6 ms·

Your whole point is disproven by woodworking as a craft, and many other crafts for that matter. There are still craftspeople doing good work with wood even thou

by ok_dad 10mo ago

Your whole point is disproven by woodworking as a craft, and many other crafts for that matter. There are still craftspeople doing good work with wood even though IKEA and such have captured the furniture industry. There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most.

bryanrasmussen 10mo ago
high quality carpentry has a market of people who buy one off projects for lots of money. There is not really a similar market in software. I'm not saying there won't be fine programmers etc. but with woodworking I can see how a market exists that will support you developing your skills and I don't see it with software and thus the path seems much less clear to me.
- CuriouslyC 10mo ago
  Bro, there is a HUGE market for one off software projects for lots of money.
  - operatingthetan 10mo ago
    I've been involved in building a multitude of saas apps and very few of them had any unique functionality. I'm not sure many of those companies cared about the uniqueness of their code.
    - suddenlybananas 10mo ago
      Obviously, they care about the uniqueness of the code if they are one-offs.
      - operatingthetan 10mo ago
        My thought is that many of them thought their products were one-offs but were actually not in practice.
    - ryoshu 10mo ago
      SAP or Salesforce can do anything. Or you can write custom code for a fraction of the price for small/medium sized businesses.
  - bryanrasmussen 10mo ago
    yeah sorry I've seen one off carpentry projects for lots of money and I've worked on software projects for individual companies, and it's not really comparable (especially going back to the earlier post that started this, which I thought was not discussing say the newest spotify competitor or something similar) however I suppose at the point where I need to explain that and all the ways in which the two things are dissimilar it becomes a book in itself.
    - phil21 10mo ago
      We are all talking about exceptions to the exception at this point. It's typically uninteresting to discuss... But at the risk of being uninteresting, I know of incredibly niche software projects that were done for a single rich benefactor as one-offs simply for their personal use-case and no one else. Years in the making and quite well paid. In one case effectively lifetime employment for the sole developer. They are obviously incredibly rare, but they do exist. However, they are totally irrelevant to discuss in this context since it's a rounding error of 1% of 1% of current developers who would get such roles either via luck or skill.
      - bryanrasmussen 10mo ago
        OK well I stand corrected then they do exist, because it is probably near 1% of woodworkers who do the quality projects I am thinking of - say table able to seat 20+ people in the shape of a dragon with extremely detailed scales and everything that takes 6 months or more to make - that kind of thing.
brailsafe 10mo ago
> There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most. This fallacy seems to be brought up very frequently, that there are still blacksmiths; people who ride horses; people who use typewriters; even people who use fountain pens, but they don't really exist in any practical or economical sense outside of 10 years ago Portland, OR. No technological advancement that I'm aware of completely eliminates one's ability to pursue a discipline as a hobbyist or as a niche for rich people. It's rarely impossible, but I don't think that's ever anyone's point. Sometimes they even make a comeback, like vinyl records. The scope of the topic seems to be what the usual one is, which is the chain of incentives that enable the pursuit of something as a persuasive exchange of value, particularly that of a market that needs a certain amount of volume and doesn't have shady protectionism working for it like standard textbooks. With writing, like with other liberal arts, it's far from a new target of parental scrutiny, and it's my impression that those disciplines have long been the pursuit of people who can largely get away with not really needing a viable source of income, particularly during the apprentice and journeyman stages. Programming has been largely been exempt from that, but if I were in the midst of a traditional comp sci program, facing the existential dreads that are U.S and Canadian economies (at least), along with the effective collapse of a path to financial stability, I'd be stupid not to be considering a major pivot; to what, I don't know.
- uxcolumbo 10mo ago
  Things that won't be automated anytime soon, like plumbers or electricians. Or double down on applied ML?
  - mhb 10mo ago
    Nurses.
    - tharkun__ 10mo ago
      A lot of nurses leave the profession because of the abysmal financial and working conditions.
ponector 10mo ago
Yet usually woodworking is not a viable business. As a craft - sure. As a day job to provide for your family - not really. Guys who created a custom tables for me five years ago are out of business. Pretty much the same story with any craft.
- sojournerc 10mo ago
  Right, nobody needs cabinets or doors because... AI. /s I'm a professional woodworker. One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. You're likely not exposed to cabinet or architectural woodwork shops that build high-end homes, or that just do renovation for that matter.
  - wat10000 10mo ago
    That’s the point. It used to be something almost everyone bought. Now it’s relegated to high-end luxury. The craft still exists, and you can still do well, but it’s much diminished. It’s not that nobody needs cabinets or doors. It’s that automation, transportation, and economies of scale have made it much cheaper to produce those things with machines in a factory.
  - bsder 10mo ago
    > One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. I'd like to see numbers backing that up. My personal impression is that you have a small number of custom woodworkers hustling after an ever smaller number of rich clients. That seems like exactly the same problem.
  - ivell 10mo ago
    A better comparison to Ikea vs Handcraft would be shrinkwrap software vs custom software for companies. With AI, the custom software industry is getting disrupted (if the current trajectory of improvements continue). In case of woodcraft, there is some tangible result that can be appreciated and displayed as art. In case of custom software, there is no such displayability.
borroka 10mo ago
This comparison is hardly apt in the way it is formulated, but it is fitting when considering tailors and seamstresses. A few decades ago, numerous tailors made custom-made clothes and skilled seamstresses repaired them. Today, since clothes are made by machines and the cost of production has fallen significantly, making bespoke clothes has become a niche job, almost extinct, and instead of repairing clothes, people prefer to buy new ones. These jobs have not disappeared, but they have become much less common and attractive.

by ok_dad 10mo ago

bryanrasmussen 10mo ago

high quality carpentry has a market of people who buy one off projects for lots of money. There is not really a similar market in software. I'm not saying there won't be fine programmers etc. but with woodworking I can see how a market exists that will support you developing your skills and I don't see it with software and thus the path seems much less clear to me.

