[_zoltan_]

There should never have been an "artisan era". We use computers to solve problems. You should have always getting stuff done instead of bikeshedding over nitty-gritty details, like when in the office people have been spending weeks on optimizing code... just to have the exact same output, exact same time, but now "nicer".

You get paid to get stuff done, period.

[mchaver]

> There should never have been an "artisan era".

Firm no. There should be and there will continue to be. Maybe for you all code is business/money-making code, but that is not true for everyone.

> We use computers to solve problems.

We can use computers for lots of things like having fun, making art, and even creating problems for other people.

> You get paid to get stuff done, period.

That is a strange assumption. Plenty of people are writing code without being paid for it.

[satvikpendem]

> Plenty of people are writing code without being paid for it.

This is rhetorically a non sequitur. As in, if you get paid (X) then you get stuff done (Y). But if you're not paid (~X), then, ?

Not being paid doesn't mean one does or doesn't get stuff done, it has no bearing on it. So the parent wasn't saying anything about people who don't get paid, they can do whatever they want, but yes, at a job if you're paid, then you better get stuff done over bikeshedding.

[techpression]

And to add to this, good artisanal code usually means it runs a lot faster, which means saving money and energy, and those are good things.

[lxgr]

I think you're both right. There's a time and place for beautifully crafted code, but there's also a place for a hot mess that barely passes its own non-existing tests, and for anything in between.

Just don't bring an artisan to a slop fight.

[frizlab]

Yeah. Exactly the same as there should never be an “artisan era” for chairs, tables, buildings, etc.

Hell even art! Why should art even be a thing? We are machine driven by neurons, feelings do not exist.

Might be your life, it ain’t mine. I’m an artisan of code, and I’m proud to be one. I might finally use AI one of these days at work because I’ll have to, but I’ll never stop cherishing doing hand-crafted code.

[enraged_camel]

>> Yeah. Exactly the same as there should never be an “artisan era” for chairs, tables, buildings, etc.

That's funny you bring up those examples, because they have all moved on to the mass manufacturing era. You can still get artisan quality stuff but it typically costs a lot more and there's a lot less of it. Which is why mass-manufacturing won. Same is going to happen with software. LLMs are just the beginning.

[falcor84]

The difference is that end users don't interact with the code that the artisan created, and don't care what it "feels like". One type of code that I do agree should be artisanal is the interface end of libraries.

[EagnaIonat]

> just to have the exact same output, exact same time, but now "nicer".

The majority of code work is maintaining someone else's code. That's the reason it is "nicer".

There is also the matter of performance and reducing redundancy.

Two recent pulls I saw where it was AI generated did neither. Both attempted to recreate from scratch rather than using industry tested modules. One was using csv instead of polars for the intensive work.

So while they worked, they became an unmaintainable mess.

[ModernMech]

You use computers to solve problems. I use computers to communicate and create art. For me, the code I write is first and foremost a form of self expression. No one paid me to write 99% of the code I've written in my life.

For a long time computers were so expensive they could only be used to do things that generate enough money to justify their purchase. But those days are long gone so computers are for much much more than just solving problems and getting stuff done. Code can be beautiful in its own right.

[yunohn]

The exact mindset is what has led to the transition from quality products to commercialized crapware, not just with software, but across all industries.

[JKCalhoun]

"You get paid to get stuff done, period."

It sounds like you hate your job? To be sure, I've done plenty of grinding over my career as a software engineer but in fact I coded as a hobby before it turned into a career, I then continued to code on the side, now I am retired and code still.

Perhaps the artist in me that keeps at it.

[_zoltan_]

I love my job FWIW. I work at performance engineering and we work with the most complex systems in the world (GB200/B300/...). Couldn't be happier.

But I just don't care if I have 5 layers of abstraction and SOLID principles and clean code and.... bah. I get it. I have an MSc in it and I've been doing this as a hobby and then professionally for decades now. It just doesn't matter. At the end of the day, we get paid to ship something that solves a problem.

It might be a novel problem. And it might be at the frontier of what we can do today. But it's still a problem that needs solving and the path we take is irrelevant from a user's perspective as long as it solves the problem.

[satvikpendem]

I don't think they hate their job, just seem to be frustrated at slow bureaucratic processes and long code reviews which I've experienced too. After a while it can get aggravating as to why some people want to nitpick minute details of the code which slows down development overall. I am talking about cases where the initially submitted PR is perfectly fine, not grossly incorrect.