Everyone is talking about the agents part. I'm going to praise this post for describing it very clearly that some people, from a young age, don't need phases, growing up, trying things, figuring out, exploring the world, finding themselves.
Some people are just born something (engineers, in this case), and they're that something for life.
I always have a hard time explaining to "normal people" that such life is not boring at all, in fact, I can't remember a single time in my life where I was actually "bored".
The people who go through phases are also born to be something for life: adaptable, and used to change. Being good at doing exactly one thing your entire life a certain way has the potentially fatal flaw of having significant issue doing anything else.
I feel like I've lived 3-4 completely different lives so far, but the constant is the ability to adapt to the next one, and still find joy in it while you're there. "Survival is the ability to swim in strange water."
Personally, the AI tools have been transformative for work, but haven't affected how I work much. I have always coded as a team. I'd often do the largest and most complicated parts myself, but work (both at work work and my hobby work) has always been about passing things between colleagues based on what our strengths were and how much time we had.
The AI tools are another colleague. They work incredibly fast, and I do less coding myself now, but my goal was always to solve the problem, not the code itself. The AI tools do a great job most of the time, but they sometimes screw up and need more guidance or me to step in to fix the thing (usually a very small error compared to the whole). If they screw it all up, we might need to start from scratch, or I might need to just do it myself. But that's not most of the time. And then I figure out the thing missing in my process to move them in the right direction, and improve it.
I feel like any software developer used to collaborating with, training, and mentoring other developers knows exactly how to work with AI tools, and the only main difference is how much effort I put into being really nice about it the whole time.
One main thing has changed. Before I would handle the most complicated problems people were having trouble with myself. Now I allow AI to work on them, even if I know I'll have to fix it. The difference is that I care about the time, the strain, and the morale of my coworkers. AI is just getting paid for iterating tokens, so I don't have to feel bad about what I ask it to figure out for me.
> Some people are just born something (engineers, in this case), and they're that something for life.
Yes, and it's very not fun when your identity is being reshaped before your eyes in the matter of a couple years.
I wonder how many developers are going through real grief right now, while everybody else, lacking empathy, are just repeating "get a grip, it's just a tool" or "you better adapt or you're done".
Well, I know I have gone through these difficult emotions, and I choose now not to identify with my work, or at least my career any more. I certainly do not identify as what most people these days refer to as 'software engineer' any more.
This is a great reason not to identify too much with your work. I have enjoyed AI because it has reminded me that my real calling is art, and that I should be doing that at 8 pm, not coding
I don’t think anyone’s true calling is coding. That’s like saying you really like the act of writing, so much that you’d become a stenographer or a typist or something where you do zero higher level thinking and just absent mindedly press buttons.
Most people who are good at tech hate coding so much that they come up with elaborate abstractions so that they can avoid doing more of it.
I recommend you read the post because that's a really bad misunderstanding of the mindset, and like the comment at the top of this chain says, the post explains it well.
I read the post. I don’t agree with the “people are born to do one thing” mindset. There’s a lot of possibilities out there for everyone. I do identify with this OP fellow somewhat, except that I usually don’t code for fun on nights and weekends (also sunday code sesh can be fun)
Not sure if your 'enjoyed AI' is meant literally. I have escaped my existential crisis and found solace in art as well, simply because it's a very human method of self-expression and taking shortcuts to pain, effort and creativity by prompting LLMs is still frowned upon, at least by those that take art seriously.
The only way I can still enjoy programming now is if it's applied to artistic endeavours. I'm done with the soulless, cost-efficient software "engineering" (which by itself is a laughable proposition and a far cry from the high standards of other fields of engineering)
I do literally enjoy working with AI sometimes, other times it is hell. But sometimes coding by hand is hell, too, usually when working on other people’s extremely hacky and procedural code.
What I really enjoy is learning. I came back to computing after many years in another field, and was completely in love. Everything finally clicked, I'd spend hours reading everything I could, coding, trying things out, letting half-half-built projects pile up as I discovered new things.
AI has completely ruined this for me. Its boring having someone else do stuff for you. And worse, I feel I'm un-learning at a rapid rate.
The magic has gone, I'm not sure I want to be in this game in another five years.
Some people are just born something (engineers, in this case), and they're that something for life.
I always have a hard time explaining to "normal people" that such life is not boring at all, in fact, I can't remember a single time in my life where I was actually "bored".