I think the real divide is over quality and standards.

We all have different thresholds for what is acceptable, and our roles as engineers typically reflect that preference. I can grind on a single piece of code for hours, iterating over and over until I like the way it works, the parameter names, etc.

Other people do not see the value in that whatsoever, and something that works is good enough. We both are valuable in different ways.

Also, theres the pace of advancement of the models. Many people formed their opinions last year, and the landscape has changed a lot. There’s also some effort requires in honing your skill using them. The “default” output is average quality, but with some coaxing higher quality output is easily attained.

I’m happy people are skeptical though, there are a lot of things that do require deep thought, connecting ideas in new ways, etc., and LLMs aren’t good at that in my experience.

> nobody got into it because programming in Perl was somehow aesthetically delightful.

To this day I remember being delighted by Perl on a regular basis. I wasn't concerned with the aesthetics of it, though I was aware it was considered inscrutable and that I could read & write it filled me with pride. So yea, programming Perl was delightful.

Enjoying something and getting satisfaction out of it are two different things. I don't enjoy the act of coding. But I enjoy the feeling when I figure something out. I also think that having to solve novel puzzles as part of my job helps preserve my brain plasticity as I age. I'm not sure I'll get either of those from claude.

I think the argument is "a bit too nice," it isn't a binary, motivations are complicated and sometimes both feelings coexist.

If I reflect for a moment about why I personally got into tech, I can find at least a few different reasons:

- because I like solving problems. It's sad that the specific types of problems I used to do are gone, but it's exciting that there are new ones.

- because I like using my skills to help other people. It's sad that one specific way I could do that is now less effective, but it's exciting that I can use my knowledge in new ways.

- because I like doing something where I can personally make a difference. Again, it cuts both ways.

I'm sure most people would cite similar examples.

It's not a pure dichotomy though. I have always been both, and slowly mixing in agentic coding for work has left me some new headspace to do "trad" programming on side projects at home.

I love the exciting ideation phase, I love putting together the puzzle that makes the product work, and I also take pride in the craft.

I feel zero sense of sadness about how things used to be. I feel like the change that sucked the most was when software engineering went from something that nerds did because they were passionate about programming, to techbros who were just in it for the money. We lost the idealism of the web a long time ago and the current swamp with apex reptiles like Zuckerberg is what we have now. It became all about the bottom line a long time ago.

The two emotions I personally feel are fear and excitement. Fear that the machines will soon replace me. Excitement about the things I can build now and the opportunities I’m racing towards. I can’t say it’s the most enjoyable experience. The combo is hellish on sleep. But the excitement balances things out a bit.

Maybe I’d feel a sense of sadness if I didn’t feel such urgency to try and ride this tsunami instead of being totally swept away by it.

The divide was never invisible and there has always been at least three camps.

The "make-it-go" people couldn't make anything go back then either. They build ridiculous unmaintainable code with or without AI. Since they are cowboys that don't know what they're doing, they play the blame game and kiss a ton of ass.

The "craft-lovers" got in the way just as much with their endless yak shaving. They now embrace AI because they were just using "craft" as an excuse for why they didn't know what they were doing. They might be slightly more productive now only because they can argue with themselves instead of the rest of the team.

The more experienced and pragmatic people have always been forced to pick up the slack. If they have a say, they will keep scope narrow for the other two groups so they don't cause much damage. Their use of AI is largely limited to google searches like it always was.

> The web was objectively awful as a technology

I, for one, remember when I could crash Netscape Navigator by using CSS too hard (i.e. at all) or trying to make a thing move 10px with DHTML. But I kept trying to make browser to thing.

Eh, it also feels like a classic "maybe we somehow have enough perspective on this watershed moment while it's happening to explain it with a simplistic dichotomy". Even this piece interrogates the feeling of "loss" and teases out multiple aspects to it, but settles on a tl;dr of "yep, dichotomy". There's more axes here too, where that feeling can depend on what you're building, who you're building it with, time and position in your career, etc etc.

(I'll admit, though, that this also smells to me a bit too much like introvert/extrovert, or INTP/INTJ/etc so maybe I'm being reflexively rejective)

I strongly disagree. There's always been two camps ... on everything!

Emacs vs. vi. Command-line editor vs. IDE. IntelliJ vs. VS Code. I could do like twenty more of these: dev teams have always split on technology choices.

But, all of those were rational separations. Emacs and vi, IntelliJ and VS Code ... they're all viable options, so they boil down to subjective preference. By definition, anything subjective will vary between different humans.

What makes AI different to me is the fear. Nobody decided not to use emacs because they were afraid it was going to take their job ... but a huge portion of the anti-AI crowd is motivated by irrational fear, related to that concern.