4 ms·

This article isn't really about losing a job. Coding is a passion for some of us. It's similar to artists and diffusion, the only difference being that many peo

by zamalek 9mo ago

This article isn't really about losing a job. Coding is a passion for some of us. It's similar to artists and diffusion, the only difference being that many people can appreciate human art - but who (outside of us) cares that a human wrote the code?

ALoverOfLats 9mo ago
Huge tangent but curiosity is killing me: By any chance is your username based on the Egyptian football club Zamalek?
jhickok 9mo ago
I disagree a bit. Coding can remain an artistic passion for you indefinitely, it's just your ability to demand that everyone crafts each line of code artisinally won't be subsidized by your employer for much longer. There will probably always be a heavily diminished demand for handcrafted code.
andai 9mo ago
I love programming, but most of that joy doesn't come from the type of programming I get paid to do. I now have more time and energy for the fun type, and I can go do things that were previously inconceivable! Last night "I" "made" 3D boids swarm with directional color and perlin noise turbulence. "I" "did" this without knowing how to do the math for any of those things. (My total involvement at the source level was fiddling with the neighbor distance.) https://jsbin.com/ququzoxete/edit?html,output https://jsbin.com/ququzoxete/edit?html,output Then I turned them into weird proteins https://jsbin.com/hayominica/edit?html,output https://jsbin.com/hayominica/edit?html,output (As a side note, the loss of meaning of "self" and "doing" overlaps weirdly with my meditation practice...)
- mirsadm 9mo ago
  Yes but did you learn anything?
  - apitman 9mo ago
    Obviously that matters, but how much does it matter? Does it matter if you don't learn anything about computer architecture because you only code in JS all day? Very situational.
    - dolebirchwood 9mo ago
      There's a subset of people whose identity is grounded in the fact that they put in the hard work to learn things that most people are unable or unwilling to do. It's a badge of honor, and they resent anyone taking "shortcuts" to achieve their level of output. Kind of reminds me of lawyers who get bent out of shape when they lose a case to a pro se party. All those years of law school and studying for the bar exam, only to be bested by someone who got by with copying sample briefs and skimming Westlaw headnotes at a public library. :)
      - geetee 9mo ago
        It's not that our identity is grounded in being competent, it's that we're tired of cleaning up messes left by people taking shortcuts.
        eslaught 9mo ago
        It's that, but it's also that the incentives are misaligned. How many supposed "10x" coders actually produced unreadable code that no one else could maintain? But then the effort to produce that code is lauded while the nightmare maintenance of said code is somehow regarded as unimpressive, despite being massively more difficult? I worry that we're creating a world where it is becoming easy, even trivial, to be that dysfunctional "10x" coder, and dramatically harder to be the competent maintainer. And the existence of AI tools will reinforce the culture gap rather than reducing it.
        stoneforger 9mo ago
        It's a societal problem we are just seeing the effects in computing now. People have given up, everything is too much, the sociopaths won, they can do what they want with my body mind and soul. Give me convenience or give me death.
SoftTalker 9mo ago
I think this is really it. Being a musician was never a very reliable way to earn a living, but it was a passion. A genuine expression of talent and feeling through the instrument. And if you were good enough you could pay the bills doing work work for studios, commercials, movies, theater. If you were really good you could perform as a headliner. Now, AI can generate any kind of music anyone wants, eliminating almost all the anonymous studio, commercial, and soundtrack work. If you're really good you can still perform as a headliner, but (this is a guess) 80% of the work for musicians is just gone.
- terminalbraid 9mo ago
  > AI can generate any kind of music anyone wants It only sounds like music.
janderland 9mo ago
The people outside of us didn’t care about your beautiful code before. Now we can quickly build their boring applications and spend more time building beautiful things for our community’s sake. Yes, there are economic concerns, but as far as “craft” goes, nothing is stopping us from continuing to enjoy it.
- zrail 9mo ago
  Except that's not really true, because the work expands to fill the time allotted. Now we can build more boring applications with fewer people.
  - janderland 9mo ago
    Yes, it is true that companies are always hungry for more. But once again, those same companies never cared about beautiful code. They wanted us to build something that works as quickly as possible. In my experience, the beauty of programming was often enjoyed outside of work for this very reason, and we can still enjoy it outside of work for it's own sake.
- terminalbraid 9mo ago
  I'd add part of the craft is enjoying those minutiae, sharing lessons, and stories with others. The number of people you can do that with is going to dwindle (and has been for a long time from the tech sphere's coopting of all of it). That's part that I mourn.
kaffekaka 9mo ago
Is coding a passion only because other people appreciate it? Is painting a passion because others appreciate it? No, it is a passion in itself. There will always be people appreciating coding by hand as a passion. My passions - drawing, writing, coding - are worthwhile in themselves, not because other people care about them. Almost noone does.
crvdgc 9mo ago
At least for this article it's more about the job, or to be precise, the past where job and passion coincided: > Ultimately if you have a mortgage and a car payment and a family you love, you’re going to make your decision. Nothing is preventing the author from continuing to write code by hand and enjoy it. The difference is that people won't necessarily pay for it. The old way was really incredible (and worth mourning), considering in other industries, how many people can only enjoy what they do outside of work.
mpyne 9mo ago
> Coding is a passion for some of us. It's a passion for me too, but LLMs don't change this for me. Do they change it for you?

