alt Hacker NewsI think the bifurcation is between people who want to write code and people who want to have the end product of the code.
People who want to write code hate AI because it's doing the part they wanted to do.
People who want the end product of the code love AI because they want anything that helps them get to the end product faster.
The person who wrote this post feels oddly in neither camp. They like playing with the AI and seeing what comes out the other end. Some of the projects they boast about having built aren't even usable projects, like when they had it mock up a UI of a product and then got bored and moved on to the next before writing a backend.
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> I think the bifurcation is between people who want to write code and people who want to have the end product of the code
I think most developers are both! Depends on the task. Sometimes I want the result, sometimes I want the process.
Also sometimes, if I want the process, it’s because it’s something I want to have intimate knowledge of. There’s a practical benefit to writing stuff yourself, even if most of the time that benefit is tiny.
I don’t think this is the full picture. Plenty of people who like writing code are happy to delete code too.
I agree but I think its also more nuanced. I am also happy to use AI to operate at a higher level faster. I think that is somewhere in between. For instance, maybe I have some specific ideas and architecture I want to try for building a durable workflow engine. I dont just say 'make me a durable workout engine'. I'm very intentional about what it's doing at a system level but I am happy to cede the low level implementation details. If things work out, refactoring those details to my liking is also easy.
Well, you are learning something, just the thing you’re learning has an even shorter usable lifespan than programming languages, namely you’re learning what works to get useful responses from ai agents. Whether or not that has value to you is a different matter, but it’s worth bearing in mind something is being learned, even if it’s not engineering or programming.
I’m not sure that’s true. All my side projects exist to scratch my own itch, so the appeal to hop straight from design to done is really appealing.
But it’s never really that straightforward.
There is some truth to the idea that some people enjoy it and others do not. I haven’t seen a pattern between them.
The bifurcation is probably mostly just along the lines of slop tolerance than whether they "like" to code or whether they're a boomer or whatever.
There are a lot of people with high slop tolerance and who are seemingly prepared to endure the side effects of that.
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Agree this is largely the hidden issue much AI discussion misses.
AI industrialized a previously creative output. If you enjoyed the writing of code this is a nightmare. If writing code was a chore to solve a problem, this is a blessing.