Comment by LaGrange
5 hours ago
For at least the last 3 decades programming was a field that rewarded utter mediocrity with (relatively to other fields) massive remuneration. It has been filled with opportunists for as long as I remember.
5 hours ago
For at least the last 3 decades programming was a field that rewarded utter mediocrity with (relatively to other fields) massive remuneration. It has been filled with opportunists for as long as I remember.
You are talking about bad programmers who are at least able to fool their managers for at least several years. The people OP is talking about could not even do that and most likely would have dropped out in the first week trying to program full time since they just don’t have the aptitude and patience to get unblocked after their first compilation error. Now they can go very far with a LLM.
I think worth noting that a more impactful and maybe even bigger proportion of those opportunists is in management.
Regarding quality overall, I agree, it's truly a cursed field. It was bad before; and with LLMs, going against that tide seems more difficult than ever.
This is an excellent point. LLMs might merely be exposing and amplifying behaviors that were always there. This can be an opportunity, in that shining light on it may allow us to cleanse ourselves of it. It's fundamentally about integrity, and sadly it's becoming clearer how few possess it (if it ever wasn't!). But maybe we'll get better at measuring integrity, and make hiring/collaboration decisions based on it.