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Comment by jwilliams | Hacker News Reader

I read takes like this and I feel like it's gatekeeping.

I love writing software. I love that others are now getting to share this.

I think the issues here are valid. Equally there is lots of hard engineering work to reduce these issues. That's where I'm putting more energy.

My scale is decidedly non-Meta, but we're investing to make the whole team able to get their own PRs up. It's not been without it's bumps, but on the whole I think it's been transformative for everyone.

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> I read takes like this and I feel like it's gatekeeping

Yeah man, insisting on good engineering practices instead of "vibes" has always been gatekeeping

That's the actual point of engineering credentials

What are we even doing here

This was before the bot could competently code things. Software development is now a very different beast, and yes while there have been some very stupid and irresponsible uses of this new technology, many others are integrating it effectively into their workflows.

> This was before the bot could competently code things

Agree to disagree

Getting something working is the absolute bare minimum, it's not "competent"

The fact that it can, and often does, get things working, sometimes even well, is evidence enough. It can't do some things, it can easily do others, and knowing which is which is very important nowadays.

> The fact that it can, and often does, get things working, sometimes even well, is evidence enough

So can my 12 year old nephew, but we aren't racing to put him in charge of software development in professional settings

Hard disagree. Software engineering was never about writing code. It's not a completely different beast, not really. It's just way cheaper to write code now. And anyone who has been doing this for a long time already knows, more code usually = more problems

Don't ignore the context here. These are people hired to develop software for a company. They have an obligation to do so efficiently, with sufficient quality, and while balancing the company's short term and longer term business needs.

I think it's great that software development has been opened up by LLMs. Everyone should at least try it, IMO.

But your company's source isn't your personal playground and you shouldn't treat it as such.

I agree that a company’s codebase isn’t a playground and I know+feel those obligations.

My reaction is more to the broader tone of some of these discussions. In my experience engineering cultures can become quite dogmatic or obstructive, and that can block improvements just as much as the opposite problem.

At our definitely-non-Meta-scale, we’ve been experimenting with letting more of the team get their own PRs up with LLM help. Overall it’s been pretty transformative. Interestingly, people tend to work on QoL and polish improvements that many SWE workflows often don’t prioritise or have time for.

There are outliers of course, but we learn, revert, and move on. If the outcome somewhere like Meta is PMs building nonsense, that feels more like a deeper systemic issue than something inherent to opening up the codebase.

There's a reason engineers tend to be dogmatic about things. It doesn't just come from nowhere. Is it misguided sometimes? Yes. But far more often than not, there are very good reasons why those with experience seem "dogmatic and obstructive".

Is a hiring bar gatekeeping then? Do you just hire the first person that applies because having them do a technical test gatekeeping?

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