11 ms·

Even if you believe that many are too far on one side now, you have to account for the fact that AI will get better rapidly. If you're not using it now you may

Even if you believe that many are too far on one side now, you have to account for the fact that AI will get better rapidly. If you're not using it now you may end up lacking preparation when it becomes more valuable

daxfohl 8mo ago
But as it gets better, it'll also get easier, be built into existing products you already use, etc. So I wouldn't worry too much about that aspect. If you enjoy tinkering, or really want to dive deep into fundamentals, that's one thing, but I wouldn't worry too much about "learning to use some tool", as fast as things are changing.
- mgraczyk 8mo ago
  I don't think so. That's a good point but the capability has been outpacing people's ability to use it for a while and that will continue. Put another way, the ability to use AI became an important factor in overall software engineering ability this year, and as the year goes on the gap between the best and worst users or AI will widen faster because the models will outpace the harnesses
  - daxfohl 8mo ago
    I mean, right now "bleeding edge" is an autonomous agents system that spends a million dollars making an unbelievably bad browser prototype in a week. Very high effort and the results are jibberish. By the time these sorts of things are actually reliable, they'll be productized single-click installer apps on your network server, with a simple web interface to manage them. If you just mean, "hey you should learn to use the latest version of Claude Code", sure.
    - mgraczyk 8mo ago
      I mean that you should stay up to date and practiced on how to get the most out of models. Using harnesses like Claude code sure, but also knowing their strengths and weaknesses so you can learn when and how to delegate and take on more scope
      - daxfohl 8mo ago
        Okay yeah that's a good middle ground, and I'd even say I agree. It's not about being on the bleeding edge or being a first adopter or anything, but the fact that if you commit to a tool, it's almost always worth spending some time learning how to use it most effectively.
  - eddythompson80 8mo ago
    That’s the comical understanding being pushed by management in software companies yes. The people who never actually use the tools themselves, but the concept of it. It’s the same AGI nonesense, but dumped down to something they think they can control.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - anthonypasq96 8mo ago
      why does every AI skeptic assume that everyone is lying to them. theres millions of developers using AI to be more productive and you just keep plugging your ears and screaming, claiming its only dumb managers, meanwhile Linus Torvalds is vibe coding stuff.
      - eddythompson80 8mo ago
        Who said anything about that? The argument was "if you're not using AI RIGHT NOW, you will fall behind forever" This is the nonsense management and CTOs are pushing. Use it now if you want, I do. Wait for things to cool down if you want. You'll be fine either way. The comical view that it'll be a "winner takes all" subset of developers who some how would have figured out secret AI techniques that make them 10Kx more productive and every other developer will be SOL is laughable.
  - wiseowise 8mo ago
    > Put another way, the ability to use AI became an important factor in overall software engineering ability this year, and as the year goes on the gap between the best and worst users or AI will widen faster because the models will outpace the harnesses Is it, lol? Know any case where those “the best users of AI” get salary bumps or promotions? Outside of switching to the dedicated AI role that is? So far I see clowns doing triple the work for the same salary.
    - anthonypasq96 8mo ago
      have fun keeping a job doing 1/3 the work of people getting paid the same as you :)
      - wiseowise 8mo ago
        I’m from Europe, so I’ll do just that. Thankfully labor laws are strong enough here to withstand this absurdity.
  - wedog6 8mo ago
    I mean if the capacity has outpaced people's ability to use it, to me that's a good sign that a lot of the future improvements will be making it easier to use.
- jaapbadlands 8mo ago
  The baseline, out-of-the-box basic tool level will lift, but so will the more obscure esoteric high-level tools that the better programmers will learn to control, further separating themselves in ability from the people who wait for the lowest common denominator to do their job for them.
  - daxfohl 8mo ago
    Maybe. But so far ime most of the esoteric tools in the AI space are esoteric because they're not very good. When something gets good, it's quickly commoditized. Until coding systems are truly at human-replacement level, I think I'd always prefer to hire an engineer with strong manual coding skills than one who specializes in vibe coding. It's far easier to teach AI tools to a good coder than to teach coding discipline to a vibe coder.
    - red75prime 8mo ago
      I wonder if psychology plays a role here. An engineer with strong manual coding skills might be hesitant to admit that a tool has become good enough to warrant less involvement.
q3k 8mo ago
Why should I worry about lacking preparation in the future? Why can't I just learn this as any other skill at any other time?
- mgraczyk 8mo ago
  You'll be behind by a few months at least, and that could be anywhere from slightly harmful to devasting to your career
  - q3k 8mo ago
    How so? Why would a couple of months break in employment (worst case, if I truly become unemployable for some reason until I learn the tools) harm or destroy my career?
  - wiseowise 8mo ago
    Lmao, this is your brain on brainrot LLM FOMO. Better not waste time on HN, you’re wasting precious minutes getting ahead of (imaginary) competition!
AstroBen 8mo ago
> you have to account for the fact that AI will get better rapidly that's nowhere near guaranteed
- holoduke 8mo ago
  Nothing gets worse in computers. Name me one thing. And if the current output quality of LLM stays the same but speed goes up 1000, quality of the generated code can be higher.
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    Hot keys. Used to be, you could drive a program from the keyboard with hotkeys and macros. No mouse. The function keys did functions. You could drive the interface blindfolded, once you learned it. Speed is another one. Why does VSCode take so long to open? and use so much memory and CPU? it's got a lot of features for a text editor, but it's worse than vim/emacs in a lot of ways. Boot time. Understandability. A Z80 processor was a lot more understandable than today's modern CPUs. That's worse. Complexity. It's great that I can run python on a microcontroller and all, but boring old c was a lot easier to reason about. Wtf is a typescript. CSS is the fucking worst. Native GUI libraries are so much better but we decided those aren't cool anymore. Touchscreens. I want physical buttons that my muscle memory can take over and get ingrained in and on. Like an old stick shift car that you have mechanical empathy with. Smartphones are convenient as all hell, but I can't drive mine after a decade like you can a car you know and feel, that has physical levers and knobs and buttons. Jabber/Pidgin/XMPP. There was a brief moment around 2010? when you didn't have to care what platform someone else was using, you could just text with them on one app. Now I've got a dozen different apps I need to use to talk to all of my friends. Beeper gets it, but they're hamstrung. This is a thing that got worse with computers! Ever hear of wirths law? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law Computers are stupid fast these days! why does it take so long to do everything on my laptop? my mac's spotlight index is broken, so it takes it roughly 4 seconds to query the SQLite database or whatever just so I can open preview.app. I can open a terminal and open it myself in that time! And yes, these are personal problems, but I have these problems. How did the software get into such a state that it's possible for me to have this problem?
lelanthran 8mo ago
> If you're not using it now you may end up lacking preparation when it becomes more valuable You think it's going to get harder to use as time goes on?
rsynnott 8mo ago
> If you're not using it now you may end up lacking preparation when it becomes more valuable How's that? If it ever gets good, it seems rather implausible that today's tool-of-the-month will turn out to be the winner.
- empath75 8mo ago
  It won’t, the state of the art is changing so quickly it is near impossible to stay on top of. Right now claude code is doing stuff for our team that was impossible with ai coding six month ago. Probably a year from now it will be something else. I think that if you are not staying on top of things though, you will discover that you should have stayed more on top of things the day you get fired.
  - rsynnott 8mo ago
    We’ll see. I have noticed a troubling skill atrophy in some people who heavily use LLMs (this is particularly concerning because it renders them incompetent to review ‘their own’ PRs prior to submission). I’m… not keen to sign up for that for no reason, tbh.

