I think this is something almost straight out of Fred Brooks mythical Man month set of essays, from observations in the 1960s.
Iirc, one of the essays had the moral " many software developers would rather work on the infrastructure to solve the problem than actually solve the problem"
I’ve been thinking of the term ‘gearhead’ lately. Everyone saying bro put this skill in your agent harness to change everything is significantly motivated by the same urge as the person in the car mod culture tweaking their exhaust system etc
The hobbyist tinkering with the programming setup has its benefits (enjoyment) but it’s a mistake to think it matters at all to the end user or indeed — as this post argues — to actual quality and quantity of work when compared to the benefits of actually thinking about the product and the code
> motivated by the same urge as the person in the car mod culture tweaking their exhaust system etc
to be fair, the car mod people's end goal is just modding their cars mostly. there's no end goal like there is with software (a product).
I think people just get preoccupied with things that make them feel good and are simple and have immediate feedback. Not to be pedantic, but I would argue the more accurate analogy to this is the photography community. I had a period where I was really obsessed with photography and realized the majority of people love just...buying shit. All they did was just collect cameras and lenses and took extremely mediocre pictures. Turns out actual creativity is a lot harder and less immediately satisfying than the dopamine hit of buying some new lens, or changing your vim colorscheme and updating some alias for the 100th time. I'm sure there's some psychology behind people being too afraid to actually produce something because then they actually put themselves out there whether that's through some website or a photograph.
I’m not an engineer (by trade) so I am not as deep as many of you in the tooling.
But this article mirrors my thinking on every new notes app, or new “second brain,” or somehow new or better version of Jira, etc. There are real productivity gains and losses and a lot of theatrics.
Nah, man. I would be a LOT more productive if I didn't have to wait all day for Jira tickets to load every single time, or that dropdown to load, or that popover to show, …
That’s fair and I’m not saying there isn’t room for improvement. It’s a more general feeling - JIRA just being one example that I hear people hate (and try to make better). My gut in using or looking at JIRA told me the biggest problem was organization within JIRA and sticking to that system.
Eh, I think the urge is similar but maybe the rationality a bit less. i.e. there is some measurable increase in… whatever you’re trying to maximize with a car mod, volume or performance or whatnot. It’s more opaque with these harness optimizations and tools.
To be fair I mess with “how” I use or orchestrate the harness myself, I still can’t say anything I do that benefits me is more than placebo. At least from my projects. I think it matters easily for the things that can be patched like Context7 helping with API knowledge, and less for those that can’t like whatever “prompting style” attempts to address.
Maybe for those, you can say it matters in making agent use more subjectively ergonomic? So less of a correctness thing and more of reducing fatigue.
It sucks how much of the world is built by people who glorify putting in 6 days and 4 nights a week, then put that effort towards stuff like Facebook. It’s so uncool to be critical thinking at all with these types. Accept the mission statement at face value and get paid.
Did your AI post this comment? It seems to be getting downvoted so I'm wondering if the productivity is positive in this case or negative? The same happens with AI clearing your backlog
Iirc, one of the essays had the moral " many software developers would rather work on the infrastructure to solve the problem than actually solve the problem"
The hobbyist tinkering with the programming setup has its benefits (enjoyment) but it’s a mistake to think it matters at all to the end user or indeed — as this post argues — to actual quality and quantity of work when compared to the benefits of actually thinking about the product and the code
to be fair, the car mod people's end goal is just modding their cars mostly. there's no end goal like there is with software (a product).
I think people just get preoccupied with things that make them feel good and are simple and have immediate feedback. Not to be pedantic, but I would argue the more accurate analogy to this is the photography community. I had a period where I was really obsessed with photography and realized the majority of people love just...buying shit. All they did was just collect cameras and lenses and took extremely mediocre pictures. Turns out actual creativity is a lot harder and less immediately satisfying than the dopamine hit of buying some new lens, or changing your vim colorscheme and updating some alias for the 100th time. I'm sure there's some psychology behind people being too afraid to actually produce something because then they actually put themselves out there whether that's through some website or a photograph.
But this article mirrors my thinking on every new notes app, or new “second brain,” or somehow new or better version of Jira, etc. There are real productivity gains and losses and a lot of theatrics.
Nah, man. I would be a LOT more productive if I didn't have to wait all day for Jira tickets to load every single time, or that dropdown to load, or that popover to show, …
To be fair I mess with “how” I use or orchestrate the harness myself, I still can’t say anything I do that benefits me is more than placebo. At least from my projects. I think it matters easily for the things that can be patched like Context7 helping with API knowledge, and less for those that can’t like whatever “prompting style” attempts to address.
Maybe for those, you can say it matters in making agent use more subjectively ergonomic? So less of a correctness thing and more of reducing fatigue.
"If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct." (Eccl10:10)
How is this *not* real productivity gain?