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Comment by vitaflo | Hacker News Reader

As the lead dev on our team told us "You will all have a different journey on this road". Not everyone is going to get along with allowing an LLM to write code for them, something they've probably spent their entire lives crafting a skill for. Others only saw code as a means to and end, so an LLM finally removes that silly barrier.

I'm in the former camp. Every time I have an LLM write code it makes me entirely depressed because the satisfaction I get from programming is the programming. However, what I have found incredibly valuable is having LLM's help me plan. Using it as someone to brainstorm with, to "rubber duck" if you will. I still get to code, it just speeds up the planning process and has gone from a depressing exercise to one where I am excited to work.

Find your own path.

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I fear that there will be a point where it won't be a choice, although a part of me wonders why there is such a hurry to get rid of devs in the first place, as these tech companies have insane margins

But I also like to work the way you described it, and also by using Claude Code for e.g. K8s stuff (kubectl, helm) where you'd otherwise have to use a TUI or do a lot of typing just to get logs/status/etc. and a bunch of yaml that is just incredibly tedious

The reason, and the only reason, that leadership/owners want to get rid of devs is money.

If you’re wondering who the villain is, it’s capitalism. It’s always capitalism.

Fear is the mind killer.

So just have no fear? Then when should we have fear?

Fear is a natural response, one that in this case is perfectly appropriate imo. I don't fear for my life, but I'm not optimistic at the moment

Do what you want. I take it that it's a crime around hear to encourage people to not be afraid so shame on me.

It's a light-hearted reference to a quote from the Dune books/movies. I didn't mean it to invalidate your experience.

If anything, I was suggesting you take heart and be strong. But again, do whatever you think works for you.

Got to love this culture!

I didn't mean to set you off like that?

I was just making a counterpoint, because it's easy to just say "have no fear" but I think there is a real place for at least some fear, otherwise why would that feeling exist? if you get what I mean.

I try to not fear, and I try to take it easy, but I'm also privileged to live in a country where I don't need to doordash to make ends meet.

My bad. I don't think it was you that set me off. I was just butt-hurt for getting my Herbert quote downvoted. Not your fault, I think.

On a better day, I would have spoken with greater detail about why I think that fear is misplaced in this scenario.

Short version, if fear motivates you to adapt in some way then it's useful. Absent that, even if there is a solid cause for alarm, it makes no sense and can even lead to worse outcomes.

In the context of "I'm old and have lost my desire to code, but AI re-ignited that", I don't think there's a reason to fear that would lead to a useful adaptation. I wouldn't waste my time with it.

More to the point, I don't think "there is such a hurry to get rid of devs in the first place" because of AI. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe part of me is prepping for that, too. Maybe it's real and fear is a viable option.

Regardless, my response was misplaced on you, I think. Sorry.

No problem, I hear ya.

I think it's just such a big shift in mentality, where the field is being devalued and looked down upon, and that causes uneasiness

if I could turn off my fear response, I'd do it. But it's a thing that we can't always control, so while I try to minimize it and be optimistic, it'll always lurk there, especially when headlines constantly remind you of it.

Long-term, I think we'll be fine. Nobody will tolerate a run to the bottom where everybody just makes minimum wage and then there's a high class consumer class at the top. It doesn't make sense.

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