Why are experienced developers so enthusiastic about chaining themselves to such an obviously crappy and unfulfilling experience?
I like writing code and figuring stuff out, that's why I chose a career in software development in the first place.
If I need to call the VideoService to fetch some data, I don't want to spend time writing that and the tests that come with it. I'd rather outsource that part.
But this method of getting there makes me feel like I'm degraded to being the assistant and the machine is pulling my strings; and as a result I become dumber the more I do it, more dependent on crap tech.
There is a lot of tedium in software development and these tools help alleviate it.
There are tools and then there are the people holding the tools. The problem is no-one really knows which one AI is going to be.
The excitement around AI coding tools isn't about chaining yourself to a crappy experience — it's about having support to offload cognitive overhead, reduce boilerplate, and help spot potential missteps early.
Sure, the current gen AI isn't quite there yet, but it can lighten the load, leaving more space to solving interesting problems, architecting elegant solutions and "figuring stuff out".
That's why minimizing the generated code is important as well as working on smaller parts at once to avoid what the author refers as "too much up-front work" -- It is also easier mentally when you can iterate on this whole process in seconds rather than days in a pull request review.
It's like failing to adopt compiled code and sticking to punch cards. Or like refusing to use open source libraries and writing everything yourself. Or deciding that using the internet isn't useful.
Yes, developing as a craft is probably more fulfilling. But if you want it to be a career you have to adapt. Do the crafting on your own time. Employers won't pay you for it.
And when they have forgotten all about how to actually write software, the market is mine.
That's not why I got into software development. I got into it to make money. I think most people in Silicon Valley these days are the same mentality. How else could you tolerate the level of abuse you experience in the workplace and how little time you get to really dig on that particular aspect of the job?
This is a website that is catered to YC/Silicon Valley. My perspective is going to be common here.
I'm firmly in the problem solver/hacker/artist camp.
Which I guess is why we're more concerned about the current direction. Because we value those aspects more than anything; consider them essential to creating great software/technology, to staying human; and that's exactly what GenAI takes away.
I see how not giving a crap about anything but money means you don't see many problems with GenAI.
Luddism is a strange philosophy for a software engineer.
Luddism and critically evaluating the net benefit and cost of a piece of tech, are 2 very different things.
And the latter is not strange for a SWE at all, in fact I'd say it's an essential skill.
>I like writing code and figuring stuff out
This is an alien mentality to me.
I find pleasure in crafting the solution, sculpting it by hand; putting everything I've got into making it fit the problem like a glove. Coding to me is an artistic way of expressing myself, exploring, always improving; it's part of the fun to me.
And I don't like following instructions in general, don't like being programmed.
So what's in it for you then, if not the problem solving?
And yes, there already are solutions to many common problems. The task then becomes finding a best-fit, and adapting these solutions to the specific needs of the usecase...which is another instance of the same task.