4 ms·

I agree with you, which is why I think it's a straw man. How many real devs are actually banging the "you're getting left behind!" drums?

foolserrandboy 7mo ago
The executives are, not the devs.
bena 7mo ago
You're using a no-true-Scotsman to accuse the author of a strawman. Consider that.
apsurd 7mo ago
It can be implicit though. The llm person having a blast is compelled to push everyone to see what they see. If they have a leadership role at their company, then the getting-left-behind drum does get banged in the form of "ai native company transformation" initiatives.
SpicyLemonZest 7mo ago
Lots, and not just online. I run into them regularly in my office, and so do my friends and family in tech. One of my coworkers is now spending all his time writing SKILLs, he's convinced that we'll never need to solve operational issues again if we have the right SKILLs.
Fraterkes 7mo ago
I think FOMO-aligned ai stuff is fairly common on HN, doesn't mean it's always deliberately manipulative.
mekael 7mo ago
I had an heavy ai user on my team say that “those who learn how ti use the tools wont get fired, those who dont are gone”. I used it to generate a bunch of cfn and it worked fine from an example and a couple line prompt, doesnt seem that hard to learn to me. Now reviewing the 1k lines it generated and making sure its secure, thats going to take me longer than writing it by hand.
- stavros 7mo ago
  Yeah, I think this is it. If you don't learn to use them, you'll be much slower than people who do, but also they're not really that hard to learn, so it's not super urgent.
  - mekael 7mo ago
    I'm still confused about the things I'll be slower in though, and I'm being sincere with that confusion. If it's "boilerplate", then I haven't done enough research or pick a library which has little to none of that, or I'm not using the template(s) built into whatever framework I am using. For example, in one of the projects I'm working on, I'm using the VSA pattern. I have the list of 50 to 75 features I need to implement and what "categories" they slot into, I have all of the frameworks and libraries picked out, and I have built out "feature templates" with all of the boilerplate setup (I'm reusing these over multiple projects going forward). for each of the features all I need to do is 'ftr new {FEATURE_TYPE} {FEATURE_NAME} {OUTPUT_FOLDER}' and then plug int the domain specific business logic. I'll most likely use Claude/Codex/Whatever to write out some of my tests, but the majority of the 'boilerplate' is already done and I'm just sorting out the pieces that matter / can't be automated. Am I missing something huge with these tools? Don't get me wrong, for doing reverse engineering they're great helpers and I've made a tonne of progress on projects that had been languishing.
    - stavros 7mo ago
      I find that can write features 5-10x faster with these tools than by hand, at a comparable level of quality (though it hasn't been long enough for me to judge what'll happen in a year).
      - mekael 7mo ago
        Would you be able to give an example of a feature? For my example, I need to query an ancient undocumented database , pull back a pile of data, do some validations on it, and then show it to the user or pass it along with another processing step. The human part is researching the database and the data living in it, and implementing the validation(s) while talking to a business user, everything else can be templated.
bleuarff 7mo ago
I don't know for devs, but that's the message we get from upper management.
bigstrat2003 7mo ago
I have personally heard people say this at work. It's not a strawman, there really is a message of "you'll be left behind" out there.
mrguyorama 7mo ago
Devs don't make hiring and firing decisions.
whateveracct 7mo ago
> How many real devs are actually banging the "you're getting left behind!" drums? My CEO/CTO :)

foolserrandboy 7mo ago

The executives are, not the devs.

bena 7mo ago

You're using a no-true-Scotsman to accuse the author of a strawman. Consider that.

apsurd 7mo ago

It can be implicit though. The llm person having a blast is compelled to push everyone to see what they see. If they have a leadership role at their company, then the getting-left-behind drum does get banged in the form of "ai native company transformation" initiatives.

SpicyLemonZest 7mo ago

Lots, and not just online. I run into them regularly in my office, and so do my friends and family in tech. One of my coworkers is now spending all his time writing SKILLs, he's convinced that we'll never need to solve operational issues again if we have the right SKILLs.

Fraterkes 7mo ago

I think FOMO-aligned ai stuff is fairly common on HN, doesn't mean it's always deliberately manipulative.

mekael 7mo ago

I had an heavy ai user on my team say that “those who learn how ti use the tools wont get fired, those who dont are gone”. I used it to generate a bunch of cfn and it worked fine from an example and a couple line prompt, doesnt seem that hard to learn to me. Now reviewing the 1k lines it generated and making sure its secure, thats going to take me longer than writing it by hand.

stavros 7mo ago
Yeah, I think this is it. If you don't learn to use them, you'll be much slower than people who do, but also they're not really that hard to learn, so it's not super urgent.
- mekael 7mo ago
  I'm still confused about the things I'll be slower in though, and I'm being sincere with that confusion. If it's "boilerplate", then I haven't done enough research or pick a library which has little to none of that, or I'm not using the template(s) built into whatever framework I am using. For example, in one of the projects I'm working on, I'm using the VSA pattern. I have the list of 50 to 75 features I need to implement and what "categories" they slot into, I have all of the frameworks and libraries picked out, and I have built out "feature templates" with all of the boilerplate setup (I'm reusing these over multiple projects going forward). for each of the features all I need to do is 'ftr new {FEATURE_TYPE} {FEATURE_NAME} {OUTPUT_FOLDER}' and then plug int the domain specific business logic. I'll most likely use Claude/Codex/Whatever to write out some of my tests, but the majority of the 'boilerplate' is already done and I'm just sorting out the pieces that matter / can't be automated. Am I missing something huge with these tools? Don't get me wrong, for doing reverse engineering they're great helpers and I've made a tonne of progress on projects that had been languishing.
  - stavros 7mo ago
    I find that can write features 5-10x faster with these tools than by hand, at a comparable level of quality (though it hasn't been long enough for me to judge what'll happen in a year).
    - mekael 7mo ago
      Would you be able to give an example of a feature? For my example, I need to query an ancient undocumented database , pull back a pile of data, do some validations on it, and then show it to the user or pass it along with another processing step. The human part is researching the database and the data living in it, and implementing the validation(s) while talking to a business user, everything else can be templated.

bleuarff 7mo ago

I don't know for devs, but that's the message we get from upper management.

bigstrat2003 7mo ago

I have personally heard people say this at work. It's not a strawman, there really is a message of "you'll be left behind" out there.

mrguyorama 7mo ago

Devs don't make hiring and firing decisions.

whateveracct 7mo ago

> How many real devs are actually banging the "you're getting left behind!" drums? My CEO/CTO :)