Hans HübnerMar 9

I'm a software professional and I have spent the last 40 years writing code almost daily. To me, the advent of LLM coding tools means that the job that I have been doing so far is gone. I am no longer going to write code for a living. Instead, my job as a software professional will be to guide LLMs to write the code for me.

I did not ask for this, and I have not decided whether I enjoy my new activity more than I enjoyed my previous duties. But is that relevant? In a certain sense, I am a 1/

Show threadHans HübnerMar 9

member of the working class and have always been at the mercy of capital. So now, capital has changed the rules in which I am operating and my new life is fundamentally different. I do not feel that I get to choose. Gone are the days that made me feel like belonging to an elite class of workers that capital depended on.

I'm at the end of my career, and it feels strange to experience that the field I've been operating in is taken over by machines. I can't imagine how this feels for the 2/

Show threadHans Hübner
thousands of people who had planned a career in this industry that now no longer seems viable. 3/3
Mar 9 at 6:54pmMastodon for Android
Show threadgrepeMar 9
@hanshuebner I'm in similar situation and I believe it is a privilege to know how the code should look like and to be able to do the guiding. I feel sad for the coming generation of professionals (both coders and the people who just think they can now ask these tools to create code alike) which will end up doing some pretty dumb stuff only to rediscover many of the good practices that generations before them painstakingly developed...
Show threadJohannes RauberMar 12
@hanshuebner Sounds a bit dystopian, if it plays out like this what are the options if coding is what you like? Make coding a hobby and join the ever spiraling shift from technology to technology-management? Or join the trades in a desperate move out of this sector?
Show threadHans HübnerMar 12
@jrauber I personally also like building things, no matter whether I write the code or not. My father had a good analogy: Back when he was a young civil engineer, electronic calculators became common, many of his (older) peers were so used to using slide rules and trigonometric function table books that they liked the activity and had to give in to the thought of giving that up. They were still construction engineers, as we are software engineers, even with changing tools.
Show threadGrandmaster BashMar 27

@jrauber @hanshuebner both are viable Options and I am considering both currently as a fourty year old developer. I am in the middle of my career and I am highly unsure were to go from here.

Also a quote from a Junior Collegue today: I've asked claude to build a feature and half an hour later it was done like magic. Then he said, I don't know whats my purpose in my project anymore. To me that's facinating and concerning at the same time. I notice more interactions like this on a regular basis.

Show threadGrandmaster BashMar 27
@hanshuebner
Its kind of shame that there are barely Jobs in running Makerspaces or Repair Cafes. I would love start a second career in these spaces educating people and helping them to build their pet projects for a living.
Show threadNfoonfMar 19
@hanshuebner i am still 20 years away from retirement and for me it feels, and comes more and more clear, that there will be no future for me and many others. What will happen to us obsolete humans? Will they put us down like lifestock?