Comment by skydhash
7 hours ago
I don’t think writing code was ever hard. It’s basically the same level of difficulty as learning to write sheet music, a foreign language, or mathematical formula. Same with basic computer concepts.
The hardest part is the formal logic, recursive reasoning, and how to abstract. It’s a thinking mode that some find difficult to adopt.
As for domain knowledge, I don’t think that has ever been difficult to obtain. Just behind me, I have the CLRA Algorithms book, and that has pretty much everything you may need in that regards. Same with various other types of knowledge. And with Youtube, you can easily find visualizations if books do not work for you.
I’ve taught people how to code and they can grasp concepts quite easily. It’s the thinking aspect that they have trouble with. Meticulously thinking about every computation path, categorizing errors and handling them is not something a lot of people like.
Interesting - I’ve been thinking that when people say “writing code” they mean figuring out abstractions, logic, reasoning.
Without that, what’s left? The syntax?
Realizing we might not all have the same thing in mind when someone says “writing code was never hard/easy” is making a lot of other comments I’ve read here make more sense!
Writing code, IMO, is mostly the typing. AKA the syntax and whatever libraries/platforms you’re using. They are incidental to creating a software solution to whatever problems. It requires rigor, but it’s not particularly difficult.
Abstractions, logic, and reasoning is not helped by AI tools. Yes they can give you a ready-made solution, but you’ll need to exercise judgement to see if it really fits the problem. And doing the latter can be as hard as just doing it yourself.
I would agree with that. Whenever I’ve delegated more than what feels like ~80% to the agent (“vibe coding”, I suppose) is when it starts feeling bloated, messy, and bug-prone.
On the flip side, having a design written ahead of time, ideally with reviews by peers and AI and as little as possible AI “content”, seems to almost always go well.
Obviously very subjective!
2 replies →
> It’s basically the same level of difficulty as learning to write sheet music, a foreign language, or mathematical formula.
I mean, all of those are pretty dang hard. Maybe you're just particularly skilled (genuinely, no shade intended), I certainly couldn't do any of those without a significant level of effort.
I'd also personally consider "formal logic, recursive reasoning, and how to abstract" as parts of writing code, as the other commenter said. And while AI certainly isn't at the point of "solving" those yet, it's a heck of a lot closer than we were a few years ago.
And sure, you can always obtain domain knowledge, but the whole point of knowing it is that you can see approaches other might not, answer questions quickly, etc. And a lot of this is still relevant post-AI, but it does feel like a lot of it has been lost. It feels like implying that search engines weren't a major upgrade to research because you could always just go to the library and look through books to find your answer - sure, but googling a question is a lot easier! And chatbots just feel like an upgrade from that.
> It feels like implying that search engines weren't a major upgrade to research because you could always just go to the library and look through books to find your answer
I do agree with you on that point as local libraries (where I am) and the internet has been a true treasure of information for me. And yes, AI is way easier for accessing information (even with the high risk of hallucinations). What I tend to argue against is statements that basically said that before AI, it was a dark age of information.
> What I tend to argue against is statements that basically said that before AI, it was a dark age of information.
For sure, agreed entirely on that.