This is vibe coded I guess? Toggling the "Happiness plateau line" does nothing.
324 karma · joined June 4, 2024
Any ideas beyond real estate?
It really is, if there's one sentiment that's remained consistent in me over time it's awe at how harsh of a mistress software is. As good as coding agents are, it still routinely dismantles them in astonishing ways. It's like complexity is the natural state to which all systems want to settle.
The vast majority! I think I've come across 1 or 2 competent engineers in 20+ years. It's a miracle that software works, ever. Increasingly, it doesn't.
Tech consulting takes all kinds of forms. I've been doing it for a while. A lot of clients aren't thinking about time spent. A lot of clients have an in-house team that simply can't achieve something at all. Can't figure out how to do automated deployments, can't figure out their server OOM errors, can't figure out why a SQL query is slow. There is a huge swath of simply incapable teams. That's a whole class of opportunity potentially wiped out, I say potentially only because a lot of teams are so incapable that they still don't realize you can use an LLM to solve those kinds of problems.
And yes, every consultant loves to think they're getting paid for value, not time. Try telling a potential client that you're so much more skilled than their team, that you will finish the "200 hours" project in a single weekend, and that you would still like to bill 200 x market rate for it. Unless they are incredibly savvy, they will balk. If they are incredibly savvy, they probably don't have a shit eng team in the first place.
What sql client is going to hand you raw text?
> Hmm - wouldn’t it be great if the object tracked changes and could save itself.
Lost me there.
Premise is laughable right out of the gate.
Thanks for that, needed a deep guttural laugh.
This is right, and don’t think this isn’t all partially fueled by spite. I’m not sure if engineers understand how much they’ve been simultaneously reviled/revered by non-technical people. They see this as a Prometheus moment. They would love to vibecode a mess and make the engineers deal with the details.
You've been a part of some successful ventures! I've worked at places that grind their way to an uneventful shutdown over 3 years, can't raise, can't hire, can't scrape together a GTM plan, can't land on an MVP, and grow 0% / year.
Wow thanks for reminding me of this. Remember that leaked story of an engineer claiming it was sentient, even before ChatGPT came out?
In the USA at least, people in the normal cars aren't "sharing their experiences". They're playing garbage music from their iPhone speakers (technically not allowed - happens anyway), trying to subdue their giggling/crying/screaming children, loudly conversing amongst themselves, etc. It's a zoo.
Not trying to pick apart your post, I liked reading it in general.
> The diagram below shows the rule: within each business domain (e.g. App Settings), code can only depend “forward” through a fixed set of layers (Types → Config → Repo → Service → Runtime → UI). Cross-cutting concerns (auth, connectors, telemetry, feature flags) enter through a single explicit interface: Providers.
This sounds so much like CQRS/hexagonal/DDD/other stuff. This is like the stuff that real world software teams actually struggle to execute on. This is the stuff people want solved. I don't think anyone doubts that if you can nail some sort of rigid, well-defined architecture and tooling workflow, agents can fly on filling in implementation. But it's the first part that needs solving.
You've never tried to compile NextJS slop, have you? It absolutely can take that much. All those junkdevs have 64GB in their MBPs for a reason. NodeJS max heap is now dynamic because of this.
Have you ever run a business?
My total lifetime "ate it" figure is only $2k, and even that one the client kind of eventually offered to pay, but I just let it be because I wanted to put as much distance between myself and them for other reasons.
Best advice in the article? "Trust your gut". If something feels vaguely off, I walk away immediately. I can see those non-paying incubators coming a mile away. Biggest indicator beyond gut: do they have existing contractors who seem happy? Ask them pointblank if they're getting paid. Easy as that. And of course, if they are paying you, but then stop paying you, or delay paying you, then stop work immediately.
Agree, YC founders are the worst type of person.
Employment?
Managers understand that metrics are meaningless. The idea is to have something to point at to scare engineers into jumping higher.
Prescribed workflows apply solutions from the wrong direction.
Determine what's impeding your organization, devise a solution.
The last guy I encountered who evangelized something like this had smart frames and a Lovecraft anthology prominently perched in the background of his Zoom shot.