5 ms·

As a professional programmer entering the final third of an enjoyable career, I would now place "learning to code" in the same category as "making a living as a

by ekidd 3mo ago

As a professional programmer entering the final third of an enjoyable career, I would now place "learning to code" in the same category as "making a living as a poet." As in, it's truly enjoyable art and some people appreciate it, but you'd better plan for a day job. Senior people who already know how to code are doing OKish for now, from the data I've seen, but the job is increasingly babysitting models like they were junior contributors.

Animats 3mo ago
> As a professional programmer entering the final third of an enjoyable career, I would now place "learning to code" in the same category as "making a living as a poet." As in, it's truly enjoyable art and some people appreciate it, but you'd better plan for a day job. Not wrong. Probably. I'm reminded of an old friend from long ago. She was an early music major at Harvard, and graduated with a MFA. She was very good. She read and wrote Latin and Greek, could compose and play music using medieval notations, and published a book on early needlepoint. She never obtained an academic appointment. She never found a job that needed those skills. She died alone a few years ago. That may be the fate of many programmers.
- tkocmathla 3mo ago
  > I'm reminded of an old friend from long ago. She was an early music major at Harvard, and graduated with a MFA. She was very good. She read and wrote Latin and Greek, could compose and play music using medieval notations, and published a book on early needlepoint. This sounds to me like a life well lived!
- alightsoul 3mo ago
  If I have learned something is that people in this field of work highly underestimate their skills. I still remember when people said gpt 3.5 was the end of programming and that I shouldn't pursue it. I am so glad I took the risk anyway. Although things are much brighter outside the us and Europe https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report exactly the same countries where ai is mostly seen as unacceptable.
- stackbutterflow 3mo ago
  It's such a shame that our society doesn't value more, in economic terms, this type of skills.
  - mangodrunk 3mo ago
    Can you expand on why you think society should value it?
    - b40d-48b2-979e 3mo ago
      What is a society without culture? Decline.
StilesCrisis 3mo ago
The babysitting work would still be impossible if you didn't actually know how to code.
- deeprack4sure 3mo ago
  And thats why noone should learn to code.
- JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
  > babysitting work would still be impossible if you didn't actually know how to code It will be fewer and fewer people with, probably, deeper and deeper knowledge (and job security and compensation to boot). Poet is a bad comparison. But something like low-level semiconductor physics or assembly is closer to the mark.
- DrewADesign 3mo ago
  Right, but if things progress as they promised, it will require far fewer people to do the same work, which means the industry already has all the people it so need for at least a couple decades. That’s what happened with tool and die guys when offshoring kicked off, and now they’re scrambling to get apprentices because the last of the OG ones are retiring. There were decades that pretty much nobody (relative to prior eras) got trained for that work.
  - patch_dev 3mo ago
    You're making an assumption on what AI lab have promised? The same AI labs that have made a strategy out of lying for hype? Thats crazy man, regardless of whether anything else you're saying is valid.
    - DrewADesign 3mo ago
      That’s why I said “if” and not “when.”
  - drTobiasFunke 3mo ago
    You are assuming that the amount of work is finite, so more productive people implies fewer people are required. Is that the case though? Has it ever been?
DrewADesign 3mo ago
Yeah. I’ve been saying that for a while (and switched fields entirely.) People were getting hung up on the idea that an LLM could not truly replace a developer, and that’s true, but it doesn’t matter. For the job market to be severely impacted, you just need to reduce the number of people required to do the parts of the job that LLMs suck at, and that only requires increased efficiency for existing developers. Even if your average developer is a measly 30% more efficient, that might create 20% less demand for developers, which would have a giant impact on demand, which would have a giant impact on wages for those still employed.
- swsieber 3mo ago
  > Even if your average developer is a measly 30% more efficient, that might create 20% less demand for developers I mean it might. But I wouldn't rule out Jevon's paradox where the increased efficiency increases demand. Build more roads, congestion gets worse. Make developers more efficient, demand for developers increases. I wouldn't be surprised if demand for bespoke software goes up.
  - stackbutterflow 3mo ago
    I see it go in either two directions, assuming it plateaus at a marginal increase in productivity. Either this newly found productivity helps teams tackle backlog tasks that they never had the time to complete, or it's used to churn out more low quality work.
    - DrewADesign 3mo ago
      We can get a preview of it all in the media creation world. Slop slop slop.
- Wowfunhappy 3mo ago
  Did Object Oriented programming create less demand for developers?
  - 3mo ago
koe123 3mo ago
Can I ask what data you are seeing?
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
skydhash 3mo ago
> I would now place "learning to code" in the same category as "making a living as a poet." As in, it's truly enjoyable art and some people appreciate it, but you'd better plan for a day job. Learning to code is not merely learning a syntax and some tooling. It’s best described in the SICP and HTDP books, as a mindset of formalizing a process enough that a dumb machine could do it. Then by building abstractions towers, we have better symbols and semantics to notate the formal aspect. It seems that a lot of management no longer wants to provide workflows tooling to their users. Instead they want to create a wish box where those workflows would materialize somehow.
da02 3mo ago
Which models and tools do you use to write and validate code?
alightsoul 3mo ago
Well I guess this is highly location dependent. Outside western countries where ai is not acceptable, https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report ai has driven up demand for software.
ozgrakkurt 3mo ago
> from the data I've seen, Where is the data? There is no data but a lot of vibes, from the data I have seen
62951413 3mo ago
Pro: In the last ten years backend development has turned into AWS SDK-orientied programming mostly. Databricks-oriented in case of data engineering recently too. Between this and python/js popularity it is more of unskilled labor now. Contra: I'm reading digital circuits and introductory FPGA programming books this summer - fullstack development for the robotics dominated future here I come ;) Granted some EE classes in your old major will help. But modern digital circuits and embedded hardware space also have a lot of similarity to your muscle memory as a software developer.

