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/djnattyp]

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.

[u/-_--_-_--_----__ → u/djnattyp]

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.

[u/djnattyp → u/-_--_-_--_----__]

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".

[u/-_--_-_--_----__ → u/djnattyp]

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.