4 ms·

I think what happened is that a lot of the wrong personalities entered technology for all the wrong reasons. Some of us started in the 80s or 90s and got into

I think what happened is that a lot of the wrong personalities entered technology for all the wrong reasons. Some of us started in the 80s or 90s and got into it with personal projects and treating the PC as a hobby. It is satisfying to be able to command a hunk of metal and get it to do things. And it can do boring stuff really fast and repeatedly. And that alone was exciting. The majority of us would stay up into the morning hours figuring out how to compile something. Or how to get that new driver work correctly in an unsupported OS or setup. It's a lust of computing. The gadgetry. The devices. The awestruck feeling when a new computing device or technology comes out. I and many others like me still have that yearning and curiosity. I love strolling the aisles of the hardware store and computer stores for this very reason. The energy is electric. The immense amount of technology in every little thing is just mind blowing. THAT's why we do it. THAT's why we got into it. It wasn't the pay. It wasn't the glory. It was a group of us who wanted so desperately to have a computer club or an electronics lab for us to hangout and build stuff. Unfortunately, as the industry grew, all the wrong personalities entered it. Project managers, product managers, scrum/agile masters, terrible mid level managers, talentless clowns, bozos, cheerleaders, jocks. The lot of them. The non-weird, non-geeky, non-obsessive, non-nerdy types. And then they co-opted the culture. They thought wearing glasses and wearing a backpack and carrying the latest tech devices made them "it". The good thing is that the burnout hits fast for these folks. Just like the tons of medical school or law school students who are there for all the wrong reasons and realize sooner or later that this isn't at all what they wanted. Some members of this group actually become doctors and lawyers. THIS is the group that the article is talking about. They don't last, because their heart and soul are just not in it. For the rest of us? AI, no AI, walled gardens, OSS or closed. It doesn't matter. All of this geeky stuff brings us joy. I don't want to "turn off and disconnect", I want to be connected because I love this stuff. I love the simple speaker and amp and the latest LLM. And I love the latest ADAS systems in cars. This work is meaningful to me because of both the end product and the work that it took to get there. Unfortunately, the issue is that while we enjoy the geekery, the others ruin it for us because their lives suck. Sorry to be harsh.

throwaway1183 2mo ago
Oh my god!! You nailed it. I see two categories in tech. One the builder, innovators, tinkerers, those who just wanted to use tech to draw their ideas to life. Then other is artisan, those who took pride in organizing and craft. Second one is having miserable time. The former like me are having a blast. I love tech for that reason. I stopped talking to people who think LLMs are waste. It's because they don't even touch it. They think it's a taboo to touch it. So anything in tech is exciting because it enables us to do so many random things. Wish more people learnt about it.
- johnnyanmac 2mo ago
  >They think it's a taboo to touch it. I'm in a tricky situation as someone out of a full time job. Where "I love AI" might be a red flag that I'll use it to cheat. So I'm even more hesitant to make use of it.
rufasterisco 2mo ago
I belong to the "hacker-type from the 90s" group and what you wrote really resonates with me. Yet. I worked with clueless managers leading whole dev teams to burnout because they read a book and apply it verbatim, without understanding anything about it. In a team full of great "hacker-types", a new project manager arrives and in one of the first meetings says "You know you are all very intelligent, you don't need to prove it all the time". We delivered ahead of schedule, having a lot of fun, and all coders agree that he was the reason for it. I "managed" a 2 person team where the "just-in-for-money" dev was reliably churning out one API endpoint after the other one. He loved it, because it was repetitive boring work. The codebase was really consistent, no extra patterns, all code he wrote was really easy to read. The other dev, "hacker-type", in 40 hours of work across 3 days, writes a beautiful, perfect plugin system, i was hoping for a prototype in 2 weeks. Of course, he loved it. At the same time, I gave him a "boring endpoint" once, he proposed a "solution" to a "problem" that was never there, his brain needed to over-engineer the problem until it was fun. I agree with the sentiment of what you wrote: if your job is your passion, a new tech innovation like AI feels exciting rather than scary. But i don't see staying up until morning as a requirement for being a good coder. As a "hacker-type", my early growth ladder towards being professional in a business environment included a few steps about finding work "less fun".

throwaway1183 2mo ago

Oh my god!! You nailed it. I see two categories in tech. One the builder, innovators, tinkerers, those who just wanted to use tech to draw their ideas to life. Then other is artisan, those who took pride in organizing and craft. Second one is having miserable time. The former like me are having a blast. I love tech for that reason. I stopped talking to people who think LLMs are waste. It's because they don't even touch it. They think it's a taboo to touch it. So anything in tech is exciting because it enables us to do so many random things. Wish more people learnt about it.

johnnyanmac 2mo ago
>They think it's a taboo to touch it. I'm in a tricky situation as someone out of a full time job. Where "I love AI" might be a red flag that I'll use it to cheat. So I'm even more hesitant to make use of it.

rufasterisco 2mo ago

I belong to the "hacker-type from the 90s" group and what you wrote really resonates with me. Yet. I worked with clueless managers leading whole dev teams to burnout because they read a book and apply it verbatim, without understanding anything about it. In a team full of great "hacker-types", a new project manager arrives and in one of the first meetings says "You know you are all very intelligent, you don't need to prove it all the time". We delivered ahead of schedule, having a lot of fun, and all coders agree that he was the reason for it. I "managed" a 2 person team where the "just-in-for-money" dev was reliably churning out one API endpoint after the other one. He loved it, because it was repetitive boring work. The codebase was really consistent, no extra patterns, all code he wrote was really easy to read. The other dev, "hacker-type", in 40 hours of work across 3 days, writes a beautiful, perfect plugin system, i was hoping for a prototype in 2 weeks. Of course, he loved it. At the same time, I gave him a "boring endpoint" once, he proposed a "solution" to a "problem" that was never there, his brain needed to over-engineer the problem until it was fun. I agree with the sentiment of what you wrote: if your job is your passion, a new tech innovation like AI feels exciting rather than scary. But i don't see staying up until morning as a requirement for being a good coder. As a "hacker-type", my early growth ladder towards being professional in a business environment included a few steps about finding work "less fun".