CuriouslyC 10mo ago
Bro, there is a HUGE market for one off software projects for lots of money.
- operatingthetan 10mo ago
  I've been involved in building a multitude of saas apps and very few of them had any unique functionality. I'm not sure many of those companies cared about the uniqueness of their code.
  - suddenlybananas 10mo ago
    Obviously, they care about the uniqueness of the code if they are one-offs.
    - operatingthetan 10mo ago
      My thought is that many of them thought their products were one-offs but were actually not in practice.
  - ryoshu 10mo ago
    SAP or Salesforce can do anything. Or you can write custom code for a fraction of the price for small/medium sized businesses.
- bryanrasmussen 10mo ago
  yeah sorry I've seen one off carpentry projects for lots of money and I've worked on software projects for individual companies, and it's not really comparable (especially going back to the earlier post that started this, which I thought was not discussing say the newest spotify competitor or something similar) however I suppose at the point where I need to explain that and all the ways in which the two things are dissimilar it becomes a book in itself.
  - phil21 10mo ago
    We are all talking about exceptions to the exception at this point. It's typically uninteresting to discuss... But at the risk of being uninteresting, I know of incredibly niche software projects that were done for a single rich benefactor as one-offs simply for their personal use-case and no one else. Years in the making and quite well paid. In one case effectively lifetime employment for the sole developer. They are obviously incredibly rare, but they do exist. However, they are totally irrelevant to discuss in this context since it's a rounding error of 1% of 1% of current developers who would get such roles either via luck or skill.
    - bryanrasmussen 10mo ago
      OK well I stand corrected then they do exist, because it is probably near 1% of woodworkers who do the quality projects I am thinking of - say table able to seat 20+ people in the shape of a dragon with extremely detailed scales and everything that takes 6 months or more to make - that kind of thing.

brailsafe 10mo ago

> There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most. This fallacy seems to be brought up very frequently, that there are still blacksmiths; people who ride horses; people who use typewriters; even people who use fountain pens, but they don't really exist in any practical or economical sense outside of 10 years ago Portland, OR. No technological advancement that I'm aware of completely eliminates one's ability to pursue a discipline as a hobbyist or as a niche for rich people. It's rarely impossible, but I don't think that's ever anyone's point. Sometimes they even make a comeback, like vinyl records. The scope of the topic seems to be what the usual one is, which is the chain of incentives that enable the pursuit of something as a persuasive exchange of value, particularly that of a market that needs a certain amount of volume and doesn't have shady protectionism working for it like standard textbooks. With writing, like with other liberal arts, it's far from a new target of parental scrutiny, and it's my impression that those disciplines have long been the pursuit of people who can largely get away with not really needing a viable source of income, particularly during the apprentice and journeyman stages. Programming has been largely been exempt from that, but if I were in the midst of a traditional comp sci program, facing the existential dreads that are U.S and Canadian economies (at least), along with the effective collapse of a path to financial stability, I'd be stupid not to be considering a major pivot; to what, I don't know.

uxcolumbo 10mo ago
Things that won't be automated anytime soon, like plumbers or electricians. Or double down on applied ML?
- mhb 10mo ago
  Nurses.
  - tharkun__ 10mo ago
    A lot of nurses leave the profession because of the abysmal financial and working conditions.

ponector 10mo ago

Yet usually woodworking is not a viable business. As a craft - sure. As a day job to provide for your family - not really. Guys who created a custom tables for me five years ago are out of business. Pretty much the same story with any craft.

sojournerc 10mo ago
Right, nobody needs cabinets or doors because... AI. /s I'm a professional woodworker. One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. You're likely not exposed to cabinet or architectural woodwork shops that build high-end homes, or that just do renovation for that matter.
- wat10000 10mo ago
  That’s the point. It used to be something almost everyone bought. Now it’s relegated to high-end luxury. The craft still exists, and you can still do well, but it’s much diminished. It’s not that nobody needs cabinets or doors. It’s that automation, transportation, and economies of scale have made it much cheaper to produce those things with machines in a factory.
- bsder 10mo ago
  > One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. I'd like to see numbers backing that up. My personal impression is that you have a small number of custom woodworkers hustling after an ever smaller number of rich clients. That seems like exactly the same problem.
- ivell 10mo ago
  A better comparison to Ikea vs Handcraft would be shrinkwrap software vs custom software for companies. With AI, the custom software industry is getting disrupted (if the current trajectory of improvements continue). In case of woodcraft, there is some tangible result that can be appreciated and displayed as art. In case of custom software, there is no such displayability.

borroka 10mo ago

This comparison is hardly apt in the way it is formulated, but it is fitting when considering tailors and seamstresses. A few decades ago, numerous tailors made custom-made clothes and skilled seamstresses repaired them. Today, since clothes are made by machines and the cost of production has fallen significantly, making bespoke clothes has become a niche job, almost extinct, and instead of repairing clothes, people prefer to buy new ones. These jobs have not disappeared, but they have become much less common and attractive.