alt Hacker NewsSoftware lost that status in the vibe coding era. It's an art form now, not necessarily something worse or easier, just different than engineering. But probably not the career path anymore for those who prefered math over philosophy in college.
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Amusingly i specialized in both AI and philosophy in college. Guess I'll be ok.
Software never had that status. I was disgusted by the decline I could see in the 90s even, and I was a teenager, I had no clue and still don't. I cannot imagine how it must be for people who do have a clue. They're probably all drinking.
Software engineering has always had that perception, long before vibe coding. Also you might call it an "art" but most normal people will not see it as such (if you actually care about defintions, in theory we can call anything anything if we want)
It was this way well before vibe coding. Over a decade of zero interest rates combined with talent wars and other anticompetitive behaviors by large tech companies did the industry in.