alt Hacker NewsIt seems AI is putting senior developers into two camps. Both groups relate to the statement, "I started programming when I was seven because a machine did exactly what I told it to, felt like something I could explore and ultimately know, and that felt like magic. I’m fifty now, and the magic is different, and I’m learning to sit with that."
The difference is that the first camp is re-experiencing that feeling of wonder while the second camp is lamenting it. I thankfully fall in the first camp. AI is allowing me to build things I couldn't, not due to a lack of skills, but a lack of time. Do you want to spend all your time building the app user interface, or do you want to focus on that core ability that makes your program unique? Most of us want the latter, but the former takes up so much time.
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It sounds like you don’t particularly care about the user interface, and that’s why you’re okay with delegating it. I think the developers who don’t like delegating to AI are the ones who care about and have strong opinions about all the parts. To them there are no unimportant parts where the details don’t matter.
I am firmly in both camps. On one hand, getting stuff working has its own thrill.
On the other hand, I step back, look at the progress made in just the last year, and realize that not only is my job soon to be gone, but pretty much everyone's job is gone that primarily does knowledge work.
I feel there's now an egg timer set on my career, and I better make the best of the couple of minutes I have left.
I’m sure the UI engineers would have a bit of a different take.
delegating UI to the 'not worth my time' pile is how you end up with a poor UI
Similarly, I'm using it to write apps in non-native languages, like rust. My first foray into it led to finding poor documentation examples. AI allows me to create without spending large swaths of time learning minutia.
I'm enjoying it to a point, but yes, it does eliminate that sense of accomplishment - when you've spent many late nights working on something complex, and finally finish it. That's pretty much gone.