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I'm deeply disappointed that many of the stories on HN are directly or indirectly about A.I. and LLMs. To me this is a complete turn-off. OTOH this seems to be

I'm deeply disappointed that many of the stories on HN are directly or indirectly about A.I. and LLMs. To me this is a complete turn-off. OTOH this seems to be the case everywhere in the IT landscape these days. Many people interested in technical stories have mostly stopped reading computing related news. I know people that used to host talks about .NET software development quit because they hated all .NET developments pushed by Microsoft were related to Azure or A.I. These are developers that want to build software, not scream to/plead with an LLM to do it for them. It simply takes the fun out of being a software developer. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that in a couple of years many people will leave the sector because it's no fun anymore. Management is forcing you to use your (supposed) future replacement.

senordevnyc 2mo ago
I think grief is appropriate for the part of the software engineering craft that has been lost, because it was genuinely fun and rewarding at times, and I don't think it'll ever come back. Sure, some of us will hack on things manually for fun here and there, but even that will likely become ever more niche, like doing your laundry with a washboard. And professionally, no one is going to be writing code without LLMs before long. That world is gone, and it's OK to mourn it.
- xigoi 2mo ago
  If using a washing machine required you to send your laundry to an evil corporation, the washboard would start to get some appeal…
  - senordevnyc 2mo ago
    Yeah, I definitely don’t think all software engineers will be sending their codebase to OpenAI or Anthropic, but I think basically all of us will be using LLMs. I keep hearing about how open weight models are only six months behind, so presumably in a few years, it’ll be feasible for corporations to self-host very capable models. Still, I suspect most will just use the dominant labs, or something like Bedrock where you have stronger ZDR guarantees.
- hn_submit 2mo ago
  Not true. Many developers will keep writing their own code, possibly outside the corporations that force them to use LLMs to do so.
  - senordevnyc 2mo ago
    A few, yes. Just like there are woodworkers who only use hand tools out of principle. But most engineers will use LLMs on their side projects, and virtually all will for professional work.
    - hn_submit 1mo ago
      I doubt that. The people I know who use LLMs write 85% of the code themselves. We might even see a "codepocalypse" where the companies using A.I. to write their code realize that the code is unmaintainable, developers that cannot maintain it are sacked and they desperately look for developers who never stopped writing code and maintained their proficiency.
      - senordevnyc 1mo ago
        I sincerely doubt we’ll see any such movement, but we’ll see!

senordevnyc 2mo ago

I think grief is appropriate for the part of the software engineering craft that has been lost, because it was genuinely fun and rewarding at times, and I don't think it'll ever come back. Sure, some of us will hack on things manually for fun here and there, but even that will likely become ever more niche, like doing your laundry with a washboard. And professionally, no one is going to be writing code without LLMs before long. That world is gone, and it's OK to mourn it.

xigoi 2mo ago
If using a washing machine required you to send your laundry to an evil corporation, the washboard would start to get some appeal…
- senordevnyc 2mo ago
  Yeah, I definitely don’t think all software engineers will be sending their codebase to OpenAI or Anthropic, but I think basically all of us will be using LLMs. I keep hearing about how open weight models are only six months behind, so presumably in a few years, it’ll be feasible for corporations to self-host very capable models. Still, I suspect most will just use the dominant labs, or something like Bedrock where you have stronger ZDR guarantees.
hn_submit 2mo ago
Not true. Many developers will keep writing their own code, possibly outside the corporations that force them to use LLMs to do so.
- senordevnyc 2mo ago
  A few, yes. Just like there are woodworkers who only use hand tools out of principle. But most engineers will use LLMs on their side projects, and virtually all will for professional work.
  - hn_submit 1mo ago
    I doubt that. The people I know who use LLMs write 85% of the code themselves. We might even see a "codepocalypse" where the companies using A.I. to write their code realize that the code is unmaintainable, developers that cannot maintain it are sacked and they desperately look for developers who never stopped writing code and maintained their proficiency.
    - senordevnyc 1mo ago
      I sincerely doubt we’ll see any such movement, but we’ll see!