daxfohl 8mo ago

But as it gets better, it'll also get easier, be built into existing products you already use, etc. So I wouldn't worry too much about that aspect. If you enjoy tinkering, or really want to dive deep into fundamentals, that's one thing, but I wouldn't worry too much about "learning to use some tool", as fast as things are changing.

mgraczyk 8mo ago
I don't think so. That's a good point but the capability has been outpacing people's ability to use it for a while and that will continue. Put another way, the ability to use AI became an important factor in overall software engineering ability this year, and as the year goes on the gap between the best and worst users or AI will widen faster because the models will outpace the harnesses
- daxfohl 8mo ago
  I mean, right now "bleeding edge" is an autonomous agents system that spends a million dollars making an unbelievably bad browser prototype in a week. Very high effort and the results are jibberish. By the time these sorts of things are actually reliable, they'll be productized single-click installer apps on your network server, with a simple web interface to manage them. If you just mean, "hey you should learn to use the latest version of Claude Code", sure.
  - mgraczyk 8mo ago
    I mean that you should stay up to date and practiced on how to get the most out of models. Using harnesses like Claude code sure, but also knowing their strengths and weaknesses so you can learn when and how to delegate and take on more scope
    - daxfohl 8mo ago
      Okay yeah that's a good middle ground, and I'd even say I agree. It's not about being on the bleeding edge or being a first adopter or anything, but the fact that if you commit to a tool, it's almost always worth spending some time learning how to use it most effectively.
- eddythompson80 8mo ago
  That’s the comical understanding being pushed by management in software companies yes. The people who never actually use the tools themselves, but the concept of it. It’s the same AGI nonesense, but dumped down to something they think they can control.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - anthonypasq96 8mo ago
    why does every AI skeptic assume that everyone is lying to them. theres millions of developers using AI to be more productive and you just keep plugging your ears and screaming, claiming its only dumb managers, meanwhile Linus Torvalds is vibe coding stuff.
    - eddythompson80 8mo ago
      Who said anything about that? The argument was "if you're not using AI RIGHT NOW, you will fall behind forever" This is the nonsense management and CTOs are pushing. Use it now if you want, I do. Wait for things to cool down if you want. You'll be fine either way. The comical view that it'll be a "winner takes all" subset of developers who some how would have figured out secret AI techniques that make them 10Kx more productive and every other developer will be SOL is laughable.
- wiseowise 8mo ago
  > Put another way, the ability to use AI became an important factor in overall software engineering ability this year, and as the year goes on the gap between the best and worst users or AI will widen faster because the models will outpace the harnesses Is it, lol? Know any case where those “the best users of AI” get salary bumps or promotions? Outside of switching to the dedicated AI role that is? So far I see clowns doing triple the work for the same salary.
  - anthonypasq96 8mo ago
    have fun keeping a job doing 1/3 the work of people getting paid the same as you :)
    - wiseowise 8mo ago
      I’m from Europe, so I’ll do just that. Thankfully labor laws are strong enough here to withstand this absurdity.
- wedog6 8mo ago
  I mean if the capacity has outpaced people's ability to use it, to me that's a good sign that a lot of the future improvements will be making it easier to use.
jaapbadlands 8mo ago
The baseline, out-of-the-box basic tool level will lift, but so will the more obscure esoteric high-level tools that the better programmers will learn to control, further separating themselves in ability from the people who wait for the lowest common denominator to do their job for them.
- daxfohl 8mo ago
  Maybe. But so far ime most of the esoteric tools in the AI space are esoteric because they're not very good. When something gets good, it's quickly commoditized. Until coding systems are truly at human-replacement level, I think I'd always prefer to hire an engineer with strong manual coding skills than one who specializes in vibe coding. It's far easier to teach AI tools to a good coder than to teach coding discipline to a vibe coder.
  - red75prime 8mo ago
    I wonder if psychology plays a role here. An engineer with strong manual coding skills might be hesitant to admit that a tool has become good enough to warrant less involvement.

