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Comment by faixon | Hacker News Reader

I think this misses the author's point. The examples he gave were all related to programming as an act of learning rather than an act of completion. He made no comment wrt programming as a contributor within a larger system (like open source code, community games, etc.). Instead, he argues that it's ok to like programming because it satisfies an intrinsic motivation, not that it satisfies an extrinsic goal more effectively.

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I take the parent comment's meaning to be that disentangling the journey from the destination isn't so easy in practice, especially if you're robbed of the community that was journeying alongside you.

If you were running a marathon and, halfway through, everybody just hopped in a cab and drove to the finish line, you'd be disappointed.

Strongly agree. Thinking of music — you reap enjoyment from practicing by yourself, then collaborating with other musicians as craftspeople, then performing for an audience. All three feed into each other.

So when the audience has moved on to synthetic music (stretching the analogy now!), and musicians have as well, it's still possible to continue on your own, for the pure enjoyment of it. But much has been lost with the global transition.

but you should not let other way of doing affect your happiness

You talking like what you doing is happen to appease people

The example came to me because I did indeed go from playing music collaboratively & publicly to largely playing by and for myself. Don't get me wrong, I still find fulfillment this way. I understand both sides here, and I think it's still fair to say that there are dimensions that are lost.

> You talking like what you doing is happen to appease people

What's wrong with that? Appeasing people is part of what being a community is. That's the human element. I could write a grand novel for the fun of it, but I still want people to read it and talk about it. To give me feedback, to discuss its themes. If that's taken away due to technological advancement, it's a sad thing.

It is not a binary between doing what you like because you enjoy the craft or being happy that people engage with your output. Both of those things feed into each other. An old neighbour of mine used to craft bracelets and give them away around the neighborhood. Why would she spend the additional time to walk to my apartment and hand me a bracelet? Did she only make the bracelet to get the neighbourhood's approval and didn't actually enjoy making it? Of course not. She made it cause she likes doing crafts, AND she likes people enjoying what she made.

The unfortunate part is that LLMs are addictive and they remove a lot of the complex thinking one has to do (in many cases), which lowers that community engagement that occurs in software circles.

> If you were running a marathon and, halfway through, everybody just hopped in a cab and drove to the finish line, you'd be disappointed.

Were you running the marathon to beat the competition and win a medal? Or were you running the marathon to improve your personal record?

For coding: Are you writing code to be the first to solve a certain problem and win community recognition? Or are you writing code to solve a problem you personally have?

I think the dichotomy is false.

You could run a marathon because you love running and want to do it with other people who love running. Similarly, you could share code-based projects with a community because you love it and want to do it with people.

The ideas you mention aren't separate from community or from each other. You can have friendly competition within a community that pushes all parties to improve and be their best.

Plus, in the finish line, the attendance is acting like if riding the car and running made no difference. By the time you get there, sweating and exhausted, the organization is already packing and the few remaining in the crowd look at you with puzzling face.

I'm not entirely sure I agree.

While doing the whole project, I learned a lot about reverse engineering itself, the tooling, understanding static vs dynamic analysis, etc. Which was the most fun part of the project itself.

The rate at what people are delivering projects removes that opportunity heavily, even in hobby communities, which is part of the point!

I've always enjoyed the process rather than the end-product, which is why this personally affects me more than other folks I guess. Some people are motivated on producing more, I was more motivated by the learning process behind it, and those two things aren't compatible, so speed is winning the race, sadly, even if you're not profit motivated. I admit I'm a bit more of a doomer, I still use AI tools at work, but I guess it was time to search for hobbies that are not related to programming anymore.

But why does someone else delivering faster deprive you of the opportunity to learn these things anyway? Can't you just... not look at what they've done?

It helps to be able to learn as you go, because the end product is motivating, and the learning is fun.

I will corroborate that AI and pressure even in hobby spaces (like game modding) to ship faster if only to preempt a crappier implementation from gaining traction is making it harder to feel motivated to make something because there’s no time to also enjoy the technical puzzle or to really pay attention to excellence in the details.

I’m not really lamenting a bygone era, just saying that the feeling of programming for a hobby has also changed and the parts that are fun don’t line up as well anymore, so I do less of it now.

I still don't get where the pressure comes from. Ultimately, the only target audience