IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

Control

Control

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Deathwing said:
Am I just a manager now and I should let go?
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Congratulations on the promotion! (that you didn't ask for, want, or get compensated for!)
I'm not very much of a coder, mostly only when I have to to get something done, but I've always enjoyed it. At least after the fact lol. You poke some keys, fret about it, poke some more, and eventually something you wanted to happen happens! A bit silly of course, but it always felt a little like actual magic. Not in that I didn't understand what was happening, but that you can imagine something, do the correct gestures, and something from your brain comes into reality. Now I can tell claude to do it, complete 100x more stuff, still have the imagination-to-reality happen, but there's no more magic. No more feeling of accomplishment, just a bit relief that it worked and dread that I have to test it. Well, and then minor rage at the things it still can't do since having to do things manually now feels MUCH more like a slog than before since everything it can do moves so fast.
It feels like trading fulfillment for a very capable, distractible, and autistic employee.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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I'm on the train, don't worry. At least somewhat. I upgraded to Claude Code Max last week so that I had the tokens to run automated test triage(fully replacing the idiot underling) while still having more than enough for the rest of my development work. Wrote my first skill a few days ago that spawns an orchestrating agent(so the implementor's context doesn't taint the review) which coordinates specialized review agents and then reports back to the implementing agent. This allows the implementor to keep its lock on the worktree as well.

Like, I'm making progress, tackling the problems I feel like I can. I just don't like looking dumb on code reviews and I don't know how to deal with it.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Control said:
Congratulations on the promotion! (that you didn't ask for, want, or get compensated for!)
I'm not very much of a coder, mostly only when I have to to get something done, but I've always enjoyed it. At least after the fact lol. You poke some keys, fret about it, poke some more, and eventually something you wanted to happen happens! A bit silly of course, but it always felt a little like actual magic. Not in that I didn't understand what was happening, but that you can imagine something, do the correct gestures, and something from your brain comes into reality. Now I can tell claude to do it, complete 100x more stuff, still have the imagination-to-reality happen, but there's no more magic. No more feeling of accomplishment, just a bit relief that it worked and dread that I have to test it. Well, and then minor rage at the things it still can't do since having to do things manually now feels MUCH more like a slog than before since everything it can do moves so fast.
It feels like trading fulfillment for a very capable, distractible, and autistic employee.
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Funny thing is after ~15 years in the industry coding stopped feeling like magic. Everything started to feel really routine to me at least, like the coding part was the part where I never struggled with anymore like I used to fresh out of school. The fun for me has transitioned to architecting something novel, not knowing if it would work, and trying to squeeze it out of our capabilities. It's fun now just telling Claude what I'm thinking and shortly it can spin up my idea that I can test the same day.
 
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Fucker

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Koushirou

Koushirou

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I feel at this point I'm expected to just be phased out. 10 years I've been an SE, but after being stuck maintaining niche garbage at my old job, and AI completely exploding right after I got laid off and didn't get to adjust into it I just feel completely lost now and still just feel like a junior dev, and no one needs those anymore. I don't really have any other skills other than coding, and I'm not intelligent enough to move up into design or some other higher up space. I don't really know what I'm going to do whenever I end up getting replaced.
 
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Fucker

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Noodleface said:
It's fun now just telling Claude what I'm thinking and shortly it can spin up my idea that I can test the same day.
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Kind of fucked up: I have an AI box that I wanted an app to monitor its CPU/GPU/RAM %/temp. Really shit app came with it and is really slow/crashes. I had Claude burp out a monitoring app a few minutes ago, and it works perfectly. My next version will sound an alarm at 80c with an echo for every minute for 5 minutes and resides in the clock bar area.

Next version was made while I went to the bathroom. It works on all my computers and cost me, what, 2 cents to make?
 
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Deathwing

Deathwing

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Noodleface said:
Funny thing is after ~15 years in the industry coding stopped feeling like magic. Everything started to feel really routine to me at least, like the coding part was the part where I never struggled with anymore like I used to fresh out of school. The fun for me has transitioned to architecting something novel, not knowing if it would work, and trying to squeeze it out of our capabilities. It's fun now just telling Claude what I'm thinking and shortly it can spin up my idea that I can test the same day.
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Perhaps that's part of the difference between our reactions. I don't think I've ever been a good programmer. Just yesterday a colleague was explaining different ways to design logging solutions and I'm just like...print()?