by zamalek 9mo ago

ALoverOfLats 9mo ago

Huge tangent but curiosity is killing me: By any chance is your username based on the Egyptian football club Zamalek?

jhickok 9mo ago

I disagree a bit. Coding can remain an artistic passion for you indefinitely, it's just your ability to demand that everyone crafts each line of code artisinally won't be subsidized by your employer for much longer. There will probably always be a heavily diminished demand for handcrafted code.

andai 9mo ago

I love programming, but most of that joy doesn't come from the type of programming I get paid to do. I now have more time and energy for the fun type, and I can go do things that were previously inconceivable! Last night "I" "made" 3D boids swarm with directional color and perlin noise turbulence. "I" "did" this without knowing how to do the math for any of those things. (My total involvement at the source level was fiddling with the neighbor distance.) https://jsbin.com/ququzoxete/edit?html,output https://jsbin.com/ququzoxete/edit?html,output Then I turned them into weird proteins https://jsbin.com/hayominica/edit?html,output https://jsbin.com/hayominica/edit?html,output (As a side note, the loss of meaning of "self" and "doing" overlaps weirdly with my meditation practice...)

mirsadm 9mo ago
Yes but did you learn anything?
- apitman 9mo ago
  Obviously that matters, but how much does it matter? Does it matter if you don't learn anything about computer architecture because you only code in JS all day? Very situational.
  - dolebirchwood 9mo ago
    There's a subset of people whose identity is grounded in the fact that they put in the hard work to learn things that most people are unable or unwilling to do. It's a badge of honor, and they resent anyone taking "shortcuts" to achieve their level of output. Kind of reminds me of lawyers who get bent out of shape when they lose a case to a pro se party. All those years of law school and studying for the bar exam, only to be bested by someone who got by with copying sample briefs and skimming Westlaw headnotes at a public library. :)
    - geetee 9mo ago
      It's not that our identity is grounded in being competent, it's that we're tired of cleaning up messes left by people taking shortcuts.
      - eslaught 9mo ago
        It's that, but it's also that the incentives are misaligned. How many supposed "10x" coders actually produced unreadable code that no one else could maintain? But then the effort to produce that code is lauded while the nightmare maintenance of said code is somehow regarded as unimpressive, despite being massively more difficult? I worry that we're creating a world where it is becoming easy, even trivial, to be that dysfunctional "10x" coder, and dramatically harder to be the competent maintainer. And the existence of AI tools will reinforce the culture gap rather than reducing it.
        stoneforger 9mo ago
        It's a societal problem we are just seeing the effects in computing now. People have given up, everything is too much, the sociopaths won, they can do what they want with my body mind and soul. Give me convenience or give me death.

SoftTalker 9mo ago

I think this is really it. Being a musician was never a very reliable way to earn a living, but it was a passion. A genuine expression of talent and feeling through the instrument. And if you were good enough you could pay the bills doing work work for studios, commercials, movies, theater. If you were really good you could perform as a headliner. Now, AI can generate any kind of music anyone wants, eliminating almost all the anonymous studio, commercial, and soundtrack work. If you're really good you can still perform as a headliner, but (this is a guess) 80% of the work for musicians is just gone.

terminalbraid 9mo ago
> AI can generate any kind of music anyone wants It only sounds like music.

janderland 9mo ago

The people outside of us didn’t care about your beautiful code before. Now we can quickly build their boring applications and spend more time building beautiful things for our community’s sake. Yes, there are economic concerns, but as far as “craft” goes, nothing is stopping us from continuing to enjoy it.

zrail 9mo ago
Except that's not really true, because the work expands to fill the time allotted. Now we can build more boring applications with fewer people.
- janderland 9mo ago
  Yes, it is true that companies are always hungry for more. But once again, those same companies never cared about beautiful code. They wanted us to build something that works as quickly as possible. In my experience, the beauty of programming was often enjoyed outside of work for this very reason, and we can still enjoy it outside of work for it's own sake.
terminalbraid 9mo ago
I'd add part of the craft is enjoying those minutiae, sharing lessons, and stories with others. The number of people you can do that with is going to dwindle (and has been for a long time from the tech sphere's coopting of all of it). That's part that I mourn.

kaffekaka 9mo ago

Is coding a passion only because other people appreciate it? Is painting a passion because others appreciate it? No, it is a passion in itself. There will always be people appreciating coding by hand as a passion. My passions - drawing, writing, coding - are worthwhile in themselves, not because other people care about them. Almost noone does.

crvdgc 9mo ago

At least for this article it's more about the job, or to be precise, the past where job and passion coincided: > Ultimately if you have a mortgage and a car payment and a family you love, you’re going to make your decision. Nothing is preventing the author from continuing to write code by hand and enjoy it. The difference is that people won't necessarily pay for it. The old way was really incredible (and worth mourning), considering in other industries, how many people can only enjoy what they do outside of work.

mpyne 9mo ago

> Coding is a passion for some of us. It's a passion for me too, but LLMs don't change this for me. Do they change it for you?