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> I’m working on a program for myself and the overall architecture of the program as well as some parts of its implementation are clever and compose well to mak

by danans 3mo ago

> I’m working on a program for myself and the overall architecture of the program as well as some parts of its implementation are clever and compose well to make the codebase a joy to work in. I am not simply “mapping features to mundane technical details”. You said it: you are working on a "program for yourself". Hobbyist craft programming will always be here. The question is what kind of software engineering will be paid for, and a career can be built on. I don't see much of a market for pure software engineers anymore. You also need to be a product manager, scientist, or have some other domain knowledge adjacent to software that relates to the real world. I say this with empathy for those who just enjoyed the craft of designing and building software, and thought that alone would provide them a livelihood and career in perpetuity, but have found a big chunk of what they loved doing (and getting paid for) overtaken by AI coding agents.

slopinthebag 3mo ago
What I said equally applies to commercial software as well. It's pretty much the only way to build software which is extensible, maintainable, mostly bug-free, and performant. That companies often churn out slop isn't proof that it's unnecessary, it's evidence that it is.
- waffuldrop 3mo ago
  I think most of what you claim to be doing better is really just a result of you not really being confronted with any sort of "adversarial input", at least not as much as you'd have in corporate it's hard to trust a claim about someone writing "bug-free" and "extensible/maintainable" code from the singular developer and user for that system... maintainability can't really be a thing you can judge when you're not a single step removed from the person who built it in the first place - maybe you'll feel different if you have to pick up the project again after a couple years' inactivity
  - slopinthebag 3mo ago
    Oh I didn't say I nailed the design of my current project, I hope I did, but I doubt it. It's nice to work in now but I imagine I'll screw it up at some point. I think I've built like 3 things in my life which I consider to have good design. Sadly they are tucked away in private corporate repos. Design is hard!

by danans 3mo ago

slopinthebag 3mo ago

What I said equally applies to commercial software as well. It's pretty much the only way to build software which is extensible, maintainable, mostly bug-free, and performant. That companies often churn out slop isn't proof that it's unnecessary, it's evidence that it is.

waffuldrop 3mo ago
I think most of what you claim to be doing better is really just a result of you not really being confronted with any sort of "adversarial input", at least not as much as you'd have in corporate it's hard to trust a claim about someone writing "bug-free" and "extensible/maintainable" code from the singular developer and user for that system... maintainability can't really be a thing you can judge when you're not a single step removed from the person who built it in the first place - maybe you'll feel different if you have to pick up the project again after a couple years' inactivity
- slopinthebag 3mo ago
  Oh I didn't say I nailed the design of my current project, I hope I did, but I doubt it. It's nice to work in now but I imagine I'll screw it up at some point. I think I've built like 3 things in my life which I consider to have good design. Sadly they are tucked away in private corporate repos. Design is hard!