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Comment by fatata123 | Hacker News Reader

No offense but have you considered the strong possibility that you’re just not good at what you do? I am occassionally pleased but mostly annoyed or disappointed… but never getting anything close to chills. That sounds downright weird.

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You're not wrong. But programming isn't something only talented people do.

Really? That doesn't line up with this forum.

As a non-software engineer reading this forum it sounds like everyone is basically von Neumann working on Operator algebras and Lattice theory.

I assumed that is why the view of LLMs is so negative on here. While Claude seems kind of amazing to me I am not a genius working on Lattice theory like most people here.

Most people overestimate themselves. Everyone deludes themselves into thinking they're talented. And in fact, most people are talented at something.

The problem is this: the moment you think you're talented, you stop growing.

As you know, programming isn't about a single right answer—it's about finding the optimal solution for the moment. What was correct in the past may not be correct now, and because it's tied to hardware, specs change frequently.

And honestly, everyone's workflow is different, so opinions on AI are bound to differ. Arguing over whether it's universally good or bad based on one's own case is just a waste of time. So I just let people think what they want.

True academia and industry aren't something that can be solved by a handful of geniuses. I think an industry that can be supported by the untalented majority is a healthy one.

The media portrays programmers as geniuses who can bring down the world, but that's just media hype. Considering the complexity of modern society, the era where one person can do everything is over. I think the age where AI becomes absolutely necessary is coming.

I believe the programmer's role will shift from reading all of AI's complex code to installing guardrails that the AI code won't go beyond. Of course, a tiny minority of programmers will generate the datasets to feed the AI. I think that minority will be extremely smal

Another strong possibility is that you might be working on something that’s not very prevanlent in the training set.

Even the choice of programming language matters, e.g. Java or Javascript vs some niche one.

No offense but have you considered the strong possibility that you're just holding it wrong? You're entitled to your opinion, but OP is hardly the first person to say something like this and is surrounded by tons of folks saying the exact same thing. Just because it sounds weird to you, doesn't mean it's not true.

By definition, 50% of developers are below average, so there are indeed "tons of folks" who are not very good at what they do.

That is not how averages work. By definition of mean, perhaps.

Indeed. Most people have more arms than average, which must be 1.9 something.

That is how a median is defined, not the mean.

Thank you! That was a (bad) typo. You are right, of course.

Everyone saying it is in the "not as good as they think they are" camp is the very obvious explanation.

Idk, all the great programmers I've come to respect are of the opinion that the code it outputs, while often useful, is not high quality. Likewise, all of the influencers and "thought leaders" I have seen on social media who I did not have a high opinion of previous to 2022, have all become AI influencers and make these kinds of claims. So while it's possible that the great programmers are not capable of using this tool effectively, I doubt that is the case, seeing as the mythical 10x productivity improvements have not materialised.

The tech has raised the floor not the ceiling.

Whether the latter happens remains to be seen.

That sounds accurate.

Or rather, they raised the perceived floor. IDK if we're seeing better output, but at least the illusion of output is stronger.

There are also differences in usage patterns, and differences in the quality of thinking. Not all programming revolves around Western open source

Well, I guess it's just a difference of opinion on who's right

"no offense..."

... then says offensive thing.

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