alt Hacker NewsThis might sound like snark, but I truly don’t mean it that way.
I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development. All the people I work with who are getting the most value out of using AI to deliver software are people who are already very high-skilled engineers, and the more years of real experience they have, the better.
I know some guys who were road warriors for many years —- everything from racking and cabling servers, setting up infrastructure, and getting huge cloud deployments going all the way to embedded software, video game backends, etc. These guys were already really good at automation, seeing the whole life cycle of software, and understanding all the pressure points. For them, AI is the ultimate power tool. They’re just flying with it right now. (All of them also are aware that the AI vampire is very real.)
There’s still a lot to learn, and the tools are still very, very early on, but the value is clear.
I think for quite a few people, engaging with AI is maybe the first time ever in their entire career they are having to engage with systems thinking in a very concrete and directed way. Consequently, this is why so many software engineers are having an identity crisis: they’ve spent most of their career focusing on one very small section of the overall SDLC, meanwhile believing that was mostly all there was that they needed to know.
So I think we’re going to keep talking for quite a while, and the conversation will continue to be very unevenly distributed. Paradoxically, I’m not bored of it, because I’m learning so much listening to intelligent people share their learnings.
Replies
Spot on take. The people I’ve noticed that say things like “it’s not useful” are the ones who are doing so little they can’t see the value.
This isn’t to say there’s not hype. Just that if you’re not seeing big productivity gains you need to make sure you really are an outlier and not just surplus to requirements.
This is really not true. There are stories of people who had no background in software engineering who now write entire applications using AI. And I have personally seen this happen.
The "AI Vampire", huh. Unironically, I've been feeling that way.
Well, there was also a lot of unrelated things that happened as well around last November for me, but yes, getting into vibecoding for real was one of them, and man I feel physically drained coming back from work and going to use more AI.
Not sure what it is. I'm using AI personally to learn and bootstrap a lot of domain knowledge I never would have learned otherwise (even got into philosophy!, but man is it exhausting keeping up with AI. I would burn through a week's worth of credits in a day, and now I haven't vibe coded a week.
I think, I will chill. One day at a time.
absolutely. as a early/mid level SDET/SRE, I can move so fast on prototyping full good apps now. That style of thinking is serving me well, knowing about queues, docker, basic infra knowledge, good coding practices, is plenty to produce decent code. Interesting time to be laid off.
AI makes a ton of bad decisions too and it's up to you to work with it. If I had the knowledge of the dangers hidden in things I'm developing, I'd move even faster
Was able to make a great full web app, which I think is hardened for prod but it had to be refactored to do so. Which it happily did.
It's really about asking the right questions, breaking down tasks, and planning now. I'm going to tackle a huge project, hoping to share it here.
> I’m learning so much listening to intelligent people share their learnings.
Me too. A key purpose of HN, and a bright time for that.
Any thoughts on what the next generation of software devs is going to look like without as much manual experience?
Isn't that scary though: A bunch of people are going to be forced to use a tool that keeps them ignorant and they absolutely won't know if it's doing correct things, to the point that as you retire, the next crop is going to be much less involved in knowing whats going on.
It's what happened with the internet and computer usage. As Apple made it easier to get online with zero computer knowledge, suddenly we're electing people like donald trump.
Spot on, I am having the time of my life with AI, more fun than I've had in decades. But I was in the top 10% of engineering, and top 1% of the bits of engineering I do best, so it's easy for me to use AI to explore more ideas than I could have possibly explored by hand. And if I get replaced, cool bro, my investments are in compute, and compute's just getting started IMO.
Hey, I don't think this sounded like snark at all. Super grounded take.
> I think what’s interesting about AI, and why there’s so much conversation, is that in order to be a good user of AI, you have to really understand software development.
This I agree with completely. You can see it in the difference between a prompt where you know exactly what you want and when things are a little woolley. A tool in the hands of a well trained craftsperson is always better used.
> So I think we’re going to keep talking for quite a while Me neither, and to be clear I'm okay with that. This was mostly a rant at the lack of diversity of discourse.