Comment by conductr
13 hours ago
If programming is woodworking, using AI is ikea assembly except they packed most the wrong parts in the box so I have to deal with customer service to go back and forth to get the right parts and the hardware parts don’t always function as intended leaving me to find my own.
It’s a different, less enjoyable, type of work in my opinion.
This analogy is inaccurate and spreading it just plays into the hands of those trying to press down SWE salaries and their importance. A better analogy is that previously we had a hand saw, now we have one of those automatic ones which speeds up some processes a lot but cant be used everywhere in every situation.
This analogy really hammers home how ridiculous it is to put 'vibe coding' or 'prompt engineering' in the same camp as software development. Imagine telling fellow woodworkers about your latest work and how Ikea built it for you, with a straight face.
> Imagine telling fellow woodworkers about your latest work and how Ikea built it for you, with a straight face.
I mean, if someone goes to Ikea but can't get it to build a working cabinet (with functioning and practical locks...), then perhaps the ability to do that is something to brag about.
Better woodworking analogy:
If manual coding is a saw, using agentic AI coding is a table saw.
It can make some work faster but there are still things done better with a manual saw. And if you don't learn how to use it well you can lose some fingers.
Plus the item you build may not be exactly what you initially requested, and you'll have to decide whether it's something you are willing to accept.
> It’s a different, less enjoyable, type of work
This is an elegant way of putting it. I like it