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Comment by erdaniels | Hacker News Reader

This feels AI written as the post goes on. Either way, I'd like for us to stop fetishizing how we can use AI to make us stronger, better, and more valuable engineers. It's exhausting and doesn't consider other ways to use it. I've only been using it lately for tasks that are a step or two above google. Having it write code for me has just been a slippery, unfulfilling slope.

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Apparently the write code part works a bit better in languages like Rust and perhaps Swift where the compiler is unforgiving in rejecting outright nonsense and the AI can iterate on any errors it gets. Of course logically flawed code is always possible so this does not replace human review. But code in these languages is also a bit more compact and hopefully easier to understand for a human.

On the flip side, how much training data exists for coding in Swift? Especially when a new version seems to come out every 6 months.

I wish people would stop pretending that agentic coding and elevated thinking arent mutually exclusive.

Theres way too much money on this hype train now though to point out the emperor isnt wearing any clothes and way too many people who always did think that "boilerplate spew" (the one thing AI really does well) is a valid form of programming rather than a shortcut to tech debt.

All this stuff is proving to me one thing: we don’t need to get better at producing stuff faster. We need to get better at producing the right stuff. Right stuff meaning getting better at project selection.

I guarantee a firm that is really good at project selection with hand written code will annihilate a firm that is full of agentic engineers. And frankly I hope the outcome is that all those who went all in on agentic coding go out of business because they got beaten by disciplined and visionary leaders who understand this subtle and nuanced point.

Faster faster faster, everything faster except for fixing the climate, sheltering the poor, healing the sick, reducing inequality. Until we are planning to do these things with the same speed and enthusiasm as pushing out more crap for people to buy, the only thing we are moving faster toward is our own doom.

Capitalism doesn’t care about that.

Capitalism does eventually care about efficient allocation of money to produce capital though. Competition takes care of that; see china vs USA.

I don’t care about Capitalism.

It's not the "faster" which makes investors and PMCs wet their pants with anticipation...it's the ability to swap reliance upon labor which requires a level of labor cooperation (which can be withdrawn) with reliance on raw materials.

For raw materials all you need is a bigger gun, missile and/or aircraft carrier. Labor can go straight to hell and the economy wont freeze up.

It's the same calculus which precipitated a shift from coal (labor reliant, locally sourced) to oil (bigger guns... but much less labor required) in the early 20th century.

Well the irony of that is if labour disappears these vultures don’t live in peace. They end up fighting each other until the victor is left standing lol.

you are missing the picture here. would you then agree that agentic + selection is better than hand-written + selection? in that case, even if the advantage is project selection, nobody would choose to work in a hand-written way right?

> I don't know how to do something so nobody else knows either

They definitely all believe they can.

Pasted it into Pangram AI and it classified the article as 100% AI generated, so take that as you will...

Ironically making the case for the thesis of the piece - what happens when you let A.I. do all the thinking instead of exercising competent judgement. Disclaimers and leaving real thought to others do not make it much better. Pangram is confidently wrong here.

Then why is the title photo very obviously AI? I feel like you get people on alert off the bat

I read the piece before coming to the comments and had a similar feeling as OP - hence my comment. If AI wasn't used then my apologies, I didn't mean to diminish your work.

I agree with the premise of your post, just felt it was a bit long and the section headers read a little weird.

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