What is happening now is that we are essentially abstracting away the entire coding layer, and partly even architecture and technology all at once (we aren't quite there yet, but we will be soon). What hasn't changed, and never will, is the human vision, the ideas of how new, innovative software (rather than just a clone) should be structured and how it should function.

I believe this shift is highly democratizing. It means teenagers can build cool new games, and financial minds can create the next great finance app. The hard part is no longer the programming itself; it is the software craftsmanship. It is about building an innovative and genuinely useful product, rather than just writing complex code (an identity we programmers have clung to for a long time). We have transitioned from being mere coders to true developers.

I also hope that young people today get the same opportunity to connect with software development as we did back in the Commodore 64 era. Only today, it isn't about squeezing every last drop of performance out of limited hardware, it is about bringing something truly useful or fun straight from your imagination into reality.

Unfortunately, generally if people can do something, they will. And with AI systems they have been given one of the largest short cuts possible, thus they take it relentlessly. There is no concern for quality so long as it is good enough to benefit them.

They will try to rationalize it but it typically ends up in moral corruption of "If I don't, they will."

It saddens me because I saw the vision of what computers and connected technology could be in the 90's and 2000's, only to see it turn bitter.

I remember reading an essay by Richard Stallman calling all this kind of stuff out in the late 1980's and I kind of hate that he got it so right. In assuming that many will take the power play and the convenience means that this is the path we take.

The more you can walk away form this stuff the better even if you don't want to.

I think the same is true for images, videos, and music. The cost of producing content is approaching zero, but taste, originality, judgment, and intent still matter.

In a world where anyone can create almost anything, having good taste could become increasingly important.

The latest models from OpenAI and Anthropic are starting to develop taste imo. Specifically Astra and Opus 5.5.

It's not quite there yet, but also far from the slop models were producing this time last year.

A time ago, sewing and tailoring was a valuable skill. Cheap clothes made it unnecessary. Today sewing is a hobby and most people who sew do so at a lower quality than a machine. You can say the same about pottery and ceramics.

There was a time when there were hundreds of car companies. Folks who wanted to could build a car, or plane, from scratch. That's not possible anymore.

Today lots of people cook at home at a level far superior to (at least) fast food restaurants. But of course fast food still exists.

I have been lucky to spend my career at the birth of the industry. It is now moving into the next stage, the commoditization of the skill set. I've seen the industry change before though, this is just the next cycle of that.

Lots of people will make a lot of software for themselves. But they won't sell it. Lots of other people will buy software because programming (ai or not) won't interest them. Programming isn't the skill here. Everything else in the business is.

Your client sounds like a prick of a person - I hope you find better clients!

That got me thinking that programming might be like that in the near future, it's still an impressive skill for a human to learn and master and it takes tremendous effort and the craft itself is beautiful, but economically it will just not matter anymore. And in the same way as the music industry today is bigger than it ever was and there's tremendous money in it but 95-99 % of highly talented musicians will never earn a decent wage with it, the software industry will be bigger than it ever was but the money will be highly concentrated in the hands of a few players. Maybe we will still have some rockstar programmers than can masterfully command legions of agents or that win the love of the crowd for their unique work, but most of us will be enjoying this craft as a creative hobby and will do other things for a living.

Then again, coming back to the music parable, for a long time "amateurs" can make music with software tools without having any talent or even knowing musical notation or anything about tempo. Does that make them musicians? So take solace in the fact that these people aren't programmers and never will be, they're just pushing buttons on a synth board watching the "music" that comes out. Mastering a skill, regardless of what it is, will still matter to people, it will just not be worthwhile economically for most of us. There are so many things in that category, running for example isn't worthwhile for most of us in an economic sense as you have to be at the top 0.1 % of runners to make a living with it, still it has tremendous benefits and brings enjoyment.

