> “It’s more fun to write code than to read code,” said Simon Willison, an A.I. fan who is a longtime programmer and blogger, channeling the objections of other programmers. “If you’re told you have to do a code review, it’s never a fun part of the job. When you’re working with these tools, it’s most of the job.”
> This shift from writing to reading code can make engineers feel as if they are bystanders in their own jobs. The Amazon engineers said that managers have encouraged them to use A.I. to help write one-page memos proposing a solution to a software problem and that the artificial intelligence can now generate a rough draft from scattered thoughts.
> They also use A.I. to test the software features they build, a tedious job that nonetheless has forced them to think deeply about their coding.
I was just thinking about this the other day (after spending an extended session talking to an LLM about bugs in its code), and I realized that when I was just starting out, I enjoyed writing code, but now the fun part is actually fixing bugs.
Maybe I'm weird, but chasing down bugs is like solving a puzzle. Writing green-field code is maybe a little bit enjoyable, but especially in areas I know well, it's mostly boring now. I'd rather do just about anything than write another iteration of a web form or connect some javascript widget to some other javascript widget in the framework flavor of the week. To some extent, then, working with LLMs has restored some of the fun of coding because it takes care of the tedious part, and I get to solve the interesting problems.
I'm with you. I love solving puzzles to make something go. In the past that involved writing code, but it's not the code writing that I love, it's the problem solving and building. And I get plenty of that now, in a post-LLM world.
I spend all day fixing bugs and that's why they pay me -- because for most people it's not an enjoyable task. I'm not denying your experience but I will tell you I think you're an outlier. For most people, fixing bugs they didn't create is the worst part of the job.
Part of the fun is also figuring out the “best” way to achieve a thing. LLMs don’t often propose the best way and will happily propose convoluted ways. Clean approaches are still hard to come up with, but LLMs certainly help implementing them once thought up
Yeah, I agree with that. I still enjoy doing the conceptual and design work that once upon a time would have been the role of an "architect", and that's still required with LLMs.
I think for me, the fun comes from preventing bugs; being able to draw on my experience to foresee common classes of bugs, and being able to prevent them through smart code architecture, making it easier for future contributors/readers to avoid walking into those traps. I'm hoping I'll keep being able to do that.
Maybe we have changed or the industry changed, but last 5 years I’ve rarely met anyone who took the code reviews seriously. Any feedback, or glaring issues, are swept under “we will address this later”, “we work in MVP way(read:deploy barely working code without any accountability to production”, or just outright take it as a character challenge. I’ve lead a team of junior-level engineers who would fight with you via the product owner/scrum master because of the “priorities” and “deadlines”. And then, you’d be on the call solving the same issues you’ve raised in pull request earlier. Maybe I’m getting old, but, taking accountability or pride in one’s work, is getting only worse with Vibe coding and ai generated garbage
Well, from personal experience, code reviews at the FAANG I worked at were taken quite seriously. (But we were building OS frameworks so it mattered more.)
I find both fun. Writing a web form is still kinda fun even after 20 years. I guess it’s like how some people still play the same video games after years and years while others want something new.
Not OP but I’ll give my perspective. I have no problem fixing someone else’s bugs up to a point, but I also don’t want to be the one cleaning up someone else’s mess who didn’t take time to do proper testing but is getting rated higher than me for clearing more tasks last month because they cut corners
> “It’s more fun to write code than to read code,” said Simon Willison, an A.I. fan who is a longtime programmer and blogger, channeling the objections of other programmers. “If you’re told you have to do a code review, it’s never a fun part of the job. When you’re working with these tools, it’s most of the job.”
> This shift from writing to reading code can make engineers feel as if they are bystanders in their own jobs. The Amazon engineers said that managers have encouraged them to use A.I. to help write one-page memos proposing a solution to a software problem and that the artificial intelligence can now generate a rough draft from scattered thoughts.
> They also use A.I. to test the software features they build, a tedious job that nonetheless has forced them to think deeply about their coding.