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That's the existential threat right now, isn't it? So much of our industry is top-down being told "agentic programming is the only way forward" and anyone who d

That's the existential threat right now, isn't it? So much of our industry is top-down being told "agentic programming is the only way forward" and anyone who disagrees is laid off. (I'm in that boat. I've been out of work since April.) It doesn't feel sustainable now. It won't feel sustainable in the future when companies are trying to operate on an entire fossil layer of LLM-generated legacy code. Do I expect managers to get smarter about LLMs and their limits or do I "retire" and find an entire new industry to work in? It's really depressing and there has been a lot of grieving since April that it feels like my entire 20+ year career path disappeared overnight, replaced by something unsustainable and ultimately terrifying.

brabel 1mo ago
You believe they are wrong so strongly you are willing to be out of a job rather than let them play the game which just happens to make your job easier and see what happens? I don’t understand that attitude. Couldn’t you just do as you were told and use AI to the best of your abilities making sure it doesn’t push broken code? You can even have fun coding by hand while your agents are doing other stuff behind the scenes.
- WorldMaker 1mo ago
  It's a tool. I use it as a tool. I'm a pragmatist as much as I'm a skeptic. In the one phone screen I've had since April (!) I was asked if I could be a cheerleader for it. I can't do that. So far I haven't seen very many jobs that want pragmatists because most of the job descriptions say that they want cheerleaders. I haven't talked myself out of a job, the market has said it doesn't need my experience because I can't talk myself in to a new type of job (of being what I consider to be a liar or a grifter). That's not a job that I want, unfortunately my sense of professional ethics is too strong. But also, yes I have done enough Legacy Code work in my career that I don't think I want to deal with "Legacy Code as a Service" machines and companies spraying entire geological layers of Legacy Code as fast as they can across as much of the company as they can. That's a sustainability crisis that doesn't sound like it is going to be fun to maintain in 3 years from now (or fewer) when companies realize what they encouraged to happen and how much "new" code they need archaeologists for and have few to no maps of.

brabel 1mo ago

You believe they are wrong so strongly you are willing to be out of a job rather than let them play the game which just happens to make your job easier and see what happens? I don’t understand that attitude. Couldn’t you just do as you were told and use AI to the best of your abilities making sure it doesn’t push broken code? You can even have fun coding by hand while your agents are doing other stuff behind the scenes.

WorldMaker 1mo ago
It's a tool. I use it as a tool. I'm a pragmatist as much as I'm a skeptic. In the one phone screen I've had since April (!) I was asked if I could be a cheerleader for it. I can't do that. So far I haven't seen very many jobs that want pragmatists because most of the job descriptions say that they want cheerleaders. I haven't talked myself out of a job, the market has said it doesn't need my experience because I can't talk myself in to a new type of job (of being what I consider to be a liar or a grifter). That's not a job that I want, unfortunately my sense of professional ethics is too strong. But also, yes I have done enough Legacy Code work in my career that I don't think I want to deal with "Legacy Code as a Service" machines and companies spraying entire geological layers of Legacy Code as fast as they can across as much of the company as they can. That's a sustainability crisis that doesn't sound like it is going to be fun to maintain in 3 years from now (or fewer) when companies realize what they encouraged to happen and how much "new" code they need archaeologists for and have few to no maps of.