[thraway3837]

You know, that question should trouble us more. But honestly we've all asked ourselves that same question and I think our collective response is too nuanced to try to type properly but I'll try.

Tools are always made out to seem like the human could be replaced. We've seen that every time some new technology comes out that some people claim will replace humans once and for all! But this does not seem to be true.

What AI coding allows us to do is get rid of just 1 or 2 parts of the job: coding and debugging. The rest of our knowledge based job is still there. AI just speeds things up because I can now ask it to code something while I go help plan or design something with a colleague. Most of us at this workplace also have a very good eye for UI design and system design patterns, so when we prompt/query the AI, we can understand what is happening. That isn't a replacement, that's more like getting a team of engineers who can do different things all in service of a larger goal.

Our conclusion was that we should not be concerned what search or queuing algorithm or data structure is being used. And to be perfectly honest, and I know that this will rub some in the wrong way, a lot of development since the 90s have been around object and graph management. For the 1000th time, I just do not (and most engineers I work with) care how an object is serialized and deserialized. Just display it on a table for me, why are we spending weeks coding a list, adapter, transformer, JSON/XML/whatever, networking calls, networking nuances, etc. etc. when I just want to get our customers seeing that list and move on?

I don't know if I did a good job covering the nuance, AMA!

[unknownfuture]

> Our conclusion was that we should not be concerned what search or queuing algorithm or data structure is being used.

Not to be too snide, but if that's your reductionist view of the work of software development, I'm not surprised you're comfortable vibecoding without a human in the loop.

[blanched]

Thank you for the thorough reply! I also appreciate that you recognized my question as good faith (and my apologies, based on other replies I should have been less brief to avoid misinterpretation.)

It seems my definition of "vibe coding" was wrong after all, at least in this case, and that you're still doing design. My initial read was that this was fully AI-powered, and while that sounded interesting, it did leave me wondering what the humans did :)

[thraway3837]

No worries at all, I took your question in good faith :)

I also responded below re: Vibe coding.

[Schiendelman]

This is absolutely my experience. And I'm commenting on HN a lot more now too - but in between, I'm doing competitive analysis, trying out a fix I implemented or a feature I added, marketing, talking to friends about their bug reports...

[icase]

writing code is the actual fun part of the job though.

it’s a shame we automated that instead of the boring system design shit.

[Cyberdogs7]

I disagree. Shipping has always been the fun part for me. I have been a DEEP engineer, and I love figuring out creative and deep optimizations, but writing them was never fun, designing them was. Writing the code has always been the least enjoyable part for me.

[thraway3837]

This is the conflict we've entered. There is a good portion of the engineering population that considers coding fun.

The other side considers shipping as a feature.

I can both sympathize and empathize with this conflict.

[joshstrange]

I love coding, or rather I love what coding allows me to do which is build and ship. That’s not be saying we abdicate any responsibility and yolo all our code but coding was _always_ a means to an end.

See also debates between high/low level languages.

You might as well say “real men/women only write Asm”.

[pbgcp2026]

All those things (coding / distributing / design / whatever) WAS fan to you / us. It was. "The thrill is gone ..."

[stackghost]

>writing code is the actual fun part of the job though.

You mean typing the actual code into the editor is the fun part for you? For me, the fun part has always been "cause computer to do novel things", and actually typing/compiling/debugging the code is just a speed bump on the way to something fun.

[eudamoniac]

It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle. The fun part is the doing. I don't really care what the final picture is, and once it's assembled the fun is over.

[stackghost]

That's an interesting choice of analogy because I despise doing jigsaw puzzles. I don't see where the entertainment is supposed to be.

[icase]

i mean solving a problem with code that came from my own brain.

the act of typing is trivial and second nature, like breathing. but going e2e from brain to keyboard to editor to working product..that’s the thrill. and it’s dead.

[throw-the-towel]

To me the system design shit is fun as well, different strokes for different folks!

[jrflowers]

> AMA!

I think I missed where you posted what business you work at

[sorenjan]

- What you do at Initech is you take the specifications from the customer and bring them down to the prompt engineers?

- Yes, yes that's right.

- Well then I just have to ask why can't the customers take them directly to the vibe coding software people?

- Well, I'll tell you why... because... engineers are not good at dealing with customers...

- So you physically take the specs from the customer?

- Well... No. My secretary does that... or they're faxed.

- So then you must physically bring them to the software people?

- Well... No. ah sometimes.

- What would you say you do here?

- Look I already told you, I deal with the @#$% customers so the prompt engineers don't have to. I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people, can't you understand that? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!