Doesn’t this make you more valuable? I can understand feeling like you want to do other things in life but if you were planning to stay don’t these new tools expand what you can do in a day in a way that favors someone at your skill level more than someone junior?
Oh, for sure! I’m going to ride this career out into retirement if I can. I love what I do. And yeah, I’m more valuable than 10 junior devs in a box. I’ll be valuable up until there is a senior dev in a box.
If you were getting involved with programming as a novice today, is there a particular discipline or niche you’d recommend? Certain skills or tools you’d focus on? Also, are there non-technical aptitudes you think are worth training up on to stay relevant in the AI/LLM future?
🤔 So far LLMs don’t seem to be good at the big-picture stuff, so software architecture might be relevant for a while longer. The problem is that most information sources are going to be coming from the perspective of someone that understands code. I’m not really sure what that looks like in a world where the details are just handled.
Maybe Category Theory. Recency bias warning: This could be because I’m currently about 4⁄5 of the way through a lecture series on the Category Theory for Programmers. Category Theory is basically all about how abstractions can be transformed. As working programming is likely to be done at higher levels of abstraction, this seems relevant.
Honestly, my advice is this: follow what piques your interest. Don’t worry what the field will be like in 5-10 years. We’re likely wrong, and you may as well enjoy the ride. Every piece you pick up will build up to a greater understanding anyways. If you are interested in web development, back-end work will give you a better understanding of architecture, but if you just love front-end, go for it. You can always switch later. It’s good to be a generalist.
Thanks for the reply and thoughts. Given that no one really knows, it’s sound advice to follow one’s interests. Additional understanding and skills will also be a net positive. Still, being on the verge of something so transformative makes me wonder if we need to update our typical career questions/audits. Updated to what seems to be the current question though...
Doesn’t this make you more valuable? I can understand feeling like you want to do other things in life but if you were planning to stay don’t these new tools expand what you can do in a day in a way that favors someone at your skill level more than someone junior?
Oh, for sure! I’m going to ride this career out into retirement if I can. I love what I do. And yeah, I’m more valuable than 10 junior devs in a box. I’ll be valuable up until there is a senior dev in a box.
If you were getting involved with programming as a novice today, is there a particular discipline or niche you’d recommend? Certain skills or tools you’d focus on? Also, are there non-technical aptitudes you think are worth training up on to stay relevant in the AI/LLM future?
🤔 So far LLMs don’t seem to be good at the big-picture stuff, so software architecture might be relevant for a while longer. The problem is that most information sources are going to be coming from the perspective of someone that understands code. I’m not really sure what that looks like in a world where the details are just handled.
Maybe Category Theory. Recency bias warning: This could be because I’m currently about 4⁄5 of the way through a lecture series on the Category Theory for Programmers. Category Theory is basically all about how abstractions can be transformed. As working programming is likely to be done at higher levels of abstraction, this seems relevant.
Honestly, my advice is this: follow what piques your interest. Don’t worry what the field will be like in 5-10 years. We’re likely wrong, and you may as well enjoy the ride. Every piece you pick up will build up to a greater understanding anyways. If you are interested in web development, back-end work will give you a better understanding of architecture, but if you just love front-end, go for it. You can always switch later. It’s good to be a generalist.
Thanks for the reply and thoughts. Given that no one really knows, it’s sound advice to follow one’s interests. Additional understanding and skills will also be a net positive. Still, being on the verge of something so transformative makes me wonder if we need to update our typical career questions/audits. Updated to what seems to be the current question though...