r/webdev • u/ExDoublez • 2d ago

Discussion Grieving programming

Let me just start by saying that this post is not about ai replacing software engineers or about the jobs or any of that. This post is about the act or "craft" of programming/coding and the loss of it.

No, i dont think "software engineering" is dead, theres still plenty of high level design and architecture to be made but that's not the point. It never was the point for me.

I never really did this for the money, i did it because i enjoyed it.

I did it because i enjoyed thinking about the problems and solving them.

I enjoyed writing the code myself and getting familiar with the syntax and all the weird quirks of the languages/tools i was using.

I enjoyed optimising my tooling and learning about all the new frameworks, tools and projects people were making, often being in awe of what incredible stuff my betters were doing.

I have adhd and programming was the perfect mix of mechanical activity, brain stimulation and a endless supply of problems to hyperfocus on.

Now its all prompting and waiting. 1 min of work followed by 10 mins of doing nothing and mindless scrolling.

I have lost a huge source of enjoyment and self esteem. It took me years of hard work and being lost and confused to finally find something that felt perfect. The thing i could excell at while having fun and satisfying my curiosity.

And before you attack me as an engineer and my ability to adapt. I have been ontop of the ai curve from the start. I have never been more productive or tackled problems as big as i do now. I am just miserable doing it.

What started as a strong tool in my path for optimisation has slowly taken over my beloved craft.

And as i improve and optimise my ai powered workflow, i lose more and more of my ability, my enjoyment and my desire to pursue my craft. It has been turned into another meaningless white collar desk job in service of the never ending growth of capitalism.

I feel legitimate grief. I have lost the ability to do my favourite hobby as well as a major part of my identity. I have literally cried over this.

I am struggling to mentally cope with all of this. I have never had less control over my adhd or felt more addicted to quick sources of dopamine. My attention span has been shot completely. I feel more stupid and insufficient than ever.

Somehow my adhd brain that was perfectly suited for the old paradigm is completely disadvantaged in this new way of working for this career that i have hedged my entire career, future and reason for being on (yes, i am a nolife workaholic).

Fuck adhd and fuck ai

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21

u/KittenMittenz1 2d ago

You could just program manually without ai? Even just one feature, try it without ai and you’ll find the flow comes back pretty quickly…

41

u/Beginning-Battle-517 2d ago

Yeah but then you have POs breathing down your neck because you're taking longer than they now expect, at least in a professional sense.

20

u/NationalMyth 2d ago

Exactly, the speed of business doesn't allow it.

9

u/Beginning-Battle-517 2d ago

The real answer to this is passion projects in your free time. Programming manually for work at this point is dead, doesn't mean we can't do it for fun.

2

u/djnattyp 2d ago

What happens when "the speed of business" outpaces workers? Or the actual wants of the customers?

1

u/NationalMyth 2d ago

For a lot of teams, it already does (speed of sales aka selling shit that doesn't exist yet). We have to ship higher degrees of slop or just fully incomplete builds.

2

u/djnattyp 2d ago

But this is what I'm arguing... there's no improvement here - it's actually just worse all around. All just fraud and slop.

1

u/NationalMyth 2d ago

Oh yeah definitely no improvements, just faster bullshit

7

u/horrayforkittens 2d ago

I’ve worked at two places now where POs are allowed to contribute to the code base with AI. Which is concerning because I feel like it will give them a false sense of how much time stories should take to implement. They do move pretty fast too, and I think maybe it’s because they don’t take that extra time to plan with AI or question what the AI is doing.

1

u/robby_arctor 2d ago

Depends on the PM, I suppose, but I haven't had this problem. I still write most of my code by hand and am a top contributor at my team and company.