Passion for code, dedication to the art of it... is what always defined me since 1980 on my Magnavox
Odyssey. So I perfectly understand what he is talking about, and I share most of it. Still, he makes
me smile sometimes with condescension on his stubbornness (I know what I'm talking about, I am
stubborn).
Well now, he just makes me smile, not laugh. I keep my laughs to those who embrace AI yelling
"hooray" that they no longer need to code while they pretended to love it for so many years. No, you
didn't. You though you did, as many people think they love their partner. Or childs. But to which
point? What would you sacrifice for it? Whatever you say, you don't really know, and you probably
have to say it anyway for the sake of looking weird, or a so-called bad person.
I don't care of what people think here, so let's do it: I sacrified my social life to my
passions. My professional life too. I turned down promotions, even early. Because not coding, or
coding less, was not worth any salary. Besides I'm not made to manage teams anyway, they would blame
me for being harsh, too demanding, so no, forget it. I want to remain happy, your employees too. Let
me do what I love and everything will be fine (though don't take me for a grunt, I have things to
say in my field, this is MY field). Yes, I sacrified my life to it. Did you? No, you're not
dedicated enough. That's not a shame, maybe I'm the one to blame, maybe I'm the one pointless, the
one too much this or too much that, but I am what I am.
So I won't blame him for this article. We're probably the same kind of nerds in that regard, and
nerds are just that: living in another dimension. Not only different from a so-called conformity,
but something more unfathomable. That's why they marginaly work together: they can't even understand
each other completely.
However, I would not have written that I don't use AI. Because I do use AI, but undoubtly and
definitey not the way most people do (or pretend to). And probably in a way the author did not
really try. No need for the damn Claude and such, come on. Free options are enough for that way of
using it. Need to refactor? Why would I ask the AI, I prefer to do it with LSP in my Emacs
editor. Takes longer? Maybe. But I'm still aware of the whole thing. My brain cells refresh, like a
RAM.
AI does not write my code. It often suggests, so often that it's not rare I ask it firmly to stop
writting code, only talking about it, about some logic in a specific area. That's a quite different
approach. And even if its code is good, I would be ashamed to kill/yank (you though I would
copy/paste? Come on!). First, it's not my style, not my naming conventions, etc. I know we can lead
it to use our style (users of Claude always talks about config files for such things), but I fucking
don't care. I don't want to depend on this, needless to say what I think about paying for it.
I can say it now: AI is the better companion of the lonely nerd EVER. I wish the author would find
it at some point. Not to write code for him, but to help when in doubt on something. Oh damn, I
always have doubts in many ways. That's sane to doubt. Never leaving the thinking apart, no way! My
brain cells need that.
Also to have clues of the options. Clues of the newer paradigms. Or simply chit-chat
about... code. Common practices. Algorithms (more often, it just responds about things I already
know, so what? It's not in my mind, let's continue). For example, it's very good to embrace modern
C++, there are so many things that changed in that field. It's also good to make sense of sometimes
over-verbose compiler errors, especially when you go crazy with your own templates (omg, yes, in
that damn context it's a typename, such things). Or to work with unreadable regexps too. Such things
again.
That's not an approach for work, for jobs, to make a life. Where we have dead-lines and must respect
it as much as we can. I don't work since a year or two, I'm just keeping an eye on technology, as I
always did anyway. I always work much more with my own projects, it's too satisfying to stop, or
find an excuse to stop; no boredom. The best times are when I do things for myself, for my own
dedication. In that context, without dead-line, the use of AI is sooo different from what they're
all mumbling about. TBH, I've read many things about it, and NOT A SINGLE time I've read something
that closely matches how I use it.
I don't buy time with AI. Most people do, but I definitely don't. On the contrary, I lose
time... but for the better. The same way I always lost time digressing of my current goal. What's
that new thing it talks about? Wait a minute... wtf? Let's dig it... wow, that's cool! One hour
lost, still... not really lost. And again, and free, no charge, not for that. Yes, I need to recall
some context sometimes, just enough for what a fresh session needs to know. It does not need to know
all my codebase, just that bit, and maybe that bit too, and off we go.
So yes, you see, I have much more fun reading them all than reading that article which, in many
ways, makes sense (and that's a breeze in the AI hype), but which is still too stubborn, and
believe me, I rarely say that from other people in my loved field ;)
AI helps me learn. Not to code, I do this since ~45 years! No, learn new things, new paradigm, or
old ones I may have missed, because coding field is so large you can't know everything. You just
have to insist when it seems to just say what you already know. There's always something to learn at
some point. One doesn't have to trust it all the way, we have tabs! Dig the docs, the manuals, the
APIs... just like before, except the AI often prevents searching for too long for the good terms.
I could write more on it, a lot more, but I'm not writting an article, so let's stop now.