Comment by ks2048 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ks2048 | Hacker News Reader

Simon, (if you’re reading), if you “like programming”, is there any point that you get depressed about LLMs doing all the fun stuff that you wanted to do?

I see some arguments about high-level languages, eg “I’d rather program in Python than assembly - this is just another step-up”. But I feel natural language is altogether different and obliterates any skill/knowledge you’ve built-up in programming.

I can think other things, for example music - I like playing guitar even though I’ll never create something totally original or do better than a machine could do. But for me, programming combines the fun of creation with the satisfaction of the end result - something you wanted to exist now exists.

To clarify, I’m not talking about “usefulness” or accomplishing some business objective, I’m talking about the joy and satisfaction of programming.

If anything, it's the opposite. LLMs are making programming even more fun for me, because I can choose what and when I delegate to them.

Looking up how to accept a drag and dropped file (and then implementing it) in a JavaScript application isn't really that fun to me - certainly not for the tenth time.

I thrive on variety and building interesting things. LLMs let me incorporate WAY more tools into my work - I can build with Go and AppleScript and Bash and ffmpeg and jq, all things I have never climbed the learning curve enough to feel confident using in the past.

Yeah, that makes sense. But I wonder, going forward, what is the relationship between "building abstractions/libraries" vs "Using LLMs"?

For your example, "How do I accept a drag and dropped file in JS?" - An LLM can spit out 100 lines that does what you want, OR someone writes a nice library that does what you want in a single function call (say, for the common case. More complicated usage requires more arguments, etc.)

(Of course, another option is LLMs are the ones writing these library functions).

I guess I am one of those programmers who is allergic to boilerplate (for better or worse), so having LLMs split out lots of code bothers me.

Part of this is my personal style: I don't like using libraries if I can throw in a tiny bit of boilerplate instead - that way I stay in full control of my code and don't need to understand dependencies that may do more than I need.

If you want to really get depressed about the future of software developers try aider.

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