Comment by etra0
4 hours ago
Even if work is not life, hobby programming also has been affected.
I worked hard a couple of years ago to reverse engineer a game to produce a very specific tool. Recently, the game was updated, so I worked on my free time to do a free contribution to the community, and then, a few hours later a tool that does the same thing appeared entirely vibecoded.
Even if some parts of the community care about how a tool was made – Most don't, they just want something that fulfill the goal.
Now even my hobby programming was overtaken by AI, something I did for love and expected no pay out of it whatsoever, which is... depressing, to say the least.
I tried to look at it like cooking, or baking: I can make damn good croissants. They'll never be quite as good as someone with a dough sheeter and handmade cultured butter, but my friends and family would never complain.
The problem is, baking something and sharing it with others brings people together, there's smalltalk, catching up, other human stuff. Which in the end is kinda the point of it.
Like your post says, with programming, it's mostly just a race to what achieves the goal, with the exception of demoscene and retro programming, I guess. I started learning ARM assembly so I could make a lisp implementation in it. It will be useless, no one will use it, and an AI could bang one out in a few minutes, but overcoming that struggle to understand things in different ways has to be the goal with hobby programmers like myself, I guess.
> The problem is, baking something and sharing it with others brings people together ...
Honestly, I don't see how this is a problem.
> Which in the end is kinda the point of it.
Absolutely.
> Like your post says, with programming, it's mostly just a race to what achieves the goal ...
Unless the joy of whatever programming one does is found in the path taken.
> I started learning ARM assembly so I could make a lisp implementation in it. It will be useless, no one will use it, and an AI could bang one out in a few minutes ...
Who cares if anyone uses it or if some other tooling could replicate what you choose to do if, in doing so, you enjoy it.
Much like the "damn good croissants" you make, it doesn't matter what others could make. You make damn good croissants.
Your happiness is yours. Enjoy the path you take to find it.
They’re saying the problem is that programming doesn’t result in bringing people together. The problem is that the value of baking is not easily recreated in all hobbies.
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Yes, my favourite programming project is a tetris clone my family and one or two friends have played.
The community you share with doesn't need to be online - your croissants aren't going out for delivery but I'm sure your friends and family appreciate them (and you). It can be the same with your software products, if you choose.
Well with programming there can be a creative aspect which is more like sharing art/music online... But unfortunately that's still affected. I've been putting out what I think are pretty banger projects, with a good level of polish, but it's like nobody cares anymore. Social media is saturated.
I'd ask - is your hobby programming the tool, or distributing a tool you built for others to enjoy and working with that community?
I'd say the post deals _strictly_ with the former. LLM code generation absolutely changes community dynamics, what other projects are published, etc.
Part of various communities is _doing_ something of shared interest together and accomplishing something as a group. Sometimes that group is trying to solve a novel problem or push the state of the art forward. When there is no need for a community to serve that purpose, it becomes a group of people who may not otherwise gel. It’s great when it works out otherwise, but I’ve enjoyed working with a lot more people than those who also became a friend outside of that environment.
The other issue I’ve found is that these communities produce novel tools and ideas and AI can iterate on the idea much faster than the original authors. The original author had their own motivations for researching and producing and I can almost guarantee they weren’t reviewing the output of someone’s prompt.
How insightful and concise!
I'd also highlight a third option (really a sub-option of #2) which is competition within the community. One's hobby might be shipping the fastest (such as in cracking communities), and I could very much see this disrupted in today's world.
I think this misses the author's point. The examples he gave were all related to programming as an act of learning rather than an act of completion. He made no comment wrt programming as a contributor within a larger system (like open source code, community games, etc.). Instead, he argues that it's ok to like programming because it satisfies an intrinsic motivation, not that it satisfies an extrinsic goal more effectively.
I take the parent comment's meaning to be that disentangling the journey from the destination isn't so easy in practice, especially if you're robbed of the community that was journeying alongside you.
If you were running a marathon and, halfway through, everybody just hopped in a cab and drove to the finish line, you'd be disappointed.
Strongly agree. Thinking of music — you reap enjoyment from practicing by yourself, then collaborating with other musicians as craftspeople, then performing for an audience. All three feed into each other.
So when the audience has moved on to synthetic music (stretching the analogy now!), and musicians have as well, it's still possible to continue on your own, for the pure enjoyment of it. But much has been lost with the global transition.
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I'm not entirely sure I agree.
While doing the whole project, I learned a lot about reverse engineering itself, the tooling, understanding static vs dynamic analysis, etc. Which was the most fun part of the project itself.
The rate at what people are delivering projects removes that opportunity heavily, even in hobby communities, which is part of the point!
I've always enjoyed the process rather than the end-product, which is why this personally affects me more than other folks I guess. Some people are motivated on producing more, I was more motivated by the learning process behind it, and those two things aren't compatible, so speed is winning the race, sadly, even if you're not profit motivated. I admit I'm a bit more of a doomer, I still use AI tools at work, but I guess it was time to search for hobbies that are not related to programming anymore.
But why does someone else delivering faster deprive you of the opportunity to learn these things anyway? Can't you just... not look at what they've done?
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Not everyone can enjoy the process when a comparable outcome already exists. I'm aware the act of learning alone may be fulfilling enough for some, but many (including myself) got into programming to make things. When those things already exist, there's no point to making them anymore. I don't find it fun to make things for nobody.
Just because other people don't use your version doesn't mean you can't.
At the end of the day it is probable that we are jockeys after the invention of the motorcycle you can still ride for fun but don't expect it to be the fastest way to go long distances
For what it's worth, the vibecoded one probably used your old version as a base.
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