Comment by dcrazy
7 hours ago
I’m not strawmanning anything. I’m pointing out what I believe to be ridiculous gatekeeping. Software engineering isn’t some holy magic that must be kept from the masses.
I can go on YouTube and get step-by-step instructions on how to safely wire an entire house. In many jurisdictions I would even be allowed to do that.
I can get instructions on how to completely redo a bathroom, down to the studs and up through the waterproofing and tiling. I can get instructions on how to do foundation repair, which might be a bit much for me but can help me ask the right questions to keep the contractor I hired honest.
These are all examples of experts acting as “traitors” to their particular group. In reality, technology enables both specialization and despecialization. Some people try to cling to their specializations and cry “class warfare” when threatened.
Alright, I guess I'll take the bait. Not much else going on today anyway.
> I’m pointing out what I believe to be ridiculous gatekeeping.
I am not gatekeeping. I am stating that we collectively exist in a professional caste and that will go away or lose influence if you let it do so. Other professional castes do this exact same brain exercise and that is why they have protections in place.
> Some people try to cling to their specializations and cry “class warfare” when threatened.
I'll be blunt and just state that I am post money and not remotely threatened by this stuff anymore. I am observing that software engineering as a profession is blindly giving away a ridiculous amount of leverage in the world - in the form of dollars and influence, the value of their labor - and more crucially doing it to themselves.
I will be fine whichever way this shakes out, and I don't really have a dog in this fight short of having spent decent time in the OSS space and finding it sad what it is turning in to.
Your initial post on class solidarity was extremely reasonable (even if I disagreed with it - see my comment above) but to follow it up with a post describing castes in a non-negative light is wild.
In hindsight, the word "caste" is too heavily loaded and I should have chosen a different term. Sorry for the shit choice.
It's not meant to be taken negatively, and is purely a term that I was choosing to represent "hey, you all need to consider better coordinating/representing/holding the line as a group".
> I am stating that we collectively exist in a professional caste and that will go away or lose influence if you let it do so. Other professional castes do this exact same brain exercise and that is why they have protections in place.
I consider this mode of thinking selfish and anti-progress. It’s pretty much exactly what Americans decry about unions.
> It’s pretty much exactly what Americans decry about unions.
If you consider a union to be a "bad thing" then we are likely going to talk past each other for eternity.
2 replies →
I’ll be blunt and say you certainly sounds like someone “post money” talking if castes and such. Glad you got your nut and do not care how it shakes out.
What is sad about oss? What is it turning into? I will say far before ai came in oss was a few arms deep in the techfluqncer culture where motivations were driven by gh stars and follow counts rather than a genuine interest. Or maybe what was a genuine interest became twisted as the culture changed.
> Glad you got your nut and do not care how it shakes out.
I do care, it's why I commented what I commented. ;P
I already acknowledged that "caste" is an incorrect word choice and I could've done better there, but my core point remains unchanged.
Assuming you're being genuine (which I have a hard time believing because your argument is quite literally a strawman, please read the definition), you're missing the context entirely. You can't conflate small DIY projects done around the house with developing software that thousands of people and institutions rely on. By all means you can go and watch a video on software development, but that does not entitle you to expect that PRs you make will be accepted to any project other than the ones you control yourself.
Please re-read the specific comment I replied to. It was someone expressing indignation that a software engineer would accept “high-quality” PRs from a non-software engineer, accusing the poster of lacking “class consciousness.”
"You can't conflate small DIY projects done around the house with developing software that thousands of people and institutions rely on. "
Who claimed that?
That was the context:
"Fwiw, a non-technical employee in my workplace has begun submitting ai-generated prs to internal repos I maintain & they're of excellent quality, "