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The Programmer Identity Crisis

(hojberg.xyz)
270 points imasl42 | 2 comments | 21 Oct 25 16:47 UTC | HN request time: 0.418s | source
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RamtinJ95 ◴[21 Oct 25 17:57 UTC] No.45659167[source]▶
I think "Identity Crisis" is a bit over dramatic, but I for the most part agree with the sentiment. I have written something in the same vane, but still different enough that I would love to comment it but its just way more efficient to point to my post. I hope that is OK: https://handmadeoasis.com/ai-and-software-engineering-the-co...
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1. mncharity ◴[21 Oct 25 19:50 UTC] No.45660789[source]▶
I liked your emphasis on individual diversity, and an attendant need to explore, select, adapt, and integrate tooling. With associated self-awareness. Pushing that further, your "categories" seem more like exemplars/prototypes/archetypes/user-stories, helpful discussion points in a high-dimensional space of blended blobs. And as you illustrate, it branches not just on the individual, but also on what they are up to. And not just on work vs hobby, but on context and task.

It'd be neat to have a big user story catalog/map, which tracks what various services are able to help with.

I was a kid in NE43 instead of TFA's Building 26 across the street - with Lisp Machines and 1980s MIT AI's "Programmer's Apprentice" dreams. I years ago gave up on ever having a "this... doesn't suck" dev env, on being able to "dance code". We've had such a badly crippling research and industrial policy, and profession... "not in my lifetime" I thought. Knock on wood, I'm so happy for this chance at being wrong. And also, for "let's just imagine for a moment, ignoring the utterly absurd resources it would take to create, science education content that wasn't a wretched disaster... what might that look like?" - here too it's LLMs, or no chance at all.

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2. RamtinJ95 ◴[21 Oct 25 20:59 UTC] No.45661627[source]▶
That is actually a great idea, and I agree it would be very useful to have such a catalog/map!

I wonder though if the space is mature enough for such a map or if it would become to generic to say anything meaningful.