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Comment by anymouse123456 | Hacker News Reader

> I have been programming for more than 20 years, and I still feel like a novice. I still feel like I am learning the basics. I still feel like I am learning how to learn. I still feel like I am learning how to think.

> This is merely a reflection on an activity I deeply love and cherish.

This exactly matches my feelings 25+ years in. I've been up and down the stack from games and animation to enterprise crud, to tools and frameworks, to embedded and motor controls. It's all so gorgeous and beautiful and stupid and wasteful.

There were so many years when I thought I could see a destination just a bit out in the distance. Alas, it was always a mirage. Of course there are skills, but it's almost all taste and values at the bottom.

My favorite thing in the world now, is pairing with really junior people and learning to see it all anew.

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> It's all so gorgeous and beautiful and stupid and wasteful.

Indeed. I don't think of hobby computing as stupid and wasteful if it's something you enjoy and it doesn't harm others or the environment. On the other hand, I've seen so many examples of harmful and wasteful computing systems that create intense negative effects, directly and indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally, usually in order to control humans and/or accumulate more money.

For the record, I was talking more generally about all the software (including much of what I've written). It's just awful in almost every way, but also beautiful in so many others.

It's a very interesting perspective. I wonder what is a good example of such a system?

It's literally all of them. I think Apple puts in enormous effort and skill to create beautiful software (and things too), but then these efforts make contact with reality and become something incredibly frustrating and ugly.

For example the glass surface on an iPhone. This is a beautiful object in many ways, but it's meant to be held securely in a human hand and hopefully survive falls from 3-4 feet. Slippery glass is one of the stupidest surface materials one could choose for the back of this device.

We can dig around in just about any open (or closed) software. There are always some small, beautiful ideas floating around in there just waiting to be seen. But then, when the code is actually executed it becomes a terrifying Geiger-like[0] morass of interconnected tentacles that reach into unexpected places and rip at whatever soft flesh they touch.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=geiger+art

I feel like I've been able to keep myself refreshed by pairing with jr engineers every day. If I am unable to pair for a couple weeks I start to get grumpy.

Something about getting to see them learn it all for the first time really helps me feel refreshed and like I'm a part of something bigger than just pushing small plastic buttons all day.

Pair programming is an wonderful activity for me as well. Some of my best work, and memories, were made in that context. Strangely enough, it is becoming rarer these days that I find a partner (it has been ~2 years now since my last pair programming)

I also really enjoy pair programming, and I think most people agree that two heads are better than one and will usually produce better results.

What's interesting about this moment in time is that the main objection to pair programming has always been cost, but this year I acquired a permanent pair programming partner who's practically free and will be with me forever. This partner is a bit dim-witted and random but has somehow memorized the entire Internet, so I haven't fired it yet...!

I'm referring, of course, to a LLM. While I don't buy into the hype that we're just moments away from general AI, I've found that the most effective way for me to work with ChatGPT or Github Copilot has been to anthropomorphize it a little and imagine that I'm actually pair programming with it. Conversation is just such a natural interface, and it adds a bit of levity to my work.

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