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by lordnacho 60 days ago
I was wondering if there's anything behind the idea that people who learned how to code before AI will become the human capital version of low-background steel.

Everyone who starts to code after AI has a problem: it's hard to believe you went through the pain and frustration that people often think is required to become a senior engineer. Even if you did, you are in a lemon market with quite a few people who took the shortcut in college. Much better to hire a guy who learned before they could cheat, and then give him the tools to replace the juniors.
2 comments
hermitShell 59 days ago
I partially agree with this idea, but there will always be the Jeff Dean and Fabrice Bellard of the world... but 99% of companies won't ever get the chance to hire the top 1% of programmers. Therein is the problem. Maybe a better way to look at it is the statistical likelihood of producing good engineers and scientists goes down with AI because of poor fundamentals.

In SW this is perhaps the easiest domain to counterpunch. Get young folks learning computer history and understanding how the hardware works down to a register level. We write most software with some mental abstraction of what the hardware is actually doing. That's the crux, I believe, and if we lose widespread hardware understanding then we truly do become lost at sea, practicing the mystic art of non deterministic incantations

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Grosvenor 60 days ago
How do you value people who learnt to code in the 80's, 90's or 2000's today?

Will new developers know/understand what they don't know, or will the new state of things simply become normalized?

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lordnacho 60 days ago
> How do you value people who learnt to code in the 80's, 90's or 2000's today?

Personally I rate them really really highly. They are always fascinating to talk to. But they also compete with newer cohorts who mature.

> Will new developers know/understand what they don't know, or will the new state of things simply become normalized?

Yes because a 32 year old guy with 10 years of experience who got given AI recently is going to be around for an awful long time reminding everyone that he has something the younger ones don't have.

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