Not that I don't understand the concepts when explained, I just don't think of them.

You'd think that should reinforce my adoption of AI. I frequently would get writer's block and AI has been great at mitigating that. The part I'm hung up on is that I have to own code that I feel I didn't earn.
 
Noodleface

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Deathwing said:
Perhaps that's part of the difference between our reactions. I don't think I've ever been a good programmer. Just yesterday a colleague was explaining different ways to design logging solutions and I'm just like...print()?

Not that I don't understand the concepts when explained, I just don't think of them.

You'd think that should reinforce my adoption of AI. I frequently would get writer's block and AI has been great at mitigating that. The part I'm hung up on is that I have to own code that I feel I didn't earn.
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I gotcha. It may be that by writing C for 15 years I just got a lot of strong concepts beaten into me over the years. I don't think I'm a gifted programmer, I just don't find a lot of the things hard that I used to (we sometimes use triple pointers for instance).

Last 5 or so years though I've been a tech lead on a very complicated product and I have to work end to end (inception through customer field issues), so I picked up a lot of strong design traits along the way.
 
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TJT

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Noodleface said:
Funny thing is after ~15 years in the industry coding stopped feeling like magic. Everything started to feel really routine to me at least, like the coding part was the part where I never struggled with anymore like I used to fresh out of school. The fun for me has transitioned to architecting something novel, not knowing if it would work, and trying to squeeze it out of our capabilities. It's fun now just telling Claude what I'm thinking and shortly it can spin up my idea that I can test the same day.
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This is something I feel.

I have been a heads down SWE coding since 2012 when I entered the industry. There is no task in this space you could give me that would challenge me. It feels no different than chopping wood. Changing architecture and team processes and stuff is what interests me. Again dealing with people where you can't just code around them. That aspect has been interesting to me.
 
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Seananigans

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Noodleface said:
Funny thing is after ~15 years in the industry coding stopped feeling like magic. Everything started to feel really routine to me at least, like the coding part was the part where I never struggled with anymore like I used to fresh out of school. The fun for me has transitioned to architecting something novel, not knowing if it would work, and trying to squeeze it out of our capabilities. It's fun now just telling Claude what I'm thinking and shortly it can spin up my idea that I can test the same day.
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Do you interact with Claude via voice?
 
Noodleface

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Siliconemelons said:
What is a good AI i can use to help me make API stuff - mostly I am lazy and out of practice for such things
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Depends on the day. Seems a new model comes out every week.

Right now my jam is Opus 5.5, Fable, and Astra. Some of the new GPT models work well too.
 
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Deathwing

Deathwing

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I've only worked with Claude, but I've generally been happy with Opus. People I work with have been comparatively negative about Codex, which sucks with the whole watermarking shit and DoD customers, which we have.
 
Nija

Nija

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Siliconemelons said:
What is a good AI i can use to help me make API stuff - mostly I am lazy and out of practice for such things
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Try a $20/mo Anthropic subscription. Simple stuff you can still use Sonnet. Opus for stuff you want to keep around.
 
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Phazael

Phazael

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Koushirou said:
I feel at this point I'm expected to just be phased out. 10 years I've been an SE, but after being stuck maintaining niche garbage at my old job, and AI completely exploding right after I got laid off and didn't get to adjust into it I just feel completely lost now and still just feel like a junior dev, and no one needs those anymore. I don't really have any other skills other than coding, and I'm not intelligent enough to move up into design or some other higher up space. I don't really know what I'm going to do whenever I end up getting replaced.
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Seriously, though, never underestimate stupidity. People who know how to frame prompts properly and structure markdowns will have an edge. In other words, like every other era, people who are smart can learn the new shit and adapt. Its happened several times just in my lifetime, though the tech cycle is really fast lately due to the AI arms race. If you managed to survive this long, AI is not going to be a problem for you to master. Find a personal project to work on using it and skill up.
 