q3k 8mo ago

Why should I worry about lacking preparation in the future? Why can't I just learn this as any other skill at any other time?

mgraczyk 8mo ago
You'll be behind by a few months at least, and that could be anywhere from slightly harmful to devasting to your career
- q3k 8mo ago
  How so? Why would a couple of months break in employment (worst case, if I truly become unemployable for some reason until I learn the tools) harm or destroy my career?
- wiseowise 8mo ago
  Lmao, this is your brain on brainrot LLM FOMO. Better not waste time on HN, you’re wasting precious minutes getting ahead of (imaginary) competition!

AstroBen 8mo ago

> you have to account for the fact that AI will get better rapidly that's nowhere near guaranteed

holoduke 8mo ago
Nothing gets worse in computers. Name me one thing. And if the current output quality of LLM stays the same but speed goes up 1000, quality of the generated code can be higher.
- fragmede 8mo ago
  Hot keys. Used to be, you could drive a program from the keyboard with hotkeys and macros. No mouse. The function keys did functions. You could drive the interface blindfolded, once you learned it. Speed is another one. Why does VSCode take so long to open? and use so much memory and CPU? it's got a lot of features for a text editor, but it's worse than vim/emacs in a lot of ways. Boot time. Understandability. A Z80 processor was a lot more understandable than today's modern CPUs. That's worse. Complexity. It's great that I can run python on a microcontroller and all, but boring old c was a lot easier to reason about. Wtf is a typescript. CSS is the fucking worst. Native GUI libraries are so much better but we decided those aren't cool anymore. Touchscreens. I want physical buttons that my muscle memory can take over and get ingrained in and on. Like an old stick shift car that you have mechanical empathy with. Smartphones are convenient as all hell, but I can't drive mine after a decade like you can a car you know and feel, that has physical levers and knobs and buttons. Jabber/Pidgin/XMPP. There was a brief moment around 2010? when you didn't have to care what platform someone else was using, you could just text with them on one app. Now I've got a dozen different apps I need to use to talk to all of my friends. Beeper gets it, but they're hamstrung. This is a thing that got worse with computers! Ever hear of wirths law? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law Computers are stupid fast these days! why does it take so long to do everything on my laptop? my mac's spotlight index is broken, so it takes it roughly 4 seconds to query the SQLite database or whatever just so I can open preview.app. I can open a terminal and open it myself in that time! And yes, these are personal problems, but I have these problems. How did the software get into such a state that it's possible for me to have this problem?

lelanthran 8mo ago

> If you're not using it now you may end up lacking preparation when it becomes more valuable You think it's going to get harder to use as time goes on?

rsynnott 8mo ago

> If you're not using it now you may end up lacking preparation when it becomes more valuable How's that? If it ever gets good, it seems rather implausible that today's tool-of-the-month will turn out to be the winner.

empath75 8mo ago
It won’t, the state of the art is changing so quickly it is near impossible to stay on top of. Right now claude code is doing stuff for our team that was impossible with ai coding six month ago. Probably a year from now it will be something else. I think that if you are not staying on top of things though, you will discover that you should have stayed more on top of things the day you get fired.
- rsynnott 8mo ago
  We’ll see. I have noticed a troubling skill atrophy in some people who heavily use LLMs (this is particularly concerning because it renders them incompetent to review ‘their own’ PRs prior to submission). I’m… not keen to sign up for that for no reason, tbh.