[choppsv1]

I love to code, as much as I loved math in college, but coding paid better and I'm pretty good at it. Those were my choices though b/c I want to do something I love. Sure, I keep my eye on the "Delivered Value" by making sure I engineer solutions to real problems, but I've never wanted to move out of coding and into managing engineers to build stuff. I want to code. It seems to me that the advice given here would be more applicable to someone who only coded long enough to move into engineering management -- anyway something about it bugs me and I don't think I'd follow it exclusively even if I was starting today.

[cwillu]

It's like telling a musician to become a DJ because the point of performing is to entertain people.

It's not wrong, but it's also not applicable to all people who enjoy performing an instrument.

[Philip-J-Fry]

I think it's more like telling a DJ in the 80s, "Don't worry that mixing vinyls won't be a thing forever. It's not about the tools but about the product, as a DJ your job is to mix good music and you can do that with vinyls, cassettes or with MP3s."

[kybernetikos]

That's a great analogy, and it makes me wonder just how closely did Carmack himself follow this advice early in his career. I suspect that he wouldn't have got where he is without an unusually deep interest in the nuts and bolts.

[twelve40]

Yeah, but the original question was specifically about coding jobs, not hobbies, hence i think a reasonable business angle on the answer.

[_s]

Difference is - are you a musician who wants to earn money from playing, or just want to play for your enjoyment?

You can do both, at the same time, but one has external expectations you shouldn't forget about.

[dzikimarian]

Well that's correct, but again you can't expect you'll stay relevant if you are into Romenian-Death-Disco-Country-Rap. Your technology of choice may become exactly that in a few years.

[numpad0]

I think there is room for interpretation as to whether it equates to telling a musician to become a DJ, or a pianist to wear a jacket, or soldiers to strap a first aid kit on left thigh.

[kirso]

I believe you missed the point.

Sure, you can entertain doing hobby music by yourself out of passion and it can have 0 listens and thats great. Keep doing what you love!

The tweet however is in the context of a JOB or CAREER.

If you code and produce 0 value in either saving engineering hours, saving money, producing revenue - whats the point?

So the analogy is rather about having an understanding and skills of a full-stack product person that has the context to build valuable things, rather than typing on keyboard in isolation.

[tarsinge]

Musician is not only performing an instrument. The analogy is more like telling instruments players that only care about virtuosity the larger point is making music for people to enjoy, from being “a guitarist” to making music. The musical piece is the product in the professional context, and AI in that context is maybe recording, DAWs and realistic synths and sounds banks.

[brtkdotse]

Sure, but in the time of DJs and hell, Spotify, you probably can’t expect to make a decent living as a live musician.

[bcherny]

The advice isn’t about coding vs managing. What John is saying is to deeply understand why you’re building something, so that you can build it better. If you over focus on the what — the implementation, the language, the approach — you won’t be as good, and your work may be increasingly replaced by AI.

[klabb3]

> The advice isn’t about coding vs managing.

Definitely. Carmack is no dummy, but I’d argue this comment section proves that he gave a pretty bad answer here (bad for the audience, not if you know Carmack and what he means).

I guess it’s the impostor syndrome, but many programmers have an out-of-place reductionist view of their work. It’s not simple, and crud boilerplate proves little about the future prospects.

Managers OTOH really are in the zone of GPT parity. At least a much larger subset of their day-to-day activities. So are many soft skills. In fact, soft communication is where LLMs shine above all other tasks, as we’ve seen over and over in the last few months. This is supported by how it performs on eg essay-style exams vs leetcode, where it breaks down entirely as it’s venturing into any territory with less training data.

Now, does that mean I think lowly of managers? No, managers have a crucial role, and the ones who are great are really really crucial, and the best can salvage a sinking ship. But most managers aren’t even good. That has a lot to do with poor leadership and outdated ideas of how to select for and train them.

[ScoobleDoodle]

I agree but I think I’d call it the “how” rather than the “what”. You might mean “what tool”, but I also think of “what feature”.

[yazaddaruvala]

> It seems to me that the advice given here would be more applicable to someone who only coded long enough to move into engineering management -- anyway something about it bugs me and I don't think I'd follow it exclusively even if I was starting today

The advice here is clearly meant for someone who wants to invest in themselves to provide food and shelter for themselves and/or a family in the future. (Ie “doing all this hard work for nothing… AI will make my future job obsolete”).

The advice is spot on. Soft skills are hard to learn, harder to teach, and allow for flexibility with regards to the tool used.

> anyway something about it bugs me and I don't think I'd follow it exclusively even if I was starting today.

I’d be you like the money but don’t seem to want it as much as you want to solve deterministic puzzles (“not interested in becoming a manager” ie “not interested in maximizing career/salary growth potential).

What bugs you seems to be that you can’t yet see the puzzle left for you to work on once GPT-12 makes coding obsolete and software architecturing obsolete.

A long time ago I got some good feedback, “You were hired because you typically know the right answers and/or know how to find them. You were promoted because you also seem to know how to ask the right questions, and that is significantly harder.”

I’m relatively certain it’s analogous to Carmak’s advice.

[tarsinge]

Delivered value sounds like consultant talk, but it’s as simple as wanting to make a game for people to play it. Or if you’re a carpenter caring about the roof you’re building instead of just cutting wood and hammering nails. Jobs exists to serve a purpose, otherwise it’s a hobby (which is fine). Coding as an expertise will still be needed, same as having an expertise in the methods of processing wood, but we might not need coders on the assembly line anymore that we need wood cutters there.

[senbrow]

I ultimately decided to leave tech when I realized I didn't care much about delivering value and actually just wanted to write beautiful code. The former was a nice bonus for me, but the latter was profoundly captivating.

I'd unfortunately tried to make that mismatch work for too long, and as a result I completely destroyed all of my programming interest via severe burnout.

If this resonates with whoever reads this: please take your passion seriously and protect it. I don't know if I'll ever be able to enjoy coding again, unfortunately.

[the_only_law]

Where did you go? I’ve wanted out for years. I recognized the mistake almost immediately after going professional, but I just don’t really see anything else that looks appealing without spending years of my life and a stupid amount of money “retraining” by going back to school.

[qprofyeh]

He said nothing about management. What I think he means by “guiding” is more related to prompt engineering, and how “coding” will evolve from exclusively using programming and scripting languages to a wider creative landscape of generative (guiding) techniques.

[eps]

Love to code is rooted in the love to create.

This is not going away with the AI in the picture.

It will be just different.

[jdowner]

I agree but I think there is concern about the perceived value that those creative skills will have.

[soheil]

You're like someone in the days of horses and buggies who rode horses not for getting from A to B but for enjoyment of riding horses.

Most didn't.

Programming in the traditional sense will be obsolete and people programming for the fun of it will be a niche thing.

[moffkalast]

What bugs me about it personally is that he reduces the entire CS field to something that's there for building "products". Why the fuck does it have to all be inherently capitalistic?

But if you know who he is and what he does these days, it makes sense I suppose. Can't be in that business environment day after day without going slightly nuts eventually.