@idriss Seems predictable to me. Programmers on the left or middle of some distribution identifying “good” programmers or engineers will use AI and be comfortable having completed some task. Those on the right of the distribution may or may not use AI but will insist on understanding what has been created.
Now, an interesting question for me unrelated to the post is “what would be a good metric to identify
really good programmers?”
@troi@techhub.social tbh I could see people who are considered good programmers in one place but not in another place (just prompting to get things done with minimum effort & reserving the effort for something else).
Probably it comes back to interest & care, how much the person is interested in iterating over their solution & architecture + learning things regardless of seniority level to achieve a higher level goal (simpler design for example rather than stopping when it works). Maybe that could be an indication of a good programmer?
@idriss makes sense. The 80-20 rule might apply here. A good programmer knows where to spend their time. I’ve been kicking this around with an old boss and we don’t have any firm ideas. A metric should be quantifiable, but your interest & care gets into self actualization. Maybe a version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for software developers?
I am also thinking the word “good” was a bad choice. It’s too subjective and has a negative implication for anyone to the left side of the bell curve. Competent programmers are a thing and I suspect they actually keep most things running smoothly.
I wish I had my old copy of Weinberg’s _The Psychology of Computer Programming_. It’s been decades since I read it so I don’t recall if it addressed this sort of question, but it might suggest something.
@idriss Seems predictable to me. Programmers on the left or middle of some distribution identifying “good” programmers or engineers will use AI and be comfortable having completed some task. Those on the right of the distribution may or may not use AI but will insist on understanding what has been created.
Now, an interesting question for me unrelated to the post is “what would be a good metric to identify
really good programmers?”
@troi@techhub.social tbh I could see people who are considered good programmers in one place but not in another place (just prompting to get things done with minimum effort & reserving the effort for something else). Probably it comes back to interest & care, how much the person is interested in iterating over their solution & architecture + learning things regardless of seniority level to achieve a higher level goal (simpler design for example rather than stopping when it works). Maybe that could be an indication of a good programmer?
@idriss makes sense. The 80-20 rule might apply here. A good programmer knows where to spend their time. I’ve been kicking this around with an old boss and we don’t have any firm ideas. A metric should be quantifiable, but your interest & care gets into self actualization. Maybe a version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for software developers?
I am also thinking the word “good” was a bad choice. It’s too subjective and has a negative implication for anyone to the left side of the bell curve. Competent programmers are a thing and I suspect they actually keep most things running smoothly.
I wish I had my old copy of Weinberg’s _The Psychology of Computer Programming_. It’s been decades since I read it so I don’t recall if it addressed this sort of question, but it might suggest something.