by ekidd 3mo ago

Animats 3mo ago

> As a professional programmer entering the final third of an enjoyable career, I would now place "learning to code" in the same category as "making a living as a poet." As in, it's truly enjoyable art and some people appreciate it, but you'd better plan for a day job. Not wrong. Probably. I'm reminded of an old friend from long ago. She was an early music major at Harvard, and graduated with a MFA. She was very good. She read and wrote Latin and Greek, could compose and play music using medieval notations, and published a book on early needlepoint. She never obtained an academic appointment. She never found a job that needed those skills. She died alone a few years ago. That may be the fate of many programmers.

tkocmathla 3mo ago
> I'm reminded of an old friend from long ago. She was an early music major at Harvard, and graduated with a MFA. She was very good. She read and wrote Latin and Greek, could compose and play music using medieval notations, and published a book on early needlepoint. This sounds to me like a life well lived!
alightsoul 3mo ago
If I have learned something is that people in this field of work highly underestimate their skills. I still remember when people said gpt 3.5 was the end of programming and that I shouldn't pursue it. I am so glad I took the risk anyway. Although things are much brighter outside the us and Europe https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report exactly the same countries where ai is mostly seen as unacceptable.
stackbutterflow 3mo ago
It's such a shame that our society doesn't value more, in economic terms, this type of skills.
- mangodrunk 3mo ago
  Can you expand on why you think society should value it?
  - b40d-48b2-979e 3mo ago
    What is a society without culture? Decline.

StilesCrisis 3mo ago

The babysitting work would still be impossible if you didn't actually know how to code.

deeprack4sure 3mo ago
And thats why noone should learn to code.
JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
> babysitting work would still be impossible if you didn't actually know how to code It will be fewer and fewer people with, probably, deeper and deeper knowledge (and job security and compensation to boot). Poet is a bad comparison. But something like low-level semiconductor physics or assembly is closer to the mark.
DrewADesign 3mo ago
Right, but if things progress as they promised, it will require far fewer people to do the same work, which means the industry already has all the people it so need for at least a couple decades. That’s what happened with tool and die guys when offshoring kicked off, and now they’re scrambling to get apprentices because the last of the OG ones are retiring. There were decades that pretty much nobody (relative to prior eras) got trained for that work.
- patch_dev 3mo ago
  You're making an assumption on what AI lab have promised? The same AI labs that have made a strategy out of lying for hype? Thats crazy man, regardless of whether anything else you're saying is valid.
  - DrewADesign 3mo ago
    That’s why I said “if” and not “when.”
- drTobiasFunke 3mo ago
  You are assuming that the amount of work is finite, so more productive people implies fewer people are required. Is that the case though? Has it ever been?

DrewADesign 3mo ago

Yeah. I’ve been saying that for a while (and switched fields entirely.) People were getting hung up on the idea that an LLM could not truly replace a developer, and that’s true, but it doesn’t matter. For the job market to be severely impacted, you just need to reduce the number of people required to do the parts of the job that LLMs suck at, and that only requires increased efficiency for existing developers. Even if your average developer is a measly 30% more efficient, that might create 20% less demand for developers, which would have a giant impact on demand, which would have a giant impact on wages for those still employed.

swsieber 3mo ago
> Even if your average developer is a measly 30% more efficient, that might create 20% less demand for developers I mean it might. But I wouldn't rule out Jevon's paradox where the increased efficiency increases demand. Build more roads, congestion gets worse. Make developers more efficient, demand for developers increases. I wouldn't be surprised if demand for bespoke software goes up.
- stackbutterflow 3mo ago
  I see it go in either two directions, assuming it plateaus at a marginal increase in productivity. Either this newly found productivity helps teams tackle backlog tasks that they never had the time to complete, or it's used to churn out more low quality work.
  - DrewADesign 3mo ago
    We can get a preview of it all in the media creation world. Slop slop slop.
Wowfunhappy 3mo ago
Did Object Oriented programming create less demand for developers?
- 3mo ago

koe123 3mo ago

Can I ask what data you are seeing?

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

skydhash 3mo ago

> I would now place "learning to code" in the same category as "making a living as a poet." As in, it's truly enjoyable art and some people appreciate it, but you'd better plan for a day job. Learning to code is not merely learning a syntax and some tooling. It’s best described in the SICP and HTDP books, as a mindset of formalizing a process enough that a dumb machine could do it. Then by building abstractions towers, we have better symbols and semantics to notate the formal aspect. It seems that a lot of management no longer wants to provide workflows tooling to their users. Instead they want to create a wish box where those workflows would materialize somehow.

da02 3mo ago

Which models and tools do you use to write and validate code?

alightsoul 3mo ago

Well I guess this is highly location dependent. Outside western countries where ai is not acceptable, https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report ai has driven up demand for software.

ozgrakkurt 3mo ago

> from the data I've seen, Where is the data? There is no data but a lot of vibes, from the data I have seen

62951413 3mo ago

Pro: In the last ten years backend development has turned into AWS SDK-orientied programming mostly. Databricks-oriented in case of data engineering recently too. Between this and python/js popularity it is more of unskilled labor now. Contra: I'm reading digital circuits and introductory FPGA programming books this summer - fullstack development for the robotics dominated future here I come ;) Granted some EE classes in your old major will help. But modern digital circuits and embedded hardware space also have a lot of similarity to your muscle memory as a software developer.