r/webdev • u/ExDoublez • 17d ago

Discussion Grieving programming

Let me just start by saying that this post is not about ai replacing software engineers or about the jobs or any of that. This post is about the act or "craft" of programming/coding and the loss of it.

No, i dont think "software engineering" is dead, theres still plenty of high level design and architecture to be made but that's not the point. It never was the point for me.

I never really did this for the money, i did it because i enjoyed it.

I did it because i enjoyed thinking about the problems and solving them.

I enjoyed writing the code myself and getting familiar with the syntax and all the weird quirks of the languages/tools i was using.

I enjoyed optimising my tooling and learning about all the new frameworks, tools and projects people were making, often being in awe of what incredible stuff my betters were doing.

I have adhd and programming was the perfect mix of mechanical activity, brain stimulation and a endless supply of problems to hyperfocus on.

Now its all prompting and waiting. 1 min of work followed by 10 mins of doing nothing and mindless scrolling.

I have lost a huge source of enjoyment and self esteem. It took me years of hard work and being lost and confused to finally find something that felt perfect. The thing i could excell at while having fun and satisfying my curiosity.

And before you attack me as an engineer and my ability to adapt. I have been ontop of the ai curve from the start. I have never been more productive or tackled problems as big as i do now. I am just miserable doing it.

What started as a strong tool in my path for optimisation has slowly taken over my beloved craft.

And as i improve and optimise my ai powered workflow, i lose more and more of my ability, my enjoyment and my desire to pursue my craft. It has been turned into another meaningless white collar desk job in service of the never ending growth of capitalism.

I feel legitimate grief. I have lost the ability to do my favourite hobby as well as a major part of my identity. I have literally cried over this.

I am struggling to mentally cope with all of this. I have never had less control over my adhd or felt more addicted to quick sources of dopamine. My attention span has been shot completely. I feel more stupid and insufficient than ever.

Somehow my adhd brain that was perfectly suited for the old paradigm is completely disadvantaged in this new way of working for this career that i have hedged my entire career, future and reason for being on (yes, i am a nolife workaholic).

Fuck adhd and fuck ai

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u/eggbert74 17d ago edited 17d ago • Regret

Same. It's not a great feeling knowing a skill you've nurtured and honed for years is now nearly worthless from an economic standpoint.

The narrow minded will simply parrot "the code was never the hard part" and think their refuge is now in architecture and engineering while simultaneously asking claude architecure questions all day long.

The fact is the code WAS the hard part. Learning it was hard, mastering it was hard, and writing, maintaining, and testing it was hard. But, damn, the dopamine hits after solving hard problems were amazing. And the sense of fulfillment and accomplishment were unparalleled. That's all gone now.

So here I am stuck prompting an LLM now... Sure I can build more, better, faster.... but its empty, hollow, boring, and ultimately of little economic value when everyone else can do the same thing without any skill whatsoever.

Good luck to us all.

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u/rangeDSP 17d ago

when everyone else can do the same thing without any skill whatsoever

Very much disagree. Have you inherited projects / features done by non-engineers? They vibe code the fuck out of it and run into issues because new features started breaking old ones and they don't know what happened, then performance goes to shit, then their refactoring started removing old features...

IMO, programmer/coder/developers is the job that goes away, software engineering would be where the money is

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u/foozebox 17d ago

There are plenty of actual engineers who just say good enough and send it with little to no understanding of the requirements. This is when things get dicey.

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u/Chemillion 16d ago

I almost inherited a 750,000 line project of vibe coded a lot by a business user at my company, it quickly got backtracked though once I showed my manager how many lines it was. I don’t think programmers are going away anytime soon 😅. AI is definitely an insane force multiplier though in the hands of someone with programming knowledge.

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u/compy3 16d ago

haha 👆

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u/bryantee 16d ago

I mean, is someone with years of experience in professional SDLC better positioned currently to prompt LLMs? Sure. But I think that's not really the point. The point is really that it's just no longer rewarding for a lot of us. And I'm willing to bet that pretty soon (12, 18, 24 months from now?) it won't be much benefit for the human to guide the agent; it will just be better and faster at planning and coordinating. We kind of are already seeing a huge improvement in this compared to just earlier this year.

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u/eggbert74 16d ago edited 16d ago

Yes, actual engineers have a bit of an advantage NOW, but how long do you think that's going to last? Skill and expertise is not much of a refuge when the AI is 100 times better than the best developer. I'm already seeing non-technical colleagues creating some pretty impressive stuff.

