[theturtletalks]

2 types of people:

People who use coding as a means to an end, producing a product

People who enjoy process over product and coding is the enjoyable part, not the end product

Company executives fall into bucket 1. Even if you love your cushy air-conditioned job, doesn’t mean the people above you don’t see you as a means to an end, a better product.

Solo founders and small startups are in bucket 1 as well but that doesn’t mean that don’t enjoy coding, just the product being made is much more satisfying.

[DrewADesign]

I think that’s a false dichotomy. I enjoyed coding but was more interested in the problems code could solve. Both were really important facets of the job. When I was a chef, I loved being creative with flavors and techniques, and giving people a new favorite aesthetic memory to file away. Losing one of those things would make the job not worth it to me even though I enjoyed both.

[theturtletalks]

Great point. I learned to code to solve a problem and fell into love with programming as much as the product building. Now the first part is gone and I’m forced to decide which was more enjoyable.

I do think food is a bit different. With software and businesses, the end product keeps on giving and can be forever changed. For food, the process is many times longer than the actual eating the food part.

[pydry]

The difference is about slop tolerance not "process over product".

[theturtletalks]

Brother, there was slop before AI and slop after AI.

Pre-AI slop got a pass because the creator probably worked tirelessly to make it and that process gave it value.

Post-AI slop get criticized because AI can create it so fast and easily.

But the builder has not changed. Because the builder knows that the product depends on iteration and polish. And knowing what to iterate and what to polish requires intuition and taste. And thats the thing about taste, its forever fleeting. What we think is AI slop, was actually novel and coveted at a point before AI existed.

[pydry]

Yea, you can create code slop much quicker these days. That much is true.

Whether the demand will match the supply is still an open question. Did the apple app store need another 4,000 to do apps? I guess we'll see.