Reading this makes me think that perhaps I was lucky.
For this person, writing code may have been a way of life. In my case, I only started doing field work and using AI relatively recently, so I was able to adapt faster than I expected.
If your whole way of life changes, the shock must be much greater.
In contrast, I had no real status or social position to protect, so perhaps it was easier for me to let go. If I had tried to compete fairly and directly, I could not have beaten the experience and accumulated skill of veteran programmers.
Of course, my ability to write code was something I was somewhat proud of. Giving it up was painful, and it brought regret and a sense of inferiority. But at the same time, I also find myself thinking: “Was I really supposed to fight against veterans like this?”
Recently, this feels very similar to Durkheim’s concept of anomie. While reading this, I kept thinking about categories such as conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion. There are many points here that make me think.
If, in the future, coding changes again from today’s agent-based coding into some other form, what will happen to me then? By observing how senior programmers are reacting now, perhaps I can draw my own conclusions and prepare for that moment.
Right now, agent-based coding that depends on specific companies is dominant. But I think the current price of agentic coding is too cheap. At some point, when it becomes more expensive, local LLMs may become mainstream. If that happens, damaged or weakened code-writing ability may become necessary again.
So the question is: how should I prepare for that?
I think this fits well with Phish's isolated monoculture. I also started listening to Phish in the early 90s and have only seen 30 shows or so. Every time I go to a run it is very comfortable. There have been times I havn't seen them for a a good chunk of a decade and the shows feel the same. Eventhough jams have been part of their much of their history variation in musical style hasn't been. That leads to homoginization that makes for great vibe music.
We’re a long way from figuring out how to get flow state with agents. Maybe some sort of less stonerish upper-based master of the universe overseeing 100s of agents manic state.
I think there’d be a lot of demand from long time engineers that loved working in flow state to build tooling that encouraged flow. I think tokens/s needs to get like 10x faster first, because you’re going to be heading into a world where you are receiving very soft and non-distracting suggestions, probably at the periphery of your consciousness. Most will be thrown away.
I can kind of imagine a UI for this. I might experiment a little building something, but it will be by telling some agents to build it.. :)
Ditto. I programmed for 30 years with Underworld on. Listening to the beginning of Juanita/Kiteless instantly drops me into flow state. And it no longer fits if I am using an agent. I appear to be almost the same age as the writer of the post; just a little older. And I got that grocery store job.
So I am working on a personal OpenBSD-related project. I have no idea if it will ever see the light of day. It scratches an itch and I am having fun doing it, and I don’t use AI. It’s forcing me to read man pages carefully and OpenBSD source code (side note: the lack of comments in their code is almost a “fuck you”). In short, it is fun.
For this person, writing code may have been a way of life. In my case, I only started doing field work and using AI relatively recently, so I was able to adapt faster than I expected.
If your whole way of life changes, the shock must be much greater.
In contrast, I had no real status or social position to protect, so perhaps it was easier for me to let go. If I had tried to compete fairly and directly, I could not have beaten the experience and accumulated skill of veteran programmers.
Of course, my ability to write code was something I was somewhat proud of. Giving it up was painful, and it brought regret and a sense of inferiority. But at the same time, I also find myself thinking: “Was I really supposed to fight against veterans like this?”
Recently, this feels very similar to Durkheim’s concept of anomie. While reading this, I kept thinking about categories such as conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion. There are many points here that make me think.
If, in the future, coding changes again from today’s agent-based coding into some other form, what will happen to me then? By observing how senior programmers are reacting now, perhaps I can draw my own conclusions and prepare for that moment.
Right now, agent-based coding that depends on specific companies is dominant. But I think the current price of agentic coding is too cheap. At some point, when it becomes more expensive, local LLMs may become mainstream. If that happens, damaged or weakened code-writing ability may become necessary again.
So the question is: how should I prepare for that?
This was an interesting post.
I think there’d be a lot of demand from long time engineers that loved working in flow state to build tooling that encouraged flow. I think tokens/s needs to get like 10x faster first, because you’re going to be heading into a world where you are receiving very soft and non-distracting suggestions, probably at the periphery of your consciousness. Most will be thrown away.
I can kind of imagine a UI for this. I might experiment a little building something, but it will be by telling some agents to build it.. :)
I’ve given up trying to get that feeling back at work.
We were lucky for 20 years, now if we want to do it for craft it’s time to contribute to OpenBSD or something — with phish on, not for money.
So I am working on a personal OpenBSD-related project. I have no idea if it will ever see the light of day. It scratches an itch and I am having fun doing it, and I don’t use AI. It’s forcing me to read man pages carefully and OpenBSD source code (side note: the lack of comments in their code is almost a “fuck you”). In short, it is fun.
I wonder if I should try out some Phish.
> That move is Phish fans in miniature. Someone cared enough about the song and the bit that they rebuilt a piece of pop culture around the band.