[_zoltan_]

There should never have been an "artisan era". We use computers to solve problems. You should have always getting stuff done instead of bikeshedding over nitty-gritty details, like when in the office people have been spending weeks on optimizing code... just to have the exact same output, exact same time, but now "nicer".

You get paid to get stuff done, period.

[mchaver]

> There should never have been an "artisan era".

Firm no. There should be and there will continue to be. Maybe for you all code is business/money-making code, but that is not true for everyone.

> We use computers to solve problems.

We can use computers for lots of things like having fun, making art, and even creating problems for other people.

> You get paid to get stuff done, period.

That is a strange assumption. Plenty of people are writing code without being paid for it.

[satvikpendem]

> Plenty of people are writing code without being paid for it.

This is rhetorically a non sequitur. As in, if you get paid (X) then you get stuff done (Y). But if you're not paid (~X), then, ?

Not being paid doesn't mean one does or doesn't get stuff done, it has no bearing on it. So the parent wasn't saying anything about people who don't get paid, they can do whatever they want, but yes, at a job if you're paid, then you better get stuff done over bikeshedding.

[techpression]

And to add to this, good artisanal code usually means it runs a lot faster, which means saving money and energy, and those are good things.

[satvikpendem]

It depends how much money and energy in the form of manhours were spent to write it in an artisan way in the first place. I've been in a lot of PR reviews where it was clear that the amount of back and forth we had was simply not worth it for the code we wrote.

I'm reminded of this: https://xkcd.com/1205/

[lxgr]

I think you're both right. There's a time and place for beautifully crafted code, but there's also a place for a hot mess that barely passes its own non-existing tests, and for anything in between.

Just don't bring an artisan to a slop fight.

[ModernMech]

> there's also a place for a hot mess that barely passes its own non-existing tests

For a long time that place has been "the commercial software marketplace". Let's all stop pretending that the code coming out of shops until now has been something you'd find at a guild craft expo. It's always been a ball of spit and duct tape, which is why AI code is often spit and duct tape.

[frizlab]

Yeah. Exactly the same as there should never be an “artisan era” for chairs, tables, buildings, etc.

Hell even art! Why should art even be a thing? We are machine driven by neurons, feelings do not exist.

Might be your life, it ain’t mine. I’m an artisan of code, and I’m proud to be one. I might finally use AI one of these days at work because I’ll have to, but I’ll never stop cherishing doing hand-crafted code.

[enraged_camel]

>> Yeah. Exactly the same as there should never be an “artisan era” for chairs, tables, buildings, etc.

That's funny you bring up those examples, because they have all moved on to the mass manufacturing era. You can still get artisan quality stuff but it typically costs a lot more and there's a lot less of it. Which is why mass-manufacturing won. Same is going to happen with software. LLMs are just the beginning.

[fragmede]

Did you get the Eames version of Windows, or a knockoff?

[enraged_camel]

Windows was probably the worst example you could use in this context!

[frizlab]

Oh no, but I know! And it is indeed terrible.

I live in a city where there are new houses being built. They are ugly. Meanwhile, the ones that exist since a long time ago have charm and feel homely.

I don’t know, I‘m probably just a regular old man yelling at clouds, but I still think we’re going in the wrong direction. For pretty much everything. And for what? Money. Yay!

Hugh.

[scubbo]

You're continuing to make good arguments for why mass-production should exist _alongside_ artisanal craftsmanship. Broad availability of housing which is functional, albeit of questionable aesthetic appeal, is a good thing to improve housing availability[0]; and also it is a good thing for (fewer) well-built, charming, individual homes to be available for those who want to spend more and to get more.

[0] I'm extremely aware that there are other contributing factors to housing shortages. Tax Billionaires, etc. My metaphor still works despite not being total.

[falcor84]

The difference is that end users don't interact with the code that the artisan created, and don't care what it "feels like". One type of code that I do agree should be artisanal is the interface end of libraries.

[mikkupikku]

Yes, it's like artisanal plumbing or electrical wiring... all hidden behind walls. A plumber might take pride in the quality of his soldered joints, but artisanal? Who wants to pay for that?

[EagnaIonat]

> just to have the exact same output, exact same time, but now "nicer".

The majority of code work is maintaining someone else's code. That's the reason it is "nicer".

There is also the matter of performance and reducing redundancy.

Two recent pulls I saw where it was AI generated did neither. Both attempted to recreate from scratch rather than using industry tested modules. One was using csv instead of polars for the intensive work.

So while they worked, they became an unmaintainable mess.

[ModernMech]

You use computers to solve problems. I use computers to communicate and create art. For me, the code I write is first and foremost a form of self expression. No one paid me to write 99% of the code I've written in my life.

For a long time computers were so expensive they could only be used to do things that generate enough money to justify their purchase. But those days are long gone so computers are for much much more than just solving problems and getting stuff done. Code can be beautiful in its own right.

[yunohn]

The exact mindset is what has led to the transition from quality products to commercialized crapware, not just with software, but across all industries.

[JKCalhoun]

"You get paid to get stuff done, period."

It sounds like you hate your job? To be sure, I've done plenty of grinding over my career as a software engineer but in fact I coded as a hobby before it turned into a career, I then continued to code on the side, now I am retired and code still.

Perhaps the artist in me that keeps at it.

[_zoltan_]

I love my job FWIW. I work at performance engineering and we work with the most complex systems in the world (GB200/B300/...). Couldn't be happier.

But I just don't care if I have 5 layers of abstraction and SOLID principles and clean code and.... bah. I get it. I have an MSc in it and I've been doing this as a hobby and then professionally for decades now. It just doesn't matter. At the end of the day, we get paid to ship something that solves a problem.

It might be a novel problem. And it might be at the frontier of what we can do today. But it's still a problem that needs solving and the path we take is irrelevant from a user's perspective as long as it solves the problem.

[satvikpendem]

I don't think they hate their job, just seem to be frustrated at slow bureaucratic processes and long code reviews which I've experienced too. After a while it can get aggravating as to why some people want to nitpick minute details of the code which slows down development overall. I am talking about cases where the initially submitted PR is perfectly fine, not grossly incorrect.

[JKCalhoun]

Oh wow, if we're talking about code reviews that's a different topic. I've never, FWIW, encountered "artisans" in code reviews. More like "that's not how I would have coded itsans" and "let me show you some new tricksans".

Yeah, to hell with code reviews. The best years of my career were when I was given carte blanche control over an entire framework, etc. When code reviews came along coding at work sucked.

If anything, the code reviews killed the artisanship.

[mikkupikku]

90% of the CRs I've ever gotten have been "artisanal" just because nitpicking superficial nonsense is easier than meaningful critique, and even when the code is perfectly fine it looks more productive from a managers perspective if you're nitpicking a function name than if you just respond with lgtm.

[satvikpendem]

Yeah that's what I understood them to mean from "like when in the office people have been spending weeks on optimizing code... just to have the exact same output, exact same time, but now "nicer"." There does come such a time either way when the juice isn't worth the squeeze so to speak in terms of optimization of code.