sqircles

These things certainly are not industry specific. I grew up in construction where layoffs are expected sometimes a few times per year. The basic personal finance advice helps, i.e. emergency fund, pay off high interest debt asap. Not burning bridges, building a network of real people is huge. Help people out when you are in a position to and are able to. As far as mindset, I think my Christian faith plays a big role in situations that might cause suffering. Essentially, don't make your career or your salary your identity and/or highest power in your life.

I worked in software acquisitions for a large organization and it was really eye opening to see how insane some of these companies are when it comes to pricing customers out. I always wondered - what is the motive? They make pricing structure changes that aren't even considerable for any organization that has any fashion of a budget. VMWare was one example where our already insane costs that had nearly tripled over the previous 4 years were quoted to triple at the end of the period.

Another was a Java SE licensing change that went from around $1k per instance, of which we had about 5. Mind you there is little to no maintenance support provided here. The increase was to $5.25 per organizational employee per instance, whether they used the instance or not - of which we had 100k. The choice was obviously a simple one.

I can only assume very few organization stay on the ride for those kinds of changes, but obviously they must - but why?

Quality of _____ is nose diving.

Kids these days...

I have long held a bias of KDE being the clunky and slow option from trial in the ~early-oughts. Within the past month or so I installed it to give it a spin and haven't switched back to XFCE since. It strikes a good balance of customization / speed / taste / and just working out of the box. Thanks KDE team!

Sounds quite normal, honestly. Programming is in a dark place right now relative to how I used to enjoy it. I haven't touched a personal project in many months. You did something for four decades and whatever mystery may have been left there is probably gone with AI.

Try identifying what made it feel like a "passion." Was it problem solving and discovering new things on your own by piecing things together? Then yeah, AI probably has something to do with that in regard to software development - but there are many other avenues you can take to fulfill that whether it be unrelated hobbies or charity work, etc.

Does the idea of submitting one's self to using something like this not terrify anyone else? The more true the effectiveness of these products become, the more they have the possibility to do the inverse on accident (or potentially on purpose), no?

The billing footguns are a major pain point for anyone that doesn't have the capital to just dump faith paired with a credit card into. This of course is not limited to AWS...

> Psychological addition [...] no different to people munching pills every weekend at a rave or drinking enough to be tipsy (or wasted, if that's your thing)

I can assure you pills and alcohol are much more than a psychological addiction.

> How many SMEs out there are depending on Sara's knowledge of the USB memory stick and how to use it?

I think at least in part, that is the point: orgs are missing the part of the equation where the institutional and organizational knowledge is critical. Sure, the code to accomplish parts B and C can be re-duct-taped together in a month or so by off-shore, or maybe an agent... but part A, its plumbing, and why it does what it does the way it does it due to historical failures and the knowledge behind that is probably what keeps it going.

Those things are learned starting at the ground level by bumping into them in the trenches.

Odd, our Enterprise side has been jacking up for a few days now on PRs.

My biggest road blocks seem to be knocked down with a nice walk / good nights rest, a la "rubber duck debugging." Essentially, stepping away and being able to put a fresh set of "eyes" on the problem with a different perspective, albeit it's just you resetting your own perspective.

It seems to be more that they're using "security" as a reason for going closed source, so this is just sticking with the story.

> You shouldn't have shoved trash down people's throats a few months ago then?

:s/You/MS

While I agree the widespread "race to market" with crap probably does and should hurt the success of these "AI-enabled apps," that particular area probably was not this individuals decision.