[lanstin]

To be happy as you age, you have to embrace being a clueless newbie. Some people seem very pessimistic that there is a method of creating networked software systems in a high quality way with LLMs, but it seems no different from many other changes - there are salient technical details that matter, and there is boilerplate, and as all the tools and problems shift, we find ways to highlight the stuff that matters and reduce the problems of boilerplate. I like GCC and haven’t run into a compiler bug in decades, nor looked at disassembly much in this millennium (except some go allocation stuff that puzzled me). I feel myself gaining skills to do that with LLMs in just the same way that higher power editors changed my behavior.

I am pretty old, and it does take conscious effort to give up my cherished skills and plunge into new things professionally, but it’s the only way for me. And I am not exaggerating “clueless” here - I continue my practice of expertise via making all the mistakes. When I am new to something and there are others not new, I lean on them and have my lacks very clearly seen. When I am more isolated, I take pains to have very conservative release plans.

But it is worth it: I get that pleasure of understanding a lot more often with new stuff than with the same old.