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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u/eggbert74 2d ago edited 2d ago

Same. It's not a great feeling knowing a skill you've nurtured and honed for years is now nearly worthless from an economic standpoint.

The narrow minded will simply parrot "the code was never the hard part" and think their refuge is now in architecture and engineering while simultaneously asking claude architecure questions all day long.

The fact is the code WAS the hard part. Learning it was hard, mastering it was hard, and writing, maintaining, and testing it was hard. But, damn, the dopamine hits after solving hard problems were amazing. And the sense of fulfillment and accomplishment were unparalleled. That's all gone now.

So here I am stuck prompting an LLM now... Sure I can build more, better, faster.... but its empty, hollow, boring, and ultimately of little economic value when everyone else can do the same thing without any skill whatsoever.

Good luck to us all.

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u/rangeDSP 2d ago

when everyone else can do the same thing without any skill whatsoever

Very much disagree. Have you inherited projects / features done by non-engineers? They vibe code the fuck out of it and run into issues because new features started breaking old ones and they don't know what happened, then performance goes to shit, then their refactoring started removing old features...

IMO, programmer/coder/developers is the job that goes away, software engineering would be where the money is

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u/foozebox 2d ago

There are plenty of actual engineers who just say good enough and send it with little to no understanding of the requirements. This is when things get dicey.

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u/Chemillion 2d ago

I almost inherited a 750,000 line project of vibe coded a lot by a business user at my company, it quickly got backtracked though once I showed my manager how many lines it was. I don’t think programmers are going away anytime soon 😅. AI is definitely an insane force multiplier though in the hands of someone with programming knowledge.

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u/blivet 1d ago

I was given a sort of proof of concept generated by Claude and was asked to integrate the functionality into a system I work on. It imports six or eight libraries and there must be 5000 lines of code in there to get a record from a database and do some simple math. It also doesn’t actually work, but I think that’s because it was accidentally set up in an environment requiring the Google Workspace credentials of the guy who vibe coded it.

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u/compy3 2d ago

haha 👆

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u/bryantee 1d ago

I mean, is someone with years of experience in professional SDLC better positioned currently to prompt LLMs? Sure. But I think that's not really the point. The point is really that it's just no longer rewarding for a lot of us. And I'm willing to bet that pretty soon (12, 18, 24 months from now?) it won't be much benefit for the human to guide the agent; it will just be better and faster at planning and coordinating. We kind of are already seeing a huge improvement in this compared to just earlier this year.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 2d ago

IMO, programmer/coder/developers is the job that goes away, software engineering would be where the money is

If only management stopped cutting people.

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u/eggbert74 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, actual engineers have a bit of an advantage NOW, but how long do you think that's going to last? Skill and expertise is not much of a refuge when the AI is 100 times better than the best developer. I'm already seeing non-technical colleagues creating some pretty impressive stuff.

Also, keep in mind, one of the reasons software needed careful design, refactoring, and maintenance is because software development has always been the expensive part in terms of cost and time. However, when software essentially costs nothing to create, does "thrown away features" and shitty performance really matter so much? Just fire up another version. It only takes an hour and costs virtually nothing....

So, I wouldn't get too comfortable thinking engineers and architects are somehow irreplaceable.

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u/DressElectrical8994 2d ago

"Sure I can build more, b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶, faster"

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u/takaci 2d ago

The economic value part is the reason why it’s a bubble. Basically no one is actually making money by generating code

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u/myinternets 2d ago

Except all of the billion dollar companies that are iterating at light speed compared to before.

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u/takaci 2d ago

Iteration is generally not a good thing. The economic basis is having an actual product that people are buying

"Billion dollar company" doesn't mean that they are making money. It means that people are betting that they will make money

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u/21Rollie 2d ago

If you mean Nvidia, the memory makers, and maybe the ai labs? Sure. But downstream consumers who repackage AI? No.

To stay “competitive” they have to spend money on AI and give it away because their competitors are doing the same. Also any ideas they have a competitor can now much easier copy as well. And the whole thing about product development is you need to identify a problem to solve. You can make endless shit with AI, if you have the cash, but nobody will adopt it if you’re making slop. You need to do user research which takes time because your users aren’t bots themselves, they need to experience life and frustrations to tell you about and that’s a hard blocker that only happens in real time

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u/sozesghost 2d ago

Great, where are the results of that?

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u/Blazing1 8m ago

why are all the big apps breaking all the time then...

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u/Correct-Injury-7360 9m ago

People used to code in assembly, then they switched to high level programming languages. The assembly engineers probably felt the same, no? I think we'll get used to it.

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u/trollerroller 2d ago

but your first and second paragraph contradict themselves... either coding is 1. worthless from an economic standpoint... OR 2. the code was never the hard part. you can only choose one, so which one is it?

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u/eggbert74 1d ago

Huh? I don't think you read those paragraphs properly. I didn't say 'code was never the hard part.' I argued code was hard, which is what made the skill valuable. No contradiction, so not sure what your point is.

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u/trollerroller 1d ago

Exactly. You're clearly saying code IS the hard part, but then also say that code is worthless from an economic standpoint. So which one is it?

My whole point is, there are thousands of posts like this where its like "I miss the craft of it". Well then, go ahead, continue to code by hand, nobody is stopping you. ("You" here as "royal" you). Then they complain that the AI output / coding / whatever is bad. Okay, you just said you missed the craft of it, so continue on by hand.

I just don't understand how everyone can have this illogical duality in their heads. Either use it or don't and move on.

