[Thanemate]

I'm oddly enthusiastic about seeing someone who beings the HACKER in HackerNews. But at the same time, this made me remember the days when display of skill and craftsmanship were rewarded in the industry.

Maybe it's finally time to move on from being a career programmer.

[noduerme]

What a dismissive comment. Now that anyone can have an LLM write code for them, the only people who have value to bring to a project are the ones who can improve upon the LLM's output. That is, the ones who have a deep enough understanding of the logic and language. And the only people who will ever be in that position are the ones who take the time and effort, out of sheer curiosity, to learn how things work. Whatever your alternative is to this, there is no future in the alternative.

[dwedge]

Artisanal code has a future. Maybe not a high paid one but maybe we go back to roots. if you enjoy programming and were never focused on output or on pipelines, LLM doesn't offer the same ezperience

[noduerme]

Sometime around when wordpress came out, or at least 2005 or so, I started positioning myself as a bespoke web designer, then app developer. Whereas anyone could get a site done, I turned myself to doing things that hadn't been done before, for which standard solutions wouldn't fit. I turned away 80% of jobs and raised my rate from $25 to $100, then to $300/hr. To me, pricing and only doing bespoke work was a defensive measure against falling into a career hole I didn't want to end up in. But mostly it was just that I didn't want to repeat myself or waste my time doing something that a client could already buy off the shelf.

Artisanal code, or bespoke code, has always been the best paid and most satisfying work. If we no longer have a new generation of curious people who enjoy solving hard problems, it's only going to become more valuable.

[yolo3000]

So what could you do that people paid you 300/hr? And how long where these gigs?

[noduerme]

Basically coding, explaining, and owning the whole stack from the DB schema to the CSS. In 2005 that meant a client wanted a website but it needed to be driven with live data from a database, with a custom back-end they would use to update it, something that wordpress wouldn't be able to do easily. Or they wanted a data-driven Java or Flash applet embedded, dynamic resizing, or "mobile-friendly" circa 2008. I had worked for a company in 1999 making websites, split between designers (like me) whose job was to make Photoshop comps with rollover layers and split them up into tables, and the "webmonkeys" who got paid more to take that and mess with the javascript in Dreamweaver. The guys who knew how to tie that into Coldfusion or something made the most. Primitive HTML and PHP and inline javascript and mysql. I just figured out how to do all of it together. Then, web apps, multiplayer games front/back, and starting to get into logistics software. Typical gig from 2005-2010 was 9-12 months, single project stuff, hourly and freelance.

What I realized was that knowing what my software did, being able to explain every part of it and being able to rewrite it from scratch if necessary, was much more valuable than just delivering it. The powers that be who run companies are looking for communication, so they understand what they're getting, someone who can speak the same language as them and materialize it into code that works. LLMs are a decent imitation of that, but they're fatally flawed, because they never understand a whole stack.

[shevy-java]

I don't see anything dismissive here. It is a realistic assessment: if the choice is between code generated by AI or code generated by a human, and the AI is better in an objective manner, then why should a company employ a human? I refer here solely to the code result; naturally humans may do things AI can not do yet, but if the question is solely about code quality and AIs are better here, then why would that comment be dismissive rather than realistic?

> And the only people who will ever be in that position are the ones who take the time and effort, out of sheer curiosity, to learn how things work.

People learn something new all the time, AI does not learn anything, it just simulates and hallucinates. But the core question is not addressed with that. What would you do if you have to compete against AI, and AI is better? We already see these with the new generation of humanoid robots from China. Those things make Boston Dynamics robots look like tinker-toys in comparison - already as-is. Give it ten more years and we finally reached AI skynet for real.

[noduerme]

What do you mean when you say AI code is better? I am looking at AI code all day and it's just garbage that happens to work for whatever feature was requested... in no way is it better code. Any human who was so careless as an AI to commit such atrocities would be fired.

[dinkumthinkum]

I don't see it as dismissive, maybe you two are talking past each other but seem to be on similar side. I think the parent just articulated a sense of resignation that many people probably share. I think you might be saying that maybe there is still some shred to hold onto, possibly.

[tkiolp4]

Don’t be naive. Anthropics (et al) mission is to make us unemployable. They need to sell their tools to companies so that they can finally discard 90% of their workforce. It’s a win win for companies and for anthropic (et al). Obviously we are the losers in the middle. And people around here on HN may think they cannot be affected, that they are the elite class of developers… they are gonna get hurt

[lofaszvanitt]

success through perseverance and toughness - fucked by AI

success through cleverness and inventiveness - not yet fucked by AI

achievement through stubborn persistence - you can still dig deep holes in the garden

you still could have a character, if you were lucky

human agency? not yet fucked up, but it's gonna be

achievement earned through one's own qualities or effort? - intact somewhat