Dialogue Between a Developer and a Kid
52 points by riggraz
52 points by riggraz
I’m not sure about what I’ve just read, but it was an intriguing experience.
Evidently the moral of the story is that developers are absolutely terrible at social interactions.
Jokes aside, I do find it interesting that the author's previous two posts (though to be completely fair, the first post is from 2022, when the tech was still shiny and looked harmless enough) seem to be a lot more positive about AI. I get that in this essay LLMs are only one of the problems mentioned, but the contrast is striking.
As for the overarching point... I feel like this is a very real trap, but also one that can be simply (just perhaps not easily) avoided. Admittedly I'm still fairly early in my professional career and obviously I do occasionally feel the code I write at $DAYJOB to be a chore, but I've also been recreationally programming for around 15 years now and I find the practice of making stuff just because or to learn some new concept or even to just challenge yourself if you can just as intriguing as I did so many years ago. Which, of course, doesn't mean I don't experience "coder's block" every once in a while, or struggle, or feel dissatisfied, but in general I feel a lot closer in mindset to the hypothetical kid.
The hypothetical developer of this essay should recognize that one can still create art with programming outside their job (or even during work, if they are fortunate enough to work at a company that values such things). Or, if they're so burned out that they'd rather do anything else in their free time, that there are many other avenues one can still feel creative and artistically fulfilled.
Programming is unusual (though not unique) in that many practitioners are both professionals and amateurs. And before I hit my now 3-year-long bout of "coder's block" and stopped doing programming projects of my own just for fun, I used completely different approaches and toolsets depending on whether I was programming in my capacity as professional or my capacity as amateur. (Which is why I fully acknowledge that it is absurd to feel that changes in professional tooling have changed anything about what I would do as an amateur - I just can't seem to shake the feeling that it's all getting meaningless. Which is absurd for a whole slew of different reasons that are probably above my philosophy pay grade; I'm nought but a humble programmer).
For now, a kid buried deep in my hindbrain wants to get out a set of coloured pencils and draw a manta ray, because manta rays are cool.
The author's other posts also stood out to me. Especially the previous one, which seems to be oblivious to the danger of putting your perception of the world in someone else's hands (ignoring the fact that it's just a matter of time until ads will appear in ChatGPT.)
If you clicked 'yes' when the kid asked you to play the game, it's worth doing again and clicking 'no', repeatedly.
Ha, that was fun. The kid's high score also seems to be your time rounded up. Couldn't beat its 2 second and 84 second high scores the two times I tried.
I was slightly peeved that I cheated and replayed it, went up to 60 seconds, and got "Haha! You didn’t beat my highscore of 61.00!" :p
To stop exploring and building makes people cry and then they die?
Basically my career so far. Minus the dying part.
Some kind of „professional attitude“ (like described in the article) sucks all the fun out of things. Maybe that‘s why so many job ads are looking for developers with „passion“, like that‘s a resource to be extracted and used up?
I can recognize a bit of myself in both of the characters, really.
(I'm not sure I understand the ending. Though I see in myself that the more I've had to become the developer, the more I miss being the kid.)
I've been thinking about this for the last 24 hours. Excellent writing. I hope it's not generated, given the writer's other posts and the apparent themes here. I hate how suspicious I've become.
See the kid thinks he wants to be a programmer, but actually wants to study PLT.
If only he had understood the difference before it was too late! :(