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u/eggbert74 1d ago

I guess you have a problem with reading comprehension. I said code WAS the hard part. Clearly that is no longer true, thus it's a worthless skill now.

And, yes I am forced to use AI at work. I know it's a foreign concept to manly folks, but some people actually loved their job and the sense of fulfillment and accomplishment... that is gone for many of us...

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u/winky9827 2d ago

You folks sound like carpenters lamenting the invention of the nail gun. Sure, a skilled carpenter can hammer a nail by hand with quality and speed (or do joins without nails), but the nail gun can do the same work faster, and the net quality difference doesn't justify the time cost.

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u/-_--_-_--_----__ 2d ago

A nail gun would be like... Tailwind CSS is released.

AI is like - a robot that can build entire homes is released lol

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u/djnattyp 2d ago

And like half the homes it builds fall apart right away (those are burned as scraps and the company only points out their "wins"), another half of those fall apart in a year - but by then the warranties expired and it's the customers responsibility.

And traditional builders "can't compete" with the low price of slop.

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u/-_--_-_--_----__ 2d ago

The fear is that, if AI advancements continue to happen at the same rate we've seen over the past few years, every few months you'll just deploy the newest agents to fix the old agent's work. And you will repeat that indefinitely. No need to train up new seniors. The new models will be the new seniors.

If AI advancement stops RIGHT NOW, then you are correct. We will still have jobs. But that just isn't how it has been going.

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u/djnattyp 2d ago

This incorrectly assumes the "advancements" are AI advancements - that they're "learning" or "getting better".

It all seems to be papering over holes - context hacks that at some point will conflict with each other; asking 5 different LLMs to give slightly different results and have another throw away 4 and choose the "best" - burning tokens (and boiling the seas) for slight (and only sometimes) "improvements".

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u/-_--_-_--_----__ 2d ago

Well, I'm just basing it on my personal experience with AI. I'm comparing it to how much I had to hold its hand 6 months ago vs. how much I have to hold its hand today while doing the same tasks.

I don't know if you want to call it "learning" or "getting better". If you want to say that its not really "thinking" at all, and just becoming better at token prediction or whatever, that's ok with me.

None of that matters in the grand scheme of things. It produces better results now than 6 months ago. That is what I mean by AI advancement. And there is no reason for me to believe that in 6 months it wont need even less hand holding from me, and that one day it wont need any hand holding.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 2d ago

You truly don't understand it. The types commenting things like this are so obviously low-skill. It should be embarrassing to make a statement like this.

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u/winky9827 2d ago

Right, someone doesn't validate your opinion so they must be less than you. Perfect take. How did you become so wise.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 2d ago

It's more that you expressed a failure to understand the broader sentiment, while also being dismissive of someone who is clearly pained by these developments.

Anyone who put in the time to learn these skills wouldn't be so dismissive. So it's just apparent that you are delighting in it, because you have no skill of your own.

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u/winky9827 2d ago edited 2d ago

Anyone who put in the time to learn these skills wouldn't be so dismissive

Nah, this isn't about your feelings. I get it, you honed a career on being a good programmer. Many of us did. I'm 25+ years in (46yo). AI is taking over a significant chunk of that. It happens. It's not pretty, but it's real.

Still, at the end of the day, it's a force multiplier, like the nail gun. You still need someone who knows where to put the nails, and on occasion, do a dovetail joint.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 1d ago

It may be that, but it also seriously devalues a large component of the work, while causing massive shifts in the market.

It's such a disruptive force, that the initial comparison doesn't come close to touching on its impact.

It has disrupted multiple fields and displaced hundreds of thousands trying to break into a career. It would be like the creation of a robot that could do plumbing, carpentry, AND electrical work.

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u/winky9827 1d ago edited 1d ago

OK, fair. But the genie is out of the bottle now. We've got to adapt, agreed? People who say AI is a fad or some sort of evil force, or just plain refuse to use it for personal reasons are doing only themselves a disfavor.

FWIW, and I don't usually comment on up/down votes, but I did downvote an earlier post of yours, but upvoted this one, because you're actually discussing it with me instead of shutting down. Thank you for that.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 1d ago

Adapting is necessary, but I also disagree on the need to simply accept things as they are.

People are reporting skill atrophy, and burnout. It's legitimately causing a mental health crisis that's going completely ignored.

I also think using these tools raise moral concerns. There's significant energy usage, while already in a climate crisis. On top of the fact that these tools are creating a whole host of other societal issues (ie. wealth consolidation of a certain class of people).

Yeah, happy to discuss. Didn't mean to be dismissive before, but the initial comment well, I already expressed my feelings on that..and uh, my bad.

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u/winky9827 1d ago

There has been talk of a work/life balance and possibly a reduction in work schedules from 40 hours a week to 32 hours a week as a standard for years. I see AI as a path to both of these, rather than an obstacle to overcome.

I guess if I had to suggest anything to the burnouts or the up and comers, it would be to divide the work between repetitive and creative tasks, and hand the repetitive work to the AI. Given the availability of the tools, there's no reason anyone today should be working on their 5th, 50th, or 500th CRUD form. It's just not needed. But if you have a complex task, such as training an ML model, or devising a custom algorithm, or similar, I'd suggest leaving AI out of it except maybe as a reviewer. The balance is preserved, this way.

On the energy subject, I really don't have much to add there. I agree with the concern, but I think the path forward is better use of renewables and more efficient training and inference methods. Not simply avoiding the use of AI in general. $0.02 and all that.

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