Comment by apsurd
1 day ago
I'm younger, but not by much and I too feel instinctively sad by how abruptly the entire industry has changed. And there's no going back. It's because I'm a craftsmen, I care about the code. And you learn in your career that it's a bad idea to care about the code, especially in a business context, which one's career is very much trapped in the business context.
I care about the code because the code is the product interface to the people working on it, my peers and team. The UX around that code affects us every day, every hour. We should care about it! It took me a decade to realize caring about the code is not bad, it's just a dualism we have to hold: two truths. The code is a means to an end, the outcome and end-user value is the only thing that matters, it's true! Also the code matters. The code is a manifestation of the effort and human attention toward an interface that becomes a product that produces business value for people.
Writing code is changed forever. And I'm saddened by it because I spent so much intimate time and attention writing code. I felt proud and it was beautiful to me, the code itself, the APIs created, and the end user state. (I'm a product developer, and believe it or not, I even enjoy CSS). But also the code is just code. AI writes code. And everyone is rightfully so losing their minds over it all. My hours "coding" are changed forever.
But I fully believe the pendulum will swing back to what has always been true. It's not a failure of AI. It's just what has always been true: creating useful and usable product experiences, for people, is hard. It's a very hard iterative feedback loop with experiential, tacit, actions and actors in real life.
So I think, we're ok. The variance is high and wild, but, it's all good, it's all still ok.
Thanks for your writing, I enjoyed it. (edit: TLDR I think you're product person caught in backend-dev circles. Human-centric, make things for people. In this world, AI is more obviously a tool. On the other side of the pool, the more backend-heavy the dev, the more everything is just one skill file away: marketing, sales, UX, design, writing, strategy, consciousness.)
I don't know if this will bring you any comfort, but I think
> And you learn in your career that it's a bad idea to care about the code, especially in a business context, which one's career is very much trapped in the business context.
It's always been this case -- well before LLMs hard pivoted the field. You (theoretically) get paid to create net business value, you don't really get paid "to code". If the product you are creating is code, then yes the priority of code quality can be much higher. Especially in higher IC roles like Staff+, coding is just one of the ways to add that value.
At work I just have to solve the problem at hand with the minimal amount of effort to reach the first acceptable solution. After work while at play, I can explore 10 versions of something at my leisure, just to learn if I want. I can focus on working the thing until it's polished and elegant, because I decide what the priorities are. I can be as selfish as I want.
It's common in art circles that you have a series that you can churn out for money, and you have ideas you explore just for you (that often are far less appealing to non-artists). Pixar used to have a tick-tock cycle like this, "one for them, one for us". They would alternate a sequel bc it would make money and new IP because it would keep the studio fresh.
I don't think accepting this should be depressing. A good life is all about finding balance so that you can sustain it for the long haul!
> I think you're product person caught in backend-dev circles.
I am kind of all the things (product design, dev, front end, training) because at the small end of things you have to be; you don't get directly paid for misery-avoidance but I don't think that's any reason not to do it :-)
But thank you.