hacks, that's what the hacker ethos is about. It's not about driving "value". I suppose you also feel that there's no value in learning a musical instrument either.