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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

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?
      - pmg101 1y ago
        Cheap, fast, mechanised food provision does dominate the market. For price reasons Nevertheless there's still a luxury market for hand prepared food. Perhaps software will evolve the same way
- codyb 1y ago
  The point is, a lot of us aren't convinced reviewing 8 meals made by agents in parallel _is_ producing better food. And it also seems exceedingly wasteful to boot.
  - senordevnyc 1y ago
    I don't think that's really the point of this post; it's all about how LLMs are destroying our craft (ie, "I really like using knives!"), not really about whether the food is better. I think the real problem is that it's actually increasingly difficult to defend the artisanal "no-AI" approach. I say this as a prior staff-level engineer at a big tech company who has spent the last six months growing my SaaS to ~$100k in ARR, and it never could have happened without AI. I like the kind of coding the OP is talking about too, but ultimately I'm getting paid to solve a problem for my customers. Getting too attached to the knives is missing the point.
    - codyb 1y ago
      Call me crazy, but my guess is that that may not have been able to happen without the decade of experience it took you to get to the Staff level engineering position at a big tech company which has enabled you to gain the skills required to review the AI code you're producing properly.
      - senordevnyc 1y ago
        Totally true. But that's also a different point than "But I love using my knives!"
        BruceEel 1y ago
        I thought it's interesting that GPT5's comments (on prompting it for feedback on the article) seem to overlap with some of the points you guys made: My [GPT5's -poster's note] take / Reflections I find the article a useful provocation: it asks us to reflect on what we value in being programmers. It’s not anti-AI per se, but it is anti-losing-the-core craft. For someone in your position (in *redacted* / Europe) it raises questions about what kind of programming work you want: deep, challenging, craft-oriented, or more tool/AI mediated. It might also suggest you think about building skills that are robust to automation: e.g., architecture, critical thinking, complex problem solving, domain knowledge. The identity crisis is less about “will we have programmers” and more “what shapes will programming roles take”.
- jay_kyburz 1y ago
  A closer analogy would be a chef who chooses to have a robot cut his tomatoes. If the robot did it perfect every time I'm sure he would use the robot. If the robot mushed the tomatoes some of the time, would he spend time carefully inspecting the tomatoes? or would he just cut them himself?
  - senordevnyc 1y ago
    Even if the robot did it perfectly, you'd still have posts like these lamenting the loss of the craft of cutting tomatoes. And they're not wrong! I guess I don't understand posts like this IF you think you can do it better without LLMs. I mean, if using AI makes you miserable because you love the craft of programming, AND you think using AI is a net loss, then just...don't use it? But I think the problem here that all these posts are speaking to is that it's really hard to compete without using AI. And I sympathize, genuinely. But also...are we knife enthusiasts or chefs?
    - ThrowawayR2 1y ago
      There are chefs but they are not us. Though it will upset many to hear it, what we are is fast food workers, assembling and reheating prepackaged stuff provided to us. Now a machine threatens to do the assembling and reheating for us, better and faster than we on average do. The chefs coming up with recipes and food scientists doing the pre-packaging will do fine and are still needed. The people making the fast food machine will also do well for themselves. The rest of us fast food workers, well, not so much...
      - jay_kyburz 1y ago
        You'll be doing fine too, just doing other work. And you can see it coming so there is plenty of time to prepare.
      - senordevnyc 1y ago
        Absolutely true. In my case, I'm trying to run a restaurant, so this is all excellent news for me.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  Ok then throw a frozen meal from the supermarket into the microwave and be done with it. Outcome is really the same, right? Why waste all that effort on a deep understanding of how to prepare food?

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?
    - pmg101 1y ago
      Cheap, fast, mechanised food provision does dominate the market. For price reasons Nevertheless there's still a luxury market for hand prepared food. Perhaps software will evolve the same way
codyb 1y ago
The point is, a lot of us aren't convinced reviewing 8 meals made by agents in parallel _is_ producing better food. And it also seems exceedingly wasteful to boot.
- senordevnyc 1y ago
  I don't think that's really the point of this post; it's all about how LLMs are destroying our craft (ie, "I really like using knives!"), not really about whether the food is better. I think the real problem is that it's actually increasingly difficult to defend the artisanal "no-AI" approach. I say this as a prior staff-level engineer at a big tech company who has spent the last six months growing my SaaS to ~$100k in ARR, and it never could have happened without AI. I like the kind of coding the OP is talking about too, but ultimately I'm getting paid to solve a problem for my customers. Getting too attached to the knives is missing the point.
  - codyb 1y ago
    Call me crazy, but my guess is that that may not have been able to happen without the decade of experience it took you to get to the Staff level engineering position at a big tech company which has enabled you to gain the skills required to review the AI code you're producing properly.
    - senordevnyc 1y ago
      Totally true. But that's also a different point than "But I love using my knives!"
      - BruceEel 1y ago
        I thought it's interesting that GPT5's comments (on prompting it for feedback on the article) seem to overlap with some of the points you guys made: My [GPT5's -poster's note] take / Reflections I find the article a useful provocation: it asks us to reflect on what we value in being programmers. It’s not anti-AI per se, but it is anti-losing-the-core craft. For someone in your position (in *redacted* / Europe) it raises questions about what kind of programming work you want: deep, challenging, craft-oriented, or more tool/AI mediated. It might also suggest you think about building skills that are robust to automation: e.g., architecture, critical thinking, complex problem solving, domain knowledge. The identity crisis is less about “will we have programmers” and more “what shapes will programming roles take”.
jay_kyburz 1y ago
A closer analogy would be a chef who chooses to have a robot cut his tomatoes. If the robot did it perfect every time I'm sure he would use the robot. If the robot mushed the tomatoes some of the time, would he spend time carefully inspecting the tomatoes? or would he just cut them himself?
- senordevnyc 1y ago
  Even if the robot did it perfectly, you'd still have posts like these lamenting the loss of the craft of cutting tomatoes. And they're not wrong! I guess I don't understand posts like this IF you think you can do it better without LLMs. I mean, if using AI makes you miserable because you love the craft of programming, AND you think using AI is a net loss, then just...don't use it? But I think the problem here that all these posts are speaking to is that it's really hard to compete without using AI. And I sympathize, genuinely. But also...are we knife enthusiasts or chefs?
  - ThrowawayR2 1y ago
    There are chefs but they are not us. Though it will upset many to hear it, what we are is fast food workers, assembling and reheating prepackaged stuff provided to us. Now a machine threatens to do the assembling and reheating for us, better and faster than we on average do. The chefs coming up with recipes and food scientists doing the pre-packaging will do fine and are still needed. The people making the fast food machine will also do well for themselves. The rest of us fast food workers, well, not so much...
    - jay_kyburz 1y ago
      You'll be doing fine too, just doing other work. And you can see it coming so there is plenty of time to prepare.
    - senordevnyc 1y ago
      Absolutely true. In my case, I'm trying to run a restaurant, so this is all excellent news for me.
jimbokun 1y ago
Ok then throw a frozen meal from the supermarket into the microwave and be done with it. Outcome is really the same, right? Why waste all that effort on a deep understanding of how to prepare food?