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Control

Control

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Koushirou said:
I feel at this point I'm expected to just be phased out. 10 years I've been an SE, but after being stuck maintaining niche garbage at my old job, and AI completely exploding right after I got laid off and didn't get to adjust into it I just feel completely lost now and still just feel like a junior dev, and no one needs those anymore. I don't really have any other skills other than coding, and I'm not intelligent enough to move up into design or some other higher up space. I don't really know what I'm going to do whenever I end up getting replaced.
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If you haven't started working on your own ai stuff yet, pick a project that sounds interesting, use claude to work through it until it's usable/presentable, then publish it on a public github so you can use it for your portfolio, then repeat with a more ambitious project. When a new model class release, go back through and improve/update your old projects.
 
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ShakyJake

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Deathwing said:
I can't seem to get comfortable with AI from a knowledge retention perspective. I will investigate, plan, read the diffs(in manual mode, no auto), ask for explanations and changes, review the final output, understand everything and then feel like a fraction of that was retained as opposed to had I written it myself. At my boss's recommendation, I've been trying to add more steps to the process, treat it more like collaboration than delegation. The downside is that now I'm starting to feel like "what's the point?". Add so many steps and this is starting to take so long start to finish, might as well do it myself completely.

Some counter-points:
  • I distinctly remember a couple features where reviewers didn't have time to look at for at least a month. When they finally did, I had trouble recalling why I implementing things. MRs made with AI feel like this on a much quicker time scale.
  • I'm reminded of a random youtube comment where someone said "this is how your manager used you before AI". Am I just a manager now and I should let go?
  • I think I have the same problem as ShakyJake: I suck at reviewing code. I'll pair program with my boss and he's almost always twice as fast at reading the plan file and code changes.
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What is your exact workflow? Are you doing this all within a chat session?
 
Nija

Nija

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ShakyJake said:
What is your exact workflow? Are you doing this all within a chat session?
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Claude code. It’s built into the gui now but I still use the command line. Make a folder for your project, run Claude From within that folder.

Here‘s the starter project I did for one of my kids. Download and install the latest version of python that pygame works with. Here is an approximate prompt you can use: build me an asteroids clone using pygame. I want score tracking, spacebar to shoot, wasd controls. Use a simple procedural style, no magic or fancy crap. Non verbose comments, but explain intent where it makes sense.

Have it build that - phase 2 is then: Add explosions where necessary. Add sound effect. Add the ability to rebind keys. Add strafing controls.

Phase 3: turn this into something like the original Zelda where when I exit the edge of the screen it loads a new area in that direction. Make it somewhat random. Add walls and obstacles, have the asteroids bounce off walls. Make sure at least 2 exits exist on each screen. Make sure if I backtrack, it’s the same area I just left.
 
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ToeMissile

ToeMissile

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Nija said:
Claude code. It’s built into the gui now but I still use the command line. Make a folder for your project, run Claude From within that folder.

Here‘s the starter project I did for one of my kids. Download and install the latest version of python that pygame works with. Here is an approximate prompt you can use: build me an asteroids clone using pygame. I want score tracking, spacebar to shoot, wasd controls. Use a simple procedural style, no magic or fancy crap. Non verbose comments, but explain intent where it makes sense.

Have it build that - phase 2 is then: Add explosions where necessary. Add sound effect. Add the ability to rebind keys. Add strafing controls.

Phase 3: turn this into something like the original Zelda where when I exit the edge of the screen it loads a new area in that direction. Make it somewhat random. Add walls and obstacles, have the asteroids bounce off walls. Make sure at least 2 exits exist on each screen. Make sure if I backtrack, it’s the same area I just left.
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I’ve started doing this more or less. Trying to make a locally hosted adventure game my kids can play coop. Mainly used my Hermes bit so far to outline basic design principals and ideas for quests/activities/etc. Got far enough to run a single room test with placeholder graphics, arrow key movement. Super basic stuff, but really fun to see ideas start to take shape and come together.
 
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