4 ms·

Why? I’m as old timer as old timer can get - started programming as a hobby in 1986 in assembly on an Apple //e in 65C02 assembly language. But just today a bu

Why? I’m as old timer as old timer can get - started programming as a hobby in 1986 in assembly on an Apple //e in 65C02 assembly language. But just today a bug was reported by a customer (we are still in testing not a production bug). I implemented this project myself from an empty git repo and an empty AWS account including 3 weeks of pre implementation discovery. I reproduced the issue and through the problem at Claude with nothing but two pieces of information - the ID of the event showing the bug and the description. It worked backwards looking at the event stream in the database, looking at the code that stored the event stream, looking at the code that generated the event stream (separate Lambda), looking at the actual config table and found the root cause in 3 minutes. After looking at the code locally, it even looked at the cached artifacts of my build and verified that what was deployed was the same thing that I had locally (same lambda deployment version in AWS as my artifacts). I had it document the debug steps it took in an md file. Why make life harder on myself? Even if it were something I was doing as a hobby, I have a wife who I want to spend time with, I’m a gym rat and I’m learning Spanish. Why would I waste 6 hours doing something that a computer could do for me in 5 minutes? Assuming he has a day job and gets off at 6, he would be spending all of his off time chasing down a bug that he could be using doing something else.

grebc 6mo ago
It’s always the journey that matters. If you’re experienced as you are, you’re not learning the same way a junior assigned this might learn from it.
- raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
  So the project I mentioned while I did write every single line of app code and IAC, made every architectural decision, etc., I did come on an off the project over the course of a year and I couldn’t even remember some of the decisions I made. I also used Codex and asked questions about how the codebase worked to refresh my own memory. Why wouldn’t a junior developer do the same? I mentioned that I had Codex describe in detail how it debugged it. It walked through each query it did, the lines of code it looked at and the IAC. It jogged my memory about code I wrote a year ago and after being on other projects
  - grebc 6mo ago
    If you’re 50+ as you intimated in your first post then you have a wealth of knowledge that juniors don’t. Just because it worked this time doesn’t mean it always will. If you need further explanation of why you might want to spend more time resolving a bug to learn about the systems you’re tasked with maintaining then I’m at a loss sorry.
    - scarface_74 6mo ago
      And then as experience developer you would have to try one of the other tools in your toolbox. Why should someone tie a hand behind their back and not use an LLM out of some sense of nerd pride?
      - grebc 6mo ago
        How do you get the experience if you always just reach for your LLM?
        icedchai 6mo ago
        This is a real issue we'll face soon enough. It's less of a problem for senior+ developers that have experience and muscle memory. For people just starting in the industry, they won't develop the ability to research problems and solve them on their own. I work with some junior level, outsourced developers that write prompts like "fix the tests." The result is, of course, bad. The consulting company charges $200+ hour for them. Garbage in, garbage out. Good thing I hit my retirement number. I can bail out anytime.
        raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
        Outsourced staff aug contractors have always been mediocre. From the contracting side, I’ve worked as a staff Aug contractor for six weeks when I was between jobs in 2012 and it was so bad I just walked off with no job lined up within four weeks. For context staff Aug vs consulting is about who owns the project Consulting = the customer gives you high level requirements and statement of work and you control the project (or your company) Staff Aug = the client controls the project and you are a warm disposable body.
LeCompteSftware 6mo ago
Did you miss this part? But he was doing this for education, not for work. That's why he should spend 6 hours on it, and not give up and run to the gym. That's like saying "I shouldn't spend an hour at the gym this week, lifting weights is hard and I want to watch TV. I'll just get my forklift to lift the weights for me!"
- raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
  With his experience, I seriously doubt that he is trying to compete in the job market based on his ability to “codez real gud”. At his (and my) experience level he is more than likely going to get his next job based on a higher level of “scope” and “impact” (yes I’m using BigTech promo docs BS).

grebc 6mo ago

It’s always the journey that matters. If you’re experienced as you are, you’re not learning the same way a junior assigned this might learn from it.

raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
So the project I mentioned while I did write every single line of app code and IAC, made every architectural decision, etc., I did come on an off the project over the course of a year and I couldn’t even remember some of the decisions I made. I also used Codex and asked questions about how the codebase worked to refresh my own memory. Why wouldn’t a junior developer do the same? I mentioned that I had Codex describe in detail how it debugged it. It walked through each query it did, the lines of code it looked at and the IAC. It jogged my memory about code I wrote a year ago and after being on other projects
- grebc 6mo ago
  If you’re 50+ as you intimated in your first post then you have a wealth of knowledge that juniors don’t. Just because it worked this time doesn’t mean it always will. If you need further explanation of why you might want to spend more time resolving a bug to learn about the systems you’re tasked with maintaining then I’m at a loss sorry.
  - scarface_74 6mo ago
    And then as experience developer you would have to try one of the other tools in your toolbox. Why should someone tie a hand behind their back and not use an LLM out of some sense of nerd pride?
    - grebc 6mo ago
      How do you get the experience if you always just reach for your LLM?
      - icedchai 6mo ago
        This is a real issue we'll face soon enough. It's less of a problem for senior+ developers that have experience and muscle memory. For people just starting in the industry, they won't develop the ability to research problems and solve them on their own. I work with some junior level, outsourced developers that write prompts like "fix the tests." The result is, of course, bad. The consulting company charges $200+ hour for them. Garbage in, garbage out. Good thing I hit my retirement number. I can bail out anytime.
        raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
        Outsourced staff aug contractors have always been mediocre. From the contracting side, I’ve worked as a staff Aug contractor for six weeks when I was between jobs in 2012 and it was so bad I just walked off with no job lined up within four weeks. For context staff Aug vs consulting is about who owns the project Consulting = the customer gives you high level requirements and statement of work and you control the project (or your company) Staff Aug = the client controls the project and you are a warm disposable body.

LeCompteSftware 6mo ago

Did you miss this part? But he was doing this for education, not for work. That's why he should spend 6 hours on it, and not give up and run to the gym. That's like saying "I shouldn't spend an hour at the gym this week, lifting weights is hard and I want to watch TV. I'll just get my forklift to lift the weights for me!"

raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
With his experience, I seriously doubt that he is trying to compete in the job market based on his ability to “codez real gud”. At his (and my) experience level he is more than likely going to get his next job based on a higher level of “scope” and “impact” (yes I’m using BigTech promo docs BS).