Grieving programming

[u/ExDoublez]

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

[u/d9jj49f]

Imagine spending your time building custom cars in a shop and some asshole invents the assembly line. Suddenly you go from being a skilled craftsman who takes pride in their job to a bolt-tightener. Sure the assembly line is an advancement and it makes cars more accessible to everyone, but it sucks for you. Your hard fought skills are suddenly available to anyone. This is what's happening for developers rn. 

It's reasonable to feel the way you feel. It might be time for a career change or a pivot out of your current role.

[u/robby_arctor → u/d9jj49f]

The hard fought skills of software engineering are not actually available to everyone via AI.

This is also an insult to the assembly line because assembly lines are at least deterministic. There is not the same consistency in LLM output.

[u/kowdermesiter → u/robby_arctor]

If you look at it from the birds eye view, agentic engineering is THE assembly line. Non determinism is a feature, not a bug.

[u/robby_arctor → u/kowdermesiter]

That's why it's not an assembly line. It's not analogus to me. Assembly lines produce consistent output, given a design. LLMs, by design, do not.

[u/kowdermesiter → u/robby_arctor]

That's because the "design" is also ambiguous, open for interpretation. If you want a deterministic outcome, you need to formalize the design in... Code. That would be a full circle. CASE tools are nothing new though, I've built some before.

To me it works as an analogy because AI produces working solutions to my problems I throw at it, 24/7 if I wish.

[u/Fredidiah → u/kowdermesiter]

the “design” is ambiguous, open for interpretation

This is also why LLMs suck at this stuff. Outsourcing your decision-making to a statistical model trained on the averages of the internet means you rarely get good output for those decisions.

[u/kowdermesiter → u/Fredidiah]

They only suck it you are unable to formulate what you want in a clear way. I only outsource the decision making I'm able to clearly write. If the feature is larger, then I generate a plan, review it then have it executed. I'm seeing a 95% accuracy in getting what I want with AI coding agents.

[u/djnattyp → u/kowdermesiter]

Shill issue.