I feel his pain. I am more towards the opposite end of the spectrum [1]. I program to get things done. Usually, I don’t like programming. It’s too focused on one thing. Sometimes I like it though, precisely because it’s focused on one thing. But I love the things you can imagine and build with it. So for me, LLMs are amazing because I get to be an idea guy when I want but sometimes I can go deep, also when I want. I’ve kept up too, so I have the experience backing it up.

With that said, when I read this blog post. I feel the author’s pain. And it’s the first time that I emotionally get what the other side of the programming spectrum feels what it has lost. I feel sad about it. And because of it, I will also wonder about ways of bringing it back.

[1] not fully though. Something I can love coding by hand for months.

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littlexsparkee 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So much comes down to timing - lucky author that got to experience it for 30 whole years whereas some of us had a scant few to enjoy building as it was, flow state, and some semblance of security. At least I made plans the last 5 years in anticipation of change, can't imagine the sheer dislocation of just entering the job market now.

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sho_hn 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Pros and cons. Some of the people who were lucky to enjoy those 30 years are also emotionally being hit the hardest right now, and if life threw a few curveballs at you along the way you don't necesarily have attained the sort of stability where you don't have to worry, either. Plus ageism can make it even harder to pivot.

I have programmer friends in their 40s to 60s who are seriously depressed currently (and 20 year olds worried for theirnl future perspectives, of course). Mental health is not just a young person's game.

I strangely feel quite lucky that I got more and more into electronics and hardware over time as I moved from web and desktop more and more into embedded/consumer electronics and companies who also employ mechanical and EE engineers. When I was younger I used to dumbly worry this meant giving something up (the purity of software approaches, etc.), but instead it made me consider myself an Engineer with a capital E and strive to learn the engineering method more generally, and learn so many other fields of the trade. It turns out this is a much more resilient identity than just Programmer and I recommend that approach.

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raddan 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's funny that you mention EE. When I went back to school for CS in the early 2000s (I was a philosophy major... dumb), I was taking night classes with EEs who were fleeing to software. This was in the Boston area. A large contingent of my classmates worked at Avid. They started moving jobs out of the US and employees were told that if they switched to software they could remain employed. The mood was pretty grim, and these folks commented to me more than once that I was lucky that I loved writing software, because largely, they didn't.

	▲	sho_hn 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Right, I also hear that sentiment pretty often. I don't regret having a software career and am very glad for my 25 years of C++ and many other things. I wouldn't want to be without that, and it probably did and does pay better. However, it's pretty nice that these days I can also swing a semi-decent PCB, know my way around scopes and logic analyzers quite well, CAD something up for DFM in a number of processes from thermoplastics to machining, taught myself a fair bit of structural engineering, set up a FEM analysis correctly, etc. If only because it lets me bridge worlds and tie software and hardware together more effectively in the projects I'm in. I cannot do any of these things as well as a seasoned veteran, but it has given me a broader appreciation of engineering overall and the commonalities between it all, to the point where I can also muster up leadership in engineering orgs more broadly and am not as hurt over the prospect that my pure programming skills might get devalued or diluted, or change. For example, software engineers generally scoff at the perceived crustyness and lack of agility in classical mechanical engineering processes, but on the other hand mechanical engineering is far more experienced at defense-in-depth type approaches, dealing in components that have a failure rate to them and designing with error bars and safety factors, and I find some of that mindset has transferred quite naturally to engineering with our unreliable LLM friends at scale the past two years. It takes a lot of the sting out if listening to Phish isn't your only move. Well, maybe not a lot, but at least it doesn't get so existential. Don't be a Programmer, be an Engineer. It's a lot easier to feel useful during a time of much doubt.

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llmthrowaway20 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> So for me, LLMs are amazing because I get to be an idea guy

Enjoy this while it lasts, because very shortly LLMs are going to be fundamentally better at being the "idea guy" as well.

I had the same feeling reading this article today as I did reading the NYT article about the closing of Butter Ridge dairy farm. All that family wants to do is raise cows, name them, and milk them but it doesn't work as a business anymore because the factory farm machine took the viability away.

I feel the author deeply; this is coming for everyone across most of the economy.

	▲	blks 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No they won’t. And what you describe about the farm is just whitewashing marketing

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4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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