I came across I Started Programming When I Was 7. I’m 50 Now, and the Thing I Loved Has Changed today via Hacker News, and it resonates with me.
I am not 50, but I have enough years under my belt to understand what James has written, and how it feels to watch the world of computing lurch forward into a new era.
Signing into AOL and hearing “You’ve Got Mail!” Configuring an IRC client for the first time. Typing “ASL?”. “roflcopter”, and “omgwtfbbq”. Ask Jeeves, Ebaum’s World, Albino Blacksheep, Newgrounds, Napster, Limewire, StumbleUpon, Myspace. Experimenting, breaking your only computer with internet access, researching for hours at school/library/friends house, and fixing problems on your own. Writing games on a TI-83 calculator and sharing with friends in class. Physical tethers both personal and technical. Exploring the world around me without electronics in my pocket.
These are history. Fragments of years of experience, testing, troubleshooting, fixing, and learning how to fail and recover. Fun.
Those of us with history, experience, and understanding of systems and integration. Engineers who know what a good design looks like and what tradeoffs are necessary or required to deliver on time. The people who know why we push for operational excellence. We are well positioned for this jump.
AI will write faster than us. AI will build software faster than us. But AI doesn’t act alone in our best interests. It must be guided. It must be led. And I am here for it.