This was originally titled “I miss when computers were fun”. But in the course of writing it, I discovered that there is a reason computers became less fun, a dark thread woven through a number of events in recent history. Let me back up a bit.
i was very lucky that my introduction to software engineering came from a mentor who cared intensely about their work. but i dropped out of the IT industry after i never met someone like that again.
i never even went to secondary, but across several jobs i was having to teach my colleagues (compsci degrees) basic computer literacy skills. the moment they had to leave their IDE, they were lost. they had not even a basic understanding of version control systems. zero curiosity. they frequently broke their git repos and couldn’t fix it. they didn’t give a single fuck about the theory of what they were doing for 72 hours a week; what they were voluntarily choosing to do for 72 hours a week on 30 hour contracts. they hardly even cared about the practise.
LLMs completely ruined these people. they started using it for everything: responding to Slack messages, writing emails, writing code, doing code review… and when it was found out at my last company that i was the only one stubbornly refusing to use LLMs for anything, i was put on a fucking PIP and told it was company policy to use ‘labour saving technology.’ despite the fact that my code had the fewest defects, ignoring how frequently i was misled into doing something i wasn’t even supposed to do because the fucking task requirements were ALSO WRITTEN WITH AN LLM [THAT MADE SHIT UP]. but it was my fault for ‘not checking first’ (???).
i will never touch a computer for money ever fucking again.
I haven’t heard clipping in a while. I should dig back into 'em.
Also, yeah. My entire childhood I wanted to be a programmer because I just like math that much, but sooo much of this industry feels like bullshit these days. It’s really uninspiring.
“What are you going to build?” “The metaverse. Some other bullshit no one wants.”
i was very lucky that my introduction to software engineering came from a mentor who cared intensely about their work. but i dropped out of the IT industry after i never met someone like that again.
i never even went to secondary, but across several jobs i was having to teach my colleagues (compsci degrees) basic computer literacy skills. the moment they had to leave their IDE, they were lost. they had not even a basic understanding of version control systems. zero curiosity. they frequently broke their git repos and couldn’t fix it. they didn’t give a single fuck about the theory of what they were doing for 72 hours a week; what they were voluntarily choosing to do for 72 hours a week on 30 hour contracts. they hardly even cared about the practise.
LLMs completely ruined these people. they started using it for everything: responding to Slack messages, writing emails, writing code, doing code review… and when it was found out at my last company that i was the only one stubbornly refusing to use LLMs for anything, i was put on a fucking PIP and told it was company policy to use ‘labour saving technology.’ despite the fact that my code had the fewest defects, ignoring how frequently i was misled into doing something i wasn’t even supposed to do because the fucking task requirements were ALSO WRITTEN WITH AN LLM [THAT MADE SHIT UP]. but it was my fault for ‘not checking first’ (???).
i will never touch a computer for money ever fucking again.
aside: reading this while listening to clipping. was an experience
I haven’t heard clipping in a while. I should dig back into 'em.
Also, yeah. My entire childhood I wanted to be a programmer because I just like math that much, but sooo much of this industry feels like bullshit these days. It’s really uninspiring.
“What are you going to build?” “The metaverse. Some other bullshit no one wants.”