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Comment by tpxl | Hacker News Reader

The differentiator right now is taste. Most people have none (like the business partner in the OP), and some people have plenty (like you seem to have). These two sets of people will produce wildly different results with the same tools.

Two things you can do regarding programming here.

1. Be a consultant for a high wage, use AI, produce good results quickly - little to negative intellectual joy here. You still have the edge here due to good taste.

2. Produce 'artisanal' code in your spare time. Work 3 months for pay, then 9 months on whatever projects scratch your itch.

I still want to program and I don't think it's time to let go. Hit me up (email in bio) if you wanna chat, you sound like a really interesting bloke.

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1. is a bit contradictory or at the least a "devils in the details" wishful fantasy which hasn't been showcased convincingly in the wild yet (by "the wild", I mean software eng shops and corps). It's assumed the devs who have taste were able to implement their taste fine pre-AI, sure, but the whole gotcha in 1. is that the ones with good taste currently are not confident in implementing their good taste while simultaneously "producing good results quickly using AI".

I disagree. There is a lot of boilerplate to write and mundane things to check, which AI can speed up a lot. I'm not talking about 'software engineering' here, but about 'programming', which consists of a lot of write DTO->write rest interface->write interface->write simple select query->map response. The good taste here comes from the architectural design and the UI design.

The amount of 'software engineers' who couldn't design a table to be readable or a flow to be intuitive is off the charts. AI neither helps nor harms here, it just makes implementing good and bad decisions faster.

also people have no clue how to know what is good or bad.

It's like if I asked an LLM to produce a contract for a a new hire

(my friend the one I mentioned, did that BTW LOL)

Yeah, okay, it might be good, probably very good, in fact might be GREAT.

But I just have no clue

Since the discussion was related to the job security of a programmer with good taste, I'm trying to read your comment from that perspective.

If I am understanding you correctly, you are claiming that an AI will not design a table to be readable unless a programmer with good taste is prompting it. Did I understand you correctly?

If so, then yes we are going to arrive at different conclusions, because my claim is that the table made by the programmer with no taste will be acceptable to the client, hence good taste won't save the other programmer because good taste will require more guiding and interference by the programmer. And then the client will just go with the no taste implementation.

If the programmer with good taste truly does not lose any time implementing their solution when compared to the other programmer, as you claim, then yes the client will go with good taste since all else are equal.

I just find those assumptions hard to believe at this stage.

RE:

1. I did consulting for a bit, $500/hr haha I was so reluctant to do it. I do admit that SV was just pouring way too much money back then. The good old days. I don't live in the US, and remote opportunities have been vanishing quite quickly. In the US I would have no doubt I'd get crazy good offers, I have lots of people who respect me there. My friend and I even got offered high positions at Youtube way back when.

2. I quit 3 years ago and have done a lot of artisanal code. Lots of fun. But next year I'll need to figure out stuff, hence why I accepted this small contract (ends next month) and thinking if it's time to move on.

BTW I have a family to feed and my son eats like a husky even though he's only 45 pounds, so there's that. My daughter is a big fan of Argentinean shrimp and caviar. You get the point.

Hitting you an email

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