Well, they are, but not for the takeaway the article gives. The article is so close, but fails to extract the accurate conclusion.
First are what he calls the “lazy” engineers — workers who rely heavily on AI to write code, answer questions, prepare updates, and complete tasks with minimal engagement.
Then there are the “craftsmen,” experienced engineers who bear the burden of understanding, reviewing, and fixing the growing flood of AI-generated code.
This is accurate. You have a set of “developers” who just need to make a good showing on the telemetry, whether it’s “tokens used” and/or prominence in commit activity. They are not held to account on actual productive outcomes, just that they supervised a credible volume of AI activity. If the AI generates code and tests and the AI is satisfied that the code passes the tests, then their job is done. You have another set of developers that have to live with the nightmarish consequences of the first, because they just generated a pile of shit that would have been better not to exist at all.
‘The craft they loved is dead’
Wrong takeaway, the craft is alive, but mismanagement is diluting it with bullshit.
Incidentally, this isn’t new, but the magnitude is new. I have had significant segments of my career consumed by management insisting that I somehow make the bottom dollar offshored developers “productive”, and similar pattern, if they “looked busy”, management was happy, and management didn’t care about whether the work was useful, because frankly they couldn’t tell. They could tell if some volume of “stuff” was happening and they just settled on that, and if the “stuff” alienated customers, well that was the fault of those “craftsmen” for failing to properly manage the output from the “lazy” engineers.
lol sure they are.
They’re desperately trying to pump this AI shit up with these fake stories before they go public
Investors really are dumber demographic than MAGA.
Well, they are, but not for the takeaway the article gives. The article is so close, but fails to extract the accurate conclusion.
This is accurate. You have a set of “developers” who just need to make a good showing on the telemetry, whether it’s “tokens used” and/or prominence in commit activity. They are not held to account on actual productive outcomes, just that they supervised a credible volume of AI activity. If the AI generates code and tests and the AI is satisfied that the code passes the tests, then their job is done. You have another set of developers that have to live with the nightmarish consequences of the first, because they just generated a pile of shit that would have been better not to exist at all.
Wrong takeaway, the craft is alive, but mismanagement is diluting it with bullshit.
Incidentally, this isn’t new, but the magnitude is new. I have had significant segments of my career consumed by management insisting that I somehow make the bottom dollar offshored developers “productive”, and similar pattern, if they “looked busy”, management was happy, and management didn’t care about whether the work was useful, because frankly they couldn’t tell. They could tell if some volume of “stuff” was happening and they just settled on that, and if the “stuff” alienated customers, well that was the fault of those “craftsmen” for failing to properly manage the output from the “lazy” engineers.
Herd behavior.