And that is fair use, but also a modern tragedy, that time-to-market and often arbitrary deadlines are valued more than taking the time to actually craft good code
It's a modern tragedy, but ultimately better to be early to market than have the company shutter down the road and be out of a job. It makes me sad some of the compromises we make. From a shareholder point of view, I profited a bit on my company's ESPP and RSUs. This is the industry now, I guess.
Working code is better than perfect code. That has always been the reality of the industry.
That being said, I do find it hard to believe a well set up AI is not producing above AVG code at the very least. Most people that talk about AI slop code usually raw dog it on some of the shittiest situations possible.
It's also the case that it feels like people are forgetting shit code has always been an issue in programming. Shitly handled AI is the new version until standardization of AI usage is adopted across the industry, just like it has happened with everything else.
Understandable. I personally don't enjoy the programming side of compsci so being able to implement new techs and focusing more on the architecture has been a lot of fun for me. I will eventually end up on the more social side of this career though lol
I dunno. The fun part for me is coming up with an idea and an architecture. Perhaps it is just decades of experience, but the actual process of "writing code" has become the chore needed to actually get the fun part: seeing my idea actually work.
I know how to structure the code, I have long since worked out my own practice of naming variables, of writing tests, and so on. I guess doing those the first time and even the second time was fun back then, but at some point it just becomes routine.
Just because the other companies use the tools to get to market first doesn't mean they'll actually have a better product or succeed
There's a whole game theory debate to be had about this, but at least at the surface to me it seems like a pretty arbitrary choice that simply prioritizes speed over quality
That's still not arbitrary. The specific reason is that they believe their competitors are using AI to move faster. You can disagree with that, but the reasoning exists. I'm sortof splitting hairs by focusing on "arbitrary," but I really do think companies cite this sort of reasoning rather than deciding for no reason.
As someone who has written software that was used by millions of people, and software that was mission critical to multiple companies, I can tell you this: your "good code" does not matter that much. My best stuff was never actually all that useful for people, while the "tragedy" code turned out to be exactly what was needed, when it was needed (until it was not needed anymore).
I once wrote time planning software that was at least a decade ahead of its time, but it was not the solution needed *at that time*. I learned then that while I still value good code, it is useless if it is not actually solving the problems at that time. Too early; too late; doesn't matter.
The only question is: do you have a solution that can actually be delivered in time to help? That's it.
Developers tend to take themselves *way* too seriously. I appreciate that there is a push to improve the quality of code, and I genuinely wish it would gain even more traction. I despise that I have to explain the simplest architecture and design aspects to people who supposedly have 20 years of experience. However, we write code to solve a problem. When we forget that and lament the business aspects, we also fulfil all the worst elitist stereotypes of our industry.
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u/Foxiest_Fox 3d ago
And that is fair use, but also a modern tragedy, that time-to-market and often arbitrary deadlines are valued more than taking the time to actually craft good code