While I like the joke, I think it might be obsolete at this point. AI is (unfortunately) here to stay, and giving it a big batch of code and saying “summarize what this does for me” or even “rename the variables for clarity and add comments” works pretty well. As with all things AI, never just trust what it gives you in return, but it can make dealing with this kind of situation 1000x easier.
very true and cryptic codebases w/o documentation was the only reason why i was employed for the last 20 years. lol
interviewing & working w the young people hired at my last 2 places who used ai to get work done MUCH faster than i could showed me how much of a dinosaur i was and it was the biggest contributing factor to leaving the field. my experience in the last 10 of those 20 years makes me aware that only software engineers with a prestigious pedigrees (eg well regarded universities and/or well known names in their resume) are given a chance today.
people trying to take a path similar to mine to become a software engineer – poorly regarded state university degree and accepting shitty contract gigs at the beginning of their career in roles that are barely software related – are fucked unless they’re lucky or well connected.
i was SUPER LUCKY to get contract gigs at faang and old-silicon shops to put on my resume and i learned retroactively (and in writing) that, that was the only reason i got interviewed at all.
While I like the joke, I think it might be obsolete at this point. AI is (unfortunately) here to stay, and giving it a big batch of code and saying “summarize what this does for me” or even “rename the variables for clarity and add comments” works pretty well. As with all things AI, never just trust what it gives you in return, but it can make dealing with this kind of situation 1000x easier.
That is one of very clear legitimate uses for LLMs, similarly they work great for making decompiled code human readable now.
very true and cryptic codebases w/o documentation was the only reason why i was employed for the last 20 years. lol
interviewing & working w the young people hired at my last 2 places who used ai to get work done MUCH faster than i could showed me how much of a dinosaur i was and it was the biggest contributing factor to leaving the field. my experience in the last 10 of those 20 years makes me aware that only software engineers with a prestigious pedigrees (eg well regarded universities and/or well known names in their resume) are given a chance today.
people trying to take a path similar to mine to become a software engineer – poorly regarded state university degree and accepting shitty contract gigs at the beginning of their career in roles that are barely software related – are fucked unless they’re lucky or well connected.
i was SUPER LUCKY to get contract gigs at faang and old-silicon shops to put on my resume and i learned retroactively (and in writing) that, that was the only reason i got interviewed at all.