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You’re missing the group of high performers who love coding, who just want to bring more stuff in the world than their limited human brains have the energy or t

You’re missing the group of high performers who love coding, who just want to bring more stuff in the world than their limited human brains have the energy or time to build. I love coding. I taught myself from a book (no internet yet) when I was 10, and haven’t stopped for 30 years. Turned down becoming a manager several times. I loved it so much that I went through an existential crisis in February as I had to let go of that part of my identity. I seriously thought about quitting. But for years, it has been so frustrating that the time it took me to imagine roughly how to build something (10-30 minutes depending on complexity) was always dwarfed by the amount of time it took to grind it out (days or sometimes weeks). That’s no longer true, and that’s incredibly freeing. So the game now is to learn to use this stuff in a way that I enjoy, while going faster and maintaining quality where it matters. There are some gray beards out there who I trust who say it’s possible, so I’m gonna try.

blindriver 6mo ago
Yes I'm exactly like you as well. I've been coding for 30+ years, I still love coding and system building etc, but sometimes the level of frustration to find the information and then get something working is simply too high. Over a weekend, I used ChatGPT to set up Prometheus and Grafana and added node exporters to everything I could think of. I even told ChatGPT to create NOC-style dashboards for me, given the metrics I gave it. This is something that would have painstakingly take several weeks if not more to figure out, and it's something I've been wanting to do but the cognitive load and anticipatory frustration was too high for me to start. I love how it enables me to just do things. My next step is to integrate some programs that I wrote that I still use every day to collect data and then show it on the dashboards as well. On a side note, I don't know why Grafana hasn't more deeply integrated with AI. Having to sift through all the ridiculous metrics that different node exporters advertise with no hint of naming convention makes using Grafana so much harder. I cut and pasted all the metrics and dumped it into ChatGPT and told it to make the panels I wanted (ex. "Give me a dashboard that shows the status of all my servers" and it's able to pick and choose the correct metrics across my Windows server, Macbooks and studio, my Linux machines, etc), but Grafana should have this integrated themselves directly into themselves.
- linkregister 6mo ago
  Are you making this complaint about the AGPL-licensed Grafana dashboard, or the licensed Enterprise edition?
Fr0styMatt88 6mo ago
Good point and I’m exactly at the same point as you with this. Working on letting go of the idea (and to be honest just the habit) that it’s somehow ‘cheating’ at the moment.
nothinkjustai 6mo ago
[flagged]
- CaptainFever 6mo ago
  ^ This is a troll; new account, troll username.
  - linkregister 6mo ago
    None of the comments in my sample of this account were troll-sentiment. It's ok to have a viewpoint and name an account about it.
  - nothinkjustai 6mo ago
    Not a troll. I’ve been doing a lot of self reflection on this topic lately. Some people seem to enjoy software for the act & craft, where the outcome / artifact is secondary or irrelevant. I don’t. Some people enjoy the artifacts it produces, for their utility or economic value. Not really me either. Often people frame it as this dichotomy, but I’ve realized my enjoyment and self-fulfillment comes from creating an artifact that is genuinely good and that I can be proud of creating. Too much AI robs me of this. I’ve created cool stuff with AI that leaves me feeling nothing because I didn’t really create it.
    - physicles 6mo ago
      This is all valid. Your original comment came across as a troll because it implied that nobody could ever feel good about stuff they built with AI. Asserting that you know more about the emotional state of strangers on the internet than they know themselves is arrogant.
      - nothinkjustai 6mo ago
        Well, it’s a genuine question. Like, if I have a machine in my house where I give it a recipe and it spits out the food, should I feel good about having “cooked” that food? Or what if someone prompts an AI for some art, should they feel proud of “creating” that art? I think not. And it’s the same with code. Depending on how much of the work you actually did should influence how you talk and feel about a creation. So many people lazily prompt an AI and then come here to post about something they “made” and I think that’s wrong.

blindriver 6mo ago

Yes I'm exactly like you as well. I've been coding for 30+ years, I still love coding and system building etc, but sometimes the level of frustration to find the information and then get something working is simply too high. Over a weekend, I used ChatGPT to set up Prometheus and Grafana and added node exporters to everything I could think of. I even told ChatGPT to create NOC-style dashboards for me, given the metrics I gave it. This is something that would have painstakingly take several weeks if not more to figure out, and it's something I've been wanting to do but the cognitive load and anticipatory frustration was too high for me to start. I love how it enables me to just do things. My next step is to integrate some programs that I wrote that I still use every day to collect data and then show it on the dashboards as well. On a side note, I don't know why Grafana hasn't more deeply integrated with AI. Having to sift through all the ridiculous metrics that different node exporters advertise with no hint of naming convention makes using Grafana so much harder. I cut and pasted all the metrics and dumped it into ChatGPT and told it to make the panels I wanted (ex. "Give me a dashboard that shows the status of all my servers" and it's able to pick and choose the correct metrics across my Windows server, Macbooks and studio, my Linux machines, etc), but Grafana should have this integrated themselves directly into themselves.

linkregister 6mo ago
Are you making this complaint about the AGPL-licensed Grafana dashboard, or the licensed Enterprise edition?

Fr0styMatt88 6mo ago

Good point and I’m exactly at the same point as you with this. Working on letting go of the idea (and to be honest just the habit) that it’s somehow ‘cheating’ at the moment.

nothinkjustai 6mo ago

[flagged]

CaptainFever 6mo ago
^ This is a troll; new account, troll username.
- linkregister 6mo ago
  None of the comments in my sample of this account were troll-sentiment. It's ok to have a viewpoint and name an account about it.
- nothinkjustai 6mo ago
  Not a troll. I’ve been doing a lot of self reflection on this topic lately. Some people seem to enjoy software for the act & craft, where the outcome / artifact is secondary or irrelevant. I don’t. Some people enjoy the artifacts it produces, for their utility or economic value. Not really me either. Often people frame it as this dichotomy, but I’ve realized my enjoyment and self-fulfillment comes from creating an artifact that is genuinely good and that I can be proud of creating. Too much AI robs me of this. I’ve created cool stuff with AI that leaves me feeling nothing because I didn’t really create it.
  - physicles 6mo ago
    This is all valid. Your original comment came across as a troll because it implied that nobody could ever feel good about stuff they built with AI. Asserting that you know more about the emotional state of strangers on the internet than they know themselves is arrogant.
    - nothinkjustai 6mo ago
      Well, it’s a genuine question. Like, if I have a machine in my house where I give it a recipe and it spits out the food, should I feel good about having “cooked” that food? Or what if someone prompts an AI for some art, should they feel proud of “creating” that art? I think not. And it’s the same with code. Depending on how much of the work you actually did should influence how you talk and feel about a creation. So many people lazily prompt an AI and then come here to post about something they “made” and I think that’s wrong.