sodafountan

Yes.

AI (in its current state) is phenomenal for research on just about any topic; you can dive deep and cross-reference the material more easily than ever.

AI (in its current state) is not so good at actually doing things; we're a long ways off from simply speaking software into existence.

As hard as it is to admit, the used market hurts developers the most. If I buy a game and then resell it to a friend for more money than what the game store would offer, but less than what they'd pay at retail. The actual developer of the game sees no profit. It's a win-win for the gamers, not so much for the developers.

Digital assets don't degrade like an appliance or a used car might, so the used market really cuts into the profits of game companies.

I don't believe the solution to this is to go all digital and cut off access to physical media entirely. What we need are stronger digital economies that can grow organically with a community.

Digital media needs the backing of cryptocurrency to remain viable. We need digital assets and economies that either grow or shrink in value based on demand. Rather than fake digital currencies that have no value outside of the world they're used in, we need real cryptocurrencies that are traded on open markets like stocks to bolster the digital economy and make the economics of building fun, lasting games a reality.

I'm tired of spending money on digital points for games that have no real value. Everything should be a cryptocurrency at this point.

didn't ask

I know of two women under the age of 30 who got cancer, they were spouses/girlfriends of friends of mine. I didn't know them well personally, and only met them a handful of times at outings.

Because they weren't married yet I'm sure it's just compounding their financial struggles.

I was shocked when I heard they had cancer, I almost didn't believe it. Under 30 is such a young age to be diagnosed.

I agree that being a programmer doesn't make you an expert at everything, but OP brought up a good point. Tech is a lot more accessible than other fields. It would be nice if I could pivot into other fields as easily as someone could pivot into tech.

Aside from going to college for many years, there's really no other way to break into the medical field. College is expensive and quite daunting to many (myself included), which is a shame because I'd really like to contribute more to humanity than moving pixels around on a screen and helping businesses with their data problems.

Ah, this helped me wrap my head around what actually makes an MCP special.

I just want you to know that you're not alone.

I'm terribly worried about my career as well. I built a large part of my identity around coding in my teens, and working in the industry when I got to my twenties were some of the happiest years of my life.

I was laid off from tech around the time that COVID hit, so this predates AI somewhat. I briefly became a contractor, but none of the contracts I was able to secure were renewed. I haven't worked in tech since 2023, right around the time I was introduced to AI.

They say that as you become more experienced in a domain, it should become easier and more lucrative... advancing in a career like tech should be a joy. With about seven years of experience, I can say that it hasn't been great. And aside from acquiring titles like junior and senior, there really isn't much advancement left after the 5-10 year mark.

I currently work in a grocery store and am giving that a shot, going to give it a good few years to see if I can advance through the different departments while I see how AI in the software industry pans out. The pay isn't nearly as good, and it's not something I'm passionate about; it's really quite mindless work. The positives are that I don't have to worry about outsourcing, or working from home, or massively disruptive technology like AI.

Throughout the latter half of my career, it almost felt as if every force was at play in killing what I was finally able to enjoy and also make a living from.

I wish I had something more positive to say, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm unfortunately stuck waiting this one out on the sidelines.

Here's wishing you the best for the future.

That's a rare niche; the vast majority of software makes no money whatsoever.

What type of software do you produce?

Are the DJs live?

I was wondering about this myself, but given everything I know about AI. Won't the vocabulary slowly and subtly change as common people try to develop software, not knowing the jargon? Won't the AI systems learn from the prompts and adjust their understanding of what's trying to be accomplished?

Good News! I learned something today.

I'm unfamiliar with harness engineering. Is there any good documentation about the subject you could point me to?

Good News! The horse and the car can coexist

Yes, I don't have anything important to say other than I 100% agree with this comment. AI in its current state is akin to Stack Overflow and Google on steroids, but from my experience, it doesn't do well building out full-scale applications other than perhaps some initial scaffolding.

If I were to use it against a legacy, rather poorly written codebase, where the code may be hard to understand without some in-depth analysis. I could certainly ask an AI agent to read the code (How does application X do Y, for example), but I wouldn't have it start hammering out features or have it do any type of refactoring. That would cause far too many commits and confusion amongst the development team, leading to even more slop than whatever we'd already be dealing with.

Just leaving this comment here so I can come back to your comment. I've been getting a bit discouraged by AI lately, but this sums up my experience with it well enough.

Breaking rules in US prisons leads to solitary confinement. I'm assuming there's something similar in Japanese prisons, although the conditions sound like they can't get much worse...

I can't logically think of any other lawfully worse punishment than what was described in the article. I don't know what they'd do for breaking rules in these situations, to be honest.

My friends used to joke that it was like flying in a tin can, or that the wheels would fall off mid-flight. The jokes were endless.

I liked Spirit, though, great cost savings, and I didn't mind the minor inconveniences that came with it.

Aside from being known for being a cheap airline, the brand itself was pretty solid... I think it had everything working to its advantage. The bright yellow exteriors of the planes, a catchy name. I think people knew exactly what Spirit was and what they offered, which is the sign of a good brand.

The rise of LLM's had to have played a part in their demise, at least under whatever IOC is.

