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Comment by vconnor | Hacker News Reader

> Some people are just born something (engineers, in this case), and they're that something for life.

Yes, and it's very not fun when your identity is being reshaped before your eyes in the matter of a couple years.

I wonder how many developers are going through real grief right now, while everybody else, lacking empathy, are just repeating "get a grip, it's just a tool" or "you better adapt or you're done".

Well, I know I have gone through these difficult emotions, and I choose now not to identify with my work, or at least my career any more. I certainly do not identify as what most people these days refer to as 'software engineer' any more.

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This is a great reason not to identify too much with your work. I have enjoyed AI because it has reminded me that my real calling is art, and that I should be doing that at 8 pm, not coding

True, but if your true calling was coding, this change would be much harder to stomach

I don’t think anyone’s true calling is coding. That’s like saying you really like the act of writing, so much that you’d become a stenographer or a typist or something where you do zero higher level thinking and just absent mindedly press buttons.

Most people who are good at tech hate coding so much that they come up with elaborate abstractions so that they can avoid doing more of it.

I recommend you read the post because that's a really bad misunderstanding of the mindset, and like the comment at the top of this chain says, the post explains it well.

I read the post. I don’t agree with the “people are born to do one thing” mindset. There’s a lot of possibilities out there for everyone. I do identify with this OP fellow somewhat, except that I usually don’t code for fun on nights and weekends (also sunday code sesh can be fun)

Not sure if your 'enjoyed AI' is meant literally. I have escaped my existential crisis and found solace in art as well, simply because it's a very human method of self-expression and taking shortcuts to pain, effort and creativity by prompting LLMs is still frowned upon, at least by those that take art seriously.

The only way I can still enjoy programming now is if it's applied to artistic endeavours. I'm done with the soulless, cost-efficient software "engineering" (which by itself is a laughable proposition and a far cry from the high standards of other fields of engineering)

I do literally enjoy working with AI sometimes, other times it is hell. But sometimes coding by hand is hell, too, usually when working on other people’s extremely hacky and procedural code.

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