191
I Started Programming When I Was 7. I'm 50 Now and the Thing I Loved Has Changed
(www.jamesdrandall.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
191 points (94.8% liked)
Programming
25477 readers
290 users here now
Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!
Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.
Hope you enjoy the instance!
Rules
Rules
- Follow the programming.dev instance rules
- Keep content related to programming in some way
- If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos
Wormhole
Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not knowing what cpu instructions your code compiles to and not understanding the code you are compiling are completely different things. This is yet another article talking up the (not real) capability of LLM coding assistants, though in a more round about way. In fact, this garbage blogspam should go on the AI coding community that was made specifically because the subscribers of the programming community didn't want it here, yet we keep getting these trying to skirt the line.
This article may mention AI coding but I made a very considered decision to post it in here because the primary focus is the author's relationship to programming, and hence worth sharing with the wider programming community.
Considering how many people have voted this up, I would take that as a sign I posted it in the appropriate community. If you don't feel this post is appropriate in this community, I'm happy to discuss that.
You made a very considered decision that you could argue it's not technically AI booster bullshit, you mean.
I think there's room for people to try to grapple with the fact that, for good or ill, the industry is being impacted by LLM code assistants right now in a significant way. That doesn't mean this isn't a tech craze, or a flash in the pan, or a hype bubble that has gotten huge. And whether or not the bubble pops, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that code writing tools comparable to what we have now will be around for awhile, again for good or ill. This seems like a dev grappling, not sneaky AI booster bullshit.
I could agree with you if this poster hadn't posted a very similar article the previous day, or if the writer wasn't saying "I'm now an architect for a fleet of agents" which is definitely AI booster bullshit.
What I'm saying is the post is broadly about programming, and how that has changed over the decades, so I posted it in the community I thought was most appropriate.
If you're arguing that articles posted in this community can't discuss AI and its impact on programming, then that's something you'll need to take up with the moderators.
If I thought it was against the rules I'd report it instead of complaining. I complain because posting "I'm sad because everything is different now and also I'm all in in the hype actually" blogs 2 days in a row after agreeing not to post AI hype sure seems like you desperately want to post AI hype.
Talking about low level compilers seems like moving the goalposts, since they are way more well defined and vetted than the mass of software libraries and copy pasted StackOverflow functions a large segment of programming has been done with.
A chicken in a programming comm.‽
Please tell me you write in Scheme…
Not since college tbh, I really struggled with that compilers class, might give it another go at some point though and Chicken Scheme would be a natural choice
That's fair. I took a class while getting my Masters that used Scheme (having learned Scheme on my own ahead of time) and, after getting past the parts I was already familiar with the language on, I found it really difficult to grasp what they were trying to teach me. I can't say it's what you experienced but I've tended to find that higher level education courses that utilize Scheme tend to operate on a level of abstraction that's hard to grasp unless you already know the big picture they're trying to impart.
Regardless, I hope it's easier the second time (if you ever do give it another try).