I absolutely love programming. It’s such an integral part of my personality that it’s hard to believe I only learned to program eventually - that I did not suddenly appear on this earth with capabilities of computer science.
It’s not rare to find folks in Software Engineering with a similar outlook. Well, maybe a bit more rare these days. Perhaps the career with its many benefits is overwhelming the true nerds. A lot of bootcamp grads and comp sci majors might be more interested in the lifestyle than the art. A shame, but who am I to gate-keep such a marvel?
More people should have the opportunity to do something in a way that makes them feel excited to go to work each day. The problems keep changing, but the job is roughly the same. You can get better at it over time. It pays well. It’s kind of nice.
I think the field is changing now. It would be disingenuous to say otherwise. I’m sure there are many jobs and facets which will be slower to it, but things are starting to feel different.
The other day I put up PRs for several large refactors (fully tested and verified, mind you) that would have taken me a day a piece otherwise. And that’s only if I could get over the procrastination leading up to them, which of course I hadn’t. On a whim, I tried using an LLM and it did such a good job that I was able to push them over the finish line.
These tools were far less capable a few months prior. I would never have seen myself using them like this. Sure, obviously they would have gotten there eventually, but today? Why today? I know things would have to change, but now?
I took a second to reflect and remembered a poll I posted internally. It asked what kind of tasks within programming people found the most relaxing. A hard problem got you energized, but overwhelmingly people said a long tedious refactor.
Well, we just automated away long tedious refactors.
This is not yet automation without reins. I do a very calculated hand holding. I construct guardrails and interventions in ways that make me most productive. If the tool does not fit a task, I don’t use it.
But it’s now changed. So much of the tedium (with some cost) is gone. If it isn’t, I am fast to find ways to effectively automate it.
I am coming quickly to grips with the realization that my role in this production has changed. My job is now different. There are worthy tasks I could have motivated spending cycles on that a machine can now do for me. I can feel my performance in this craft increasing.
But the abstraction is bigger. My context switching cost is lower and now I can pay attention to the things I need to.
My role is more so now than before graduating to “businessperson with a specialty in software engineering”. That happens eventually, but I figured it would happen as a result of career progression or interest, not technological change.
This is exciting. My role at this time is too far from elimination. I am too powerful with these new tools to be let go for the moment. My abstraction has simply graduated. I am the mover of mountains and not the twister of gears.
But the tedium is gone. There is less rhythm now and more spikes in its place. It is energizing, but it is not relaxing. I am afraid the rhythm might not come back. Perhaps I will need to seek it out.
The overwhelmingly negative reaction to LLMs within my field mostly comes from people like me. People who are engaged within the art and love of computing. People who feel a little upset at not just the technological change, but at their loss of identity.
That your fortuitous circumstance will change. The corporations no longer find what relaxes you to benefit them, and start to look elsewhere. The tools you use to construct will quickly change from under you. Your interaction with the craft will shift in ways too abstract to be of interest.
That people dare threaten the idea is upsetting.
But the problems are still there. The jobs will be open. The tools will need toolmakers. Your instruments will just differ. The pace will be faster. The science won’t be enough. The production will matter more than the craft.
They automated away your favorite thing and what’s left feels too foreign.
So I sympathize. But I do not agree.
I really love programming, but what I learned is I really just like solving problems. I like efficient systems and complex behavior. I like unraveling a system and chewing on a puzzle.
Those problems still exist. They exist and I enjoy doing them. For now this will do. It’s still fun and it’s still engaging.
But god rest the mundane art of programming.