I teach computer science at Montana State University. I am the father of three sons who all know I am a computer programmer and one of whom, at least, has expressed interest in the field. I love computer programming and try to communicate that love to my sons, the students in my classes and anyone else who will listen.
A question I am increasingly getting from relatives, friends and students is:
Given AI, should I still consider becoming a computer programmer?
My response to this is: “Yes, and…”
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As a senior software engineer, I enjoyed the article and agree with the sentiment with regards to education (learning is good).
That being said I don’t think I’d recommend to a friend or family member that they go into this field. The job market for juniors is terrible and companies are much more inclined to believe AI can do it better for cheaper - even at the expense of never teaching the next generation of senior engineers.
Personally, I feel more burnt out than ever reading dozens of low quality PRs every day from juniors who clearly do not know what mistakes to look for. All comments by seniors on PRs are addressed by the AI as well so the traditional feedback <-> learning seems broken - particularly in remote work.
yeah anyone getting into programming now is going to have a vastly different experience than those of yore… it is now about mass reviewing shit code and guiding AIs to do something less stupid (next to impossible)
I tell children to learn an artisanal trade they can do with their hands and an artistic skill.
The question is more “considering the state of the world and the reality of computer programming job, should I consider becoming programmer” and the answer is no.
Thanks for the recommendation, the article is interesting and gives me some hope.
I’m a tech exec. My friends and colleagues of 25+ years include CEOs and other C level execs of very recognizable companies. Etc, etc, blah, blah. I can, with absolute certainty, say that software dev as we know it todayis a dead field.
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/jack-dorsey-block-layoffs-21944033.php
☝️ This is the mindset out there, and it is spreading. More scary than that is that the technologies are starting to keep up or exceed their expectations.
Do I think that knowing code will be useful? Absolutely. If you are good enough to tear it apart, break it, and fix it better than before, you will be useful. Will you be able to make a good living off of it? Only if you are exceptional, but how do you become exceptional at a job if nobody gives you a job?
I’ll say this much: people don’t have to work for a big, publicly traded corporation. There are still smaller software houses out there where the executives aren’t little more than the shareholders’ fluffer and trust devs to know how to do their jobs, though you may need to look outside of mainstream applications. Whether they have the collective capacity to absorb everyone who wants to be a professional programmer, I don’t know. But in a world of slop, being able to provide even somewhat reliable software may be a gap in the market that could be exploited and allow for that capacity to grow.
100% My firm caters to a very niche segment and that segment requires highly reliable and optimized operations. We are beyond booked. We literally have three environment upgrades and a go live tomorrow (simultaneously) for three different clients. We clean after the vibe coders and get paid very well for our services.
My advice remains the same. There just isn’t a great future in software dev. Yes, to this day we still value custome tailored clothes and hand made, expertly crafted shoes. That doesn’t change the fact that almost all of our clothes and shoes are low quality, quasi- disposable, and 100% machine made.
I’m not sure that analogy works. The machines used for making clothes are reliable and produce repeatable results that are good enough. I recently had to throw away a 15 year old T-shirt because it was getting a bit too ratty, but it still technically functioned as a T-shirt. Also, mass produced clothing in standardised sizes didn’t actually replace the bulk of tailor-mode clothing, that was always something for the rich, but that’s getting too deep into it.
In comparison, LLM-based code generators are inherently unreliable and by their very nature incapable of ever becoming able of producing good enough results, at least with the current dominant paradigm. Many execs may not feel that way, but that’s very much a FAFO situation, because unlike clothing, where poor quality may cause it to degrade faster, but that still takes time, the effects of degradation of quality in software are immediate. Of course, it’s very difficult to dislodge a dominant software product from its place in the market, because people are willing to tolerate a lot of quality degradation if the cost of switching to something else is high, but there is an upper limit of what people are willing to take, while there is no limit to how bad their software can get if companies keep riding the LLM bandwagon.
🤡
More scary than that is that the technologies are starting to keep up or exceed their expectations.
🤡 🤡 🤡
If you interpret “their expectations” as “better”, then let me correct that assumption. Their expectations are to crank out more with less. More what? Yes.
The future is slop code everywhere because profit driven execs will no longer be limited by quality conscious engineers.
Yeah, but it might take years for these slop companies to actually collapse under the weight of their own tech debt. Do you know how many quarters that is!
Will they collapse? I don’t think you are taking into consideration the rampant corruption in the government. We’re going to end up footing the bill…I guarantee it.
