Programming

LLMs don't add an abstraction layer. You can't competently produce software without understanding what they're outputting.

I've had this problem with abstractions for the longest time. Of course whenever I say anything negative about abstractions I just get dog piled so I don't usually like to discuss the topic.

I think abstractions as a tool is fine. My problem with abstractions is that most developers I meet seem to only talk about the upsides of abstractions and they never take into account the downsides seriously.

More often then not, I just think people treat abstractions as this magical tool you cant over use. In reality, over use of abstractions can increase complexity and reduce readability. They can greatly reduce the amount of assumptions you can make about code which has many many additional downsides.

Of course I'm not saying we shouldnt use abstractions. Not having any abstractions can be just as bad as having too many. You end up with similar issues such as increased complexity and reduced readability.

The hard part is finding the balance, the sweet spot where complexity is minimized and readability is maximized while using the fewest amount of abstractions possible.

I think too often, developers would err on the side of caution and add more abstractions then necessary and call it good enough. Developers really need to question if every abstraction is absolutely necessary. Is it really worth it to add an additional layer of abstraction just because a problem might arise in the future vs reducing the number of abstractions and waiting for it to become a problem before adding more abstractions. I don't think we do the latter enough. Often times you can get away with slightly less abstractions than you think you need because you will never touch the code again.

I feel like they kind of lost the thread here, even though I think I agree with the idea that vibe coding is a fundamentally different thing than another layer of abstraction. There's no need to punch on the web developers. We've all known, for the last several decades at least, that we don't have to understand the entire mechanism completely. No one is out there doping their own silicon and writing JS apps to run on it. The whole point of layered abstractions is that you can build on a set of assumptions without having to know all the implementation details of the layers below. When an abstraction leaks, then it can be useful to have some facility with the lower levels, but no person alive is a master of the full stack. The beautiful thing about abstractions is that you don't have to be. That's still true with vibe coding, just with the extra complexity of having a ticker tape spitting out semi-coherent code faster than any human could type it, which moves the dev from a creative role to more of an administrative one, as they mention earlier in the piece, which 1) is not nearly as fun, and crucially 2) doesn't help you build the muscles that make one good at code administration.

Thanks for the quote, it caused me to actually read the source, which I enjoyed. It's a good idea to put these thoughts into the post body.

As to abstraction layers I am reminded of "I have seen further because I have stood on the shoulders of giants", and yet you must climb to those shoulders, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, and you will see further the more you understand the layers below.

I suspect it follows the pattern of a tree, you can only reach further up if your roots are deep enough to support it. A seed can grow wherever planted, hence new coders will do fine, and eventually come to this point (maybe toppling a few times, putting down more roots in response). A mature fruit tree has many years of bearing fruit.

As to AI making the process more soulless, mayhap, but making programmers more exploitable and fungible, almost certainly, but that's the point.

It's so much better! Tooling is many orders of magnitude better and so many libraries give you deep power from an easy API. What used to be a team and 18 months is a library install and a day so you're free to do much bigger things.

Christ even version control. The shit I put up with over the years.

You can still program in those platforms, if you want to.

Technically it would have been true, it's just that A"I" does not deliver on that promise.

1. Programming language invented: Everyone can code now! Programming is dead!
2. Cobol invented: Everyone can code now! Programming is dead!
3. BASIC invented: Everyone can code now! Programming is dead!
4. UML to Code/Executable UML: Everyone can code now! Programming is dead!
5. Low code: Everyone can code now! Programming is dead!
6. AI: Everyone can code now! Programming is dead!

Yep, any day now...

Probably two distinct circles that don't touch if I base it on people I know and myself.

That might explain why there’s so much crap coming out of the gaming industry.

not really, it's more of an economic situation instead of a tech one. Indie games are doing just fine, more or less (the choose 1 of 3 fad is a pain).

Of course there is, it is fun!

What else do you think the "point" of living is?

You could also try microcontroller programming. There you have control over everything and i guess it should be similiar to programming in early days. I started around ten years ago with Arduino and also directly programming them and it still interests me. And with a little hardware you could do some interesting projects. I would even say it could be relevant for career if you want that.

high level code generating tools have come and mostly gone

he's talking about languages that don't touch bare metal, not WYSIWYG editors

EDIT: WYSIWYG stuff continues to live , fucking salesforce