Could very well be that there's an AI startup aiming to use the brand to its benefit, but it's more likely the leadership teams saw massive declines in what I'm sure was an already dismal amount of traffic.

I did the same. It was cool seeing some of the games I came up with back in the 360 days running on iPhone and Android devices.

I used Monogame back when it was a proprietary framework called XNA developed at Microsoft.

You used to be able to use XNA to build Indie games for the Xbox 360, hard to believe, but this is going on 15 years ago at this point.

I built two indie games and made a couple of hundred bucks back when I was in High School. It's actually what got me into programming in the first place.

I'm happy to see that XNA became Monogame, it's one of the best frameworks I've ever used for gamedev.

Thanks, I must just be going through a string of bad luck. I have a profile on Linkedin and my email is out there. Hoping things change for the better. I was laid off not long after Covid and have been having trouble finding something steady since.

No, but it used to be.

What mediums are you using for recruiters to contact you? Do you have a linked-in or are you applying directly to recruiting companies? Are you active anywhere else?

Genuinely interested in how you're receiving so many recruitment emails. That used to be my go to way to hit the job market.

Yes, this has been my experience. I'd consider myself average at best. I worked in the industry for almost 7 years before being laid off. I can't find anything at the moment and have resorted to moving back in with my parents.

It's pretty depressing. I'd take just about anything at the moment. I understand desperation going into a job interview isn't ideal either.

It feels like I'm in a hole.

I'm an adult male; my feed is littered with thirst-trap-like posts. I don't even know how or when it got so bad. Instagram is somewhat off, too.

I find myself doomscrolling quite often just out of bad habit.

Wish things were different.

Well, I didn't even know how long 50 meters was when I first read the prompt. So I'd assume many would be in the same boat.

Aside from that little gotcha, I would assume most people would be able to understand that you'd need a car in order to get the car washed.

SpaceEx has made a ton of progress in space travel, granted it's not an ideal situation with it being a mega corp, but it moved a hell of a lot faster than NASA could have.

Perhaps someday we'll have individualized space flight like we have ownership over our cars and private planes.

Don't know what you're getting at by saying the galaxy will be ruled by mega-corps. Seems pretty democratic so far, and most of the things achieved couldn't have been without organization.

I stopped into the Amazon Fresh in Broomall, PA, to check it out not too long ago. It just looks bland and dystopian from the outside, and not much about it is impressive from the inside. I've worked with computers and technology my whole life, and the entrance to the store just confused me. If I remember correctly, I had to scan the Amazon app on my phone to enter the building. Once inside, it felt like a warehouse; the aisles were too small, and the food selection wasn't even really that great. (From memory, it was a few years ago that I went)

All in all, it's a cool concept on paper with absolutely terrible execution.

Only went once, bought some snacks, and left.

It's certainly not routine, but I'd say the privatization of the space industry that's unfolded over the last few decades is significant progress.

When I get depressed and look out at the world, I'm actually amazed at what I'm living through—the internet, space travel, electric and autonomous cars, smartphones. It's really amazing.

That doesn't make any sense.

I only asked ChatGPT to guess my age because I'm assuming OpenAI is going to have the LLM assume your age going forward, which is an interesting use of the technology. Rather than ask up front, it just guesses based on the utilization of the tool. I understand "dead-on" may have been the wrong use of the term, let's just say it was fairly accurate...

I probably would be impressed by a good parlour trick or an accurate horoscope. Lmao

I fit the same criteria. I think college is probably a wholesome experience, but I don't really know, as I only went for two years and didn't really get much out of it.

I had a few major issues with the experience:

One: It was force-fed to you in High School, it almost seemed like there was no other choice at the time, and it was far too easy to go into massive debt at such a young age.

Two: I was already self-taught in computer science, and the coursework didn't really expand upon my knowledge any.

Three: The bureaucracy was insane, having to deal with Student Aid, registration, and signing up for classes. It was nauseating.

Four: While there were some interesting classes in other domains of knowledge, the fact that there were so many required courses, like Writing and "English Composition." Kind of soured the experience. I didn't learn anything in the Comp Sci classes, and probably 60% of the other stuff I wasn't interested in. As an Adult who's paying tuition, you should be able to 100% pick and choose what courses you want to take, but because I was only 19 and fresh out of high school, that liberty didn't really dawn on me until after I had finally left.

I went to a community college. I assume a four-year school or something more academic by nature would be interesting, but not worthy of hiring one person over another strictly on credentials.

I actually have a good friend who was a car mechanic for a few years; we sort of grew up together. I became a developer, and he ended up driving for a towing company after he burned out in the shop.

I don't know who had it more difficult. Both are careers worthy of respect.

Mechanics need more spatial awareness and are hands-on; it's relatively easy to change the oil or swap out a tire. He taught me how to do brakes once, but I didn't internalize any of it. It's not so easy to replace an engine.

I did full-stack development for five or six years. He actually came over once, and I taught him a few things about the modern front-end stack. How to run Node.js, how to install dependencies via npm, and how to use GitHub. All things he was curious about.

I would assume it's pretty annoying to work at a local or small-scale shop and have a car come in with modern electrical issues that only the manufacturer knows how to deal with.