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closewithtoday at 10:19 AM1 replyview on HN

> This is such marketing speak. The words mean nothing, they’re just a vague amalgamation of feelings. “Vibes”, if you will.

I actually think this reveals more about you than you might realise. A _lot_ of people enjoy being able to help people resolve problems with their skills. Delivering value is marketing speak, but it's specifically helping people in ways that's valuable.

A lot of people who work in software are internally motivated by this. The act of producing code may (or may not be) also enjoyable, but the ultimate internal motivation is to hand over something that helps others (and the external motivation is obviously dollars and cents).

There is also a subset of people who enjoy the process of writing code for its own sake, but it's a minority of developers (and dropping all the time as tooling - including LLMs - opens development to more people).

> If you are using LLMs to write your code, by definition your product isn’t “polished”. Polishing means pouring over every detail with care to ensure perfection.

You can say the same thing about libraries, interpreters, OSes, compilers, microcode, assembly. If you're not flipping bits directly in CPU registers, your not pouring over every little detail to ensure perfection. The only difference between you and the vibe coder who's never written a single LoC is the level of abstraction you're working at.

Edit:

> If you “love delivering value and solutions”, go donate and volunteer at a food bank, there’s no need for code at any point.

I also think this says maybe a lot about you, also, as many people also donate their time and efforts to others. I think it may be worth some self-reflection to see whether your cynicism has become nihilism.


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latexrtoday at 10:50 AM

I have spent over a decade working primarily on open-source, for free. I still do it, thought it’s no longer my primary activity. A huge chunk of that time was helping and tutoring people. That I still do and I’m better at it; I still regularly get thank you messages from people I assisted or who use the tools I build.

I did use to volunteer at a food bank, but I used that example only because it’s quick and simple, no shade on anyone who doesn’t. I stopped for logistical reasons when COVID hit.

I have used the set of skills I’m god at to help several people with their goals (most were friends, some were acquaintances) who later told me I changed their life for the better. A few I no longer speak to, and that’s OK.

Oh, and before I became a developer, I worked in an area which was very close to marketing. Which was the reason I stopped.

So yeah, I know pretty well what I’m talking about. Helping others is an explicit goal of mine that I derive satisfaction from. I’d never describe it as “delivering value/solutions” and neither would any of the people I ever helped, because that’s vague corporate soulless speech.

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