Agreed. I think there are people who like coding for the sake of it, akin to solving a puzzle. Then there are those who like building, and coding is a necessary step in that. The former are sad, the latter are happy.
Working with AI tools the way many people seem to be doing it (multiple sessions at once, not even reading the output, rubber-stamping MRs) makes me anxious and paranoid, and it’s definitely NOT because I miss punching in if statements.
And while I don't go all in on the notion of revealed preferences, a few facts stand out to me:
1. Nothing is actually stopping me from writing code by hand for fun, but I don't
2. There is no practical reason to manually write homebrew SNES games in assembly language, but some people do
3. I still have no deficit of fun problems to dig into, to sit and ponder, and then experiment with. They just aren't coding problems, and I have far more powerful tools to help me navigate prior art, test out hypotheses, and so on.
I still wouldn't say im "happy" with the current state of things though, despite mostly fitting in that latter group. AI is still fairly tiring to interact with, and everything feels contested. If its not contested, it feels like putting almost anything out there... means it will become contested when certain people see it and decide "that is a solid idea", and just throw agents at mirroring it.
Now I derive no satisfaction from anything 'I' have built with it. At some point I am just stuck asking myself "Why am I doing this if someone can prompt an LLM the same way I have and get a similar result?". I can have the LLM write documentation, only to think "who am 'I' writing this for?". Why bother if someone isnt even going to read it, its just going to become context for someone else's LLM session.
I know there are other ways to look at but this is where I am at currently.
I keep thinking it would be interesting to do a series of interviews with software engineers on how they’re dealing with this change.
Beware of survivor bias though.
I also like using AI to make things
I am happy
There is more to software engineering than just "coding" or "building," and it's not even correct to oppose the two.
1. The joy of the process itself. If you're a programmer, it's writing code, running it, fixing bugs, making tests pass. If you're a woodworker, it's the feel of wood sliding under your fingers, a deft hand on a chisel.
2. The satisfaction of a completed work. For a programmer, that's an app you can run and click around and see the features up and running. For a woodworker, it's a sanded finished piece of furniture sitting there in the workshop.
3. Seeing the completed work make a difference in someone's life. For a programmer, that's a user telling you how your app helped them achieve a goal. For a woodworker, it's seeing that furniture in a room, watching it accumulate the patina of use.
So much of people talking past each other about AI comes from people who care a lot about 1 and people who never really cared about 1 but care about 2. It turns out there are many programmers who never really liked programming, they just wanted to have made an app. They are delighted about AI because it lets them skip a lot of step 1 and get right to 2.
But what I think is critically missing is that for most people, step 2 is marginal. It's step 3 where most of the real joy is. An app with zero users does not get you up in the morning. A piece of furniture collecting dust in an attic is not a source of meaning.
And the core problem with AI is that it gives you 2 by burning a whole lot of 3. Yes, you can whip up your "exercise tracker for cats" app in a tiny fraction of the time. So can a million other people. Your app is going to drown in a sea of other forgotten apps. Probably none of them will be maintained and none will reach critical mass.
I've done a lot of creative work over the years and time and again, as digital technology has lowered the barrier of entry, I've watched a horde of enthusiastic new people become disillusioned when it turns out they can make things now, but it's harder than ever to actually connect those things to people because everyone else can too.
I remember when DSLRs got a million people excited about being professional photographers, but now almost none are because photos are a mostly worthless commodity. I remember when CD mixers and Serato opened the doors to a million DJs who no longer had to buy expensive vinyl and struggle with beatmatching records. Now DJ mixes are a dime a dozen and it's harder than ever to be a working DJ. Recording an album used to require a room full of very expensive gear. Now anyone with a laptop and a DAW can do it. Publishing a novel required getting one of a small number of publishers to like it enough to print a thousand copies. Now anyone can upload a PDF to Amazon and share it with the world.
What happens when the barrier of entry gets radically lowered is that it requires some other extrinsic attribute to rise above the competition. In practice, that is either being rich and connected already, or getting extremely lucky. Domains where anyone can play have the steepest power law distributions. You have a few stars that everyone wishes they were and a million people doing it in their limited spare time. Unless you're already one of the elites, it's basically a lottery.
Now that's going to happen with software development.
It certainly wouldn't hurt! I think a lot about how many people in the US would be willing to be artists barely making ends meet if doing so didn't also mean losing access to healthcare.
> But, maybe those are the only two things you see because you're putting the end goal way too high... as in being a renowned novelist to take one example, instead of someone with some following.
Yeah, I agree that it's important to set your sights lower. You can be a successful novelist without being the next J.K. Rowling.
But power laws and the way word of mouth works iteratively within social media is a merciless popularity engine. The best way to get popular is to be popular. There is a positive feedback loop that consolidates most attention on a small number of winners.
You can still find your niche (my two books did!), but it's hard. And finding a niche small enough to not get dwarfed by the superstars but large enough to be a sustainable source of income is nearly impossible. Almost every creative has a day job these days.