I think it does. This is where everyone starts. Even with software tools, the music an amateur can make with them will be awful, at least for the time being. There will be no mistaking that it was made by an amateur at first listen. All software tools, and cheap hardware interfaces like Scarlet enabled was for people with talent to make music without access to a studio and 2 inch tape. Once the dopamine hits, you WANT to start learning about tempo, chords, theory etc. I've never heard of a "vibe coder" who wants to take the next step in learning what the code that they're generating means.

I have learned to cope with AI tools at work, but use it scarcely, and went back to books and hand-coding if I really want to learn something because that’s the only way that makes the knowledge stays in my brain a bit longer.

I did lose some interests in programming in general, but AI is just a part of the reason —- most of it is because I don’t have good mental health —- and AI is part of the reason triggering anxiety.

I think the thing that humans are going to find is AI has no taste. Its the statistical median/average of solutions. AI slop is going to become prevalent and people are probably not going to like it after the hype fades. Part of the human experience is connecting with other humans, even if its following a band, or artist, etc. Things created by AI don't have that human experience element.

When you are starting out, you will tend not to get the best clients.

It’s ok to outgrow a client.

I wish there was a way to metric creativity, strategy and effort.

It's been amazing to participate in a hobby-turned-profession for the last two decades or so. But did we get into it because it was easy? No. Technology, computers, Internet, was a new world, full of excitement, mystery, and exploration. There may have been no immediate ROI in learning how to set up a Geocities site, but it was the gateway to HTML, programming, and eventually led to, what I hope has been, a rewarding career.

The industry isn't being "destroyed" by AI, that started happening with PE and MBAs long before, or maybe it was fucked from the get-go, and we've been very lucky to have had well-paying jobs for typing strange things into a computer. But now that it's easy for the non-tech commoner to do it, we're upset? Fishy NIMBYism something something.

I went through a similar disillusionment phase for a few months as I tried to apply my old thinking to this new era. I had to just let the AI agents own the line-level, function-level, and even class-level responsibilities, while I focused on the file names and writing good prompts. Naming is everything in computer science, as they say.

On personal projects, I'm executing on things that were out of reach before (or required extensive research), like (re)learning hardware, writing RTOS firmware, PCB design, etc. It's my learning PHP3/VB phase, and I love it. What matters now, more than ever, is to have good taste.

Give it time for the mindset shift to happen. Take a break, if you can. You won't miss anything anyway, a few new models, harnesses, and workflows will have appeared, and they take about 5 minutes to understand. So the differentiating factors between you and the next pleb are your fundamentals, good taste, and creativity.

Be like water, etc.

My rant wasn't really about the industry being destroyed. I really don't care about the industry, I care about the craft. I care that we are watching the dead internet happen in real time, and that it's being accelerated by LLMs. I live a scrappy lifestyle and can figure out ways to earn money if I can't do this anymore, I just don't like seeing the death of creativity.

Each advance in technology lowers the threshold of entry into any hobby or profession. And the people who "paid the price" or "did it the hard way" resent people who find a way to crowd in without all the suffering and sacrifice. It's a very valid feeling. It won't stop innovation, however. We're just stuck in the middle of the transition phase and it's going to be a bumpy ride.

sound vaugely familiar?

> they get to feel creative for possibly the first time ever.

They're experiencing what you experienced at 14. And, no offense, your Geocities site that you made at 14 was probably not very good.

Now, there is still a difference, because people had to deliberately go to your site, and what this guy is doing is more like polluting a commons. That is a problem. AI makes it much more of a problem, because it becomes much easier to spew lies (or just slop).

I think what's going to happen is that we're going to develop better slop senses (eventually). There will be a return of gatekeepers, because keeping slop and lies out will be more valuable than letting new things in.

Disagree. Not about the site being not very good part, that much was obvious. What I disagree about is that they're experiencing what I did. I think the equivalent would be someone who's never programmed anything, making it through their first 3 weeks of coding bootcamp and seeing something they made appearing in their web browser for the first time.

That's what's scary isn't it?

There are people with more good taste and creativity than you.They actually built careers with it.

And that's who you need to catch up to now.

Or you can dig I guess and be an artisinal programmer. There's honour in that ,I hear. Just no paycheck.