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Yep, there's no stopping automation. I guess there are many archetypes: architects, builders, mentors, etc. I fall squarely into the "tinkerer" category. I like to take things apart to understand how they work, and then put them back together slightly differently. I don't want to ship a product that makes me a million or cures cancer. Those are excellent goals for someone else to pursue. For me, it's never been about chasing the latest trends, having the best job title or biggest salary, etc. It's always been about learning by doing, and it was rewarding to get paid to do that. I guess in future that won't be an option anymore as agents shit out metric tons of code in minutes and I just kind of "manage" them?

As someone whose whole identity was built around programming I mourn it daily. But I do think it's wonderful that people can realize their ideas now. E.g. I've seen a lot of vibe coded retro games lately, and while they're clearly lacking craftsmanship in some areas (e.g. not crunching your binary, bad looking AI load screens, & just a general lack of polish) I have to remind myself that these games probably wouldn't exist without AI, and TBH some of them are not half bad.

> If you can't spend the time to write it, why should anyone read it?

100%. We're producing more content, faster, than ever before but ... most of it is just click-producing garbage that won't stand the test of time.

Interesting. Thanks for clarifying!

I'm pretty sure CP/M 86 was already a thing. I believe there was even Concurrent CP/M 86, which let you run up to 4 (or more?) virtual sessions concurrently. Light years ahead of MS-DOS but nobody wanted it, so DRI dumbed it down and added MS-DOS compatibility and re-released as DR-DOS (still superior to MS-DOS though).

10 years from now:

Climate Activist: The oceans are getting warmer & global currents are threatened by imminent collapse - we must do something!

Big Oil: Prove it!

Climate Activist: Data gathered between 2016 and 2026 shows ...

Big Oil: That's old news! Do you have more recent data?

Climate Activist: Well, no, because Trump2 dismantled the ocean observation system in 2026 ...

Big Oil: So you have no data to back up your claims?

Climate Activist: Not recent data, no, but ...

Big Oil: Case dismissed! Why should anyone take action based on subjective opinion, not backed up by hard data? For all we know the oceans could have miraculously cooled & the currents are fine!

Love RSB but then again I'm a filthy degenerate :D

New users are probably the only ones who really need guided product tours. If I'm a longtime existing user I'm far less likely to be interested in a guided tour.

Happened to me too! Guy posted asking kinda rudely whether I was going to fix a bug. Told him I'd be happy to accept a PR for a fix. Never got a PR (project has been dead for some years now - just lost interest).

> the only industry that will matter going forward is this one (fair enough I guess)

Housing, healthcare, and food production all spring to mind as industries that matter waaaay more than AI! (≧ᗜ≦)

^ This. People bemoan the death of coding, but easily 80%+ of the code I've written commercially was just CRUD or ETL shite. I've done a few interesting things (a formula parser, a WYSWIG survey builder for signature pads, a navigation controller for line-guided industrial vehicles, etc.) but yeah, don't miss writing reams of boilerplate. I always tried to take a Kent Beck inspired Smalltalk/TDD inspired approach to the code I wrote and took pride in my work, but ultimately you're working in a shitty corporate environment where none of your colleagues cares because they're burning at both ends, the management only does lip service to Quality, and Deadlines and the Bottom Line are Everything. If LLMs make this shit more bearable then bring 'em on, I say!

Ask 10 people & you'll get 10 different answers :D. Here's mine: I don't think software development jobs are going to disappear, even though the amount of hand-written code will in all likelihood decline. Those employing s/w devs are just going to expect more output. Until recently most smaller teams wouldn't even attempt more ambitious projects due to worry they'd blow it (yes, the uncomfortable reality is that most s/w projects fail). Now, they're getting braver since LLMs are essentially a RAD tool, and I'd argue that's a good thing.

I've been a professional dev for 20 years, and done plenty of solo projects, but also worked on teams at small & large firms. Even when we were able to build good products, the amount of man-hours sunk into those products often meant they weren't profitable. One of my former bosses made the whole s/w dev dept. gather int the cafeteria one day & ranted at us that he's spent 6 million Euros paying software developers but our products aren't selling, and he doesn't understand why we take so long to build basic products. That boss left shortly thereafter & the company was restructured, but in a way, he wasn't wrong. I can imagine that had we had LLMs things might've turned out differently, but who knows.

Beautifully written, a joy to read but, sadly, it feels like something from a bygone era. Nobody chants "Developers! Developers! Developers!" anymore now that everything is dominated by AI, and the joy of coding is gone too. People like Steve Yegge, who I used to aspire to be like back in 2006, when I started my career as a developer, now writes about how he uses 10+ concurrent LLM agents to code, review, and ship & doesn't even bother to even look at the code being produced anymore. Just today, I implemented 2 features using Cursor & GPT-5.1 Codex-Max & I didn't have to write a single line of code myself. But it felt wrong. It makes me think, "What am I even doing here - Why not just let the product manager prompt the LLM?".

I understand, no disrespect meant to Poland - I've edited my answer to not sound disrespectful. My grandfather on my mother's side was Polish. It was just an awful trip. I guess I had built up this romantic idea in my head about night trains, but the reality is that the they are extremely noisy, so you should at least pack some earplugs. Also, the security warnings by the train staff made me nervous.