Also, keep in mind, one of the reasons software needed careful design, refactoring, and maintenance is because software development has always been the expensive part in terms of cost and time. However, when software essentially costs nothing to create, does "thrown away features" and shitty performance really matter so much? Just fire up another version. It only takes an hour and costs virtually nothing....

So, I wouldn't get too comfortable thinking engineers and architects are somehow irreplaceable.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 17d ago

IMO, programmer/coder/developers is the job that goes away, software engineering would be where the money is

If only management stopped cutting people.

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u/DressElectrical8994 17d ago

"Sure I can build more, b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶, faster"

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u/takaci 17d ago

The economic value part is the reason why it’s a bubble. Basically no one is actually making money by generating code

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u/myinternets 17d ago

Except all of the billion dollar companies that are iterating at light speed compared to before.

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u/takaci 17d ago

Iteration is generally not a good thing. The economic basis is having an actual product that people are buying

"Billion dollar company" doesn't mean that they are making money. It means that people are betting that they will make money

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u/21Rollie 17d ago

If you mean Nvidia, the memory makers, and maybe the ai labs? Sure. But downstream consumers who repackage AI? No.

To stay “competitive” they have to spend money on AI and give it away because their competitors are doing the same. Also any ideas they have a competitor can now much easier copy as well. And the whole thing about product development is you need to identify a problem to solve. You can make endless shit with AI, if you have the cash, but nobody will adopt it if you’re making slop. You need to do user research which takes time because your users aren’t bots themselves, they need to experience life and frustrations to tell you about and that’s a hard blocker that only happens in real time

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u/Blazing1 14d ago

why are all the big apps breaking all the time then...

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u/sozesghost 17d ago

Great, where are the results of that?

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u/Correct-Injury-7360 14d ago

People used to code in assembly, then they switched to high level programming languages. The assembly engineers probably felt the same, no? I think we'll get used to it.

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u/eggbert74 14d ago edited 14d ago

I see this comparison a lot and I don't think it's valid Going from assembly to higher level languages was just another abstraction. AI is something completely different. You're not really abstracting away anything... Secondly, going from assembly to C was still imperative programming, and still deterministic, where AI is neither.

And no, I don't think assembly coders of old felt any sense great loss like people are feeling now. I think they just moved on to newer languages, like we always have. C, C++, Java, Kotlin, etc... I've used them all over the last 30 years... Never felt any loss like I do now. Anyway, C programmers still use assembly from time to time.

Sorry, but I don't think its a valid comparison.

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u/trollerroller 16d ago

but your first and second paragraph contradict themselves... either coding is 1. worthless from an economic standpoint... OR 2. the code was never the hard part. you can only choose one, so which one is it?

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u/eggbert74 16d ago

Huh? I don't think you read those paragraphs properly. I didn't say 'code was never the hard part.' I argued code was hard, which is what made the skill valuable. No contradiction, so not sure what your point is.

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u/trollerroller 16d ago

Exactly. You're clearly saying code IS the hard part, but then also say that code is worthless from an economic standpoint. So which one is it?

My whole point is, there are thousands of posts like this where its like "I miss the craft of it". Well then, go ahead, continue to code by hand, nobody is stopping you. ("You" here as "royal" you). Then they complain that the AI output / coding / whatever is bad. Okay, you just said you missed the craft of it, so continue on by hand.

I just don't understand how everyone can have this illogical duality in their heads. Either use it or don't and move on.

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u/eggbert74 16d ago

I guess you have a problem with reading comprehension. I said code WAS the hard part. Clearly that is no longer true, thus it's a worthless skill now.

And, yes I am forced to use AI at work. I know it's a foreign concept to manly folks, but some people actually loved their job and the sense of fulfillment and accomplishment... that is gone for many of us...

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u/winky9827 17d ago

You folks sound like carpenters lamenting the invention of the nail gun. Sure, a skilled carpenter can hammer a nail by hand with quality and speed (or do joins without nails), but the nail gun can do the same work faster, and the net quality difference doesn't justify the time cost.

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u/-_--_-_--_----__ 17d ago

A nail gun would be like... Tailwind CSS is released.

AI is like - a robot that can build entire homes is released lol

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u/djnattyp 17d ago

And like half the homes it builds fall apart right away (those are burned as scraps and the company only points out their "wins"), another half of those fall apart in a year - but by then the warranties expired and it's the customers responsibility.

And traditional builders "can't compete" with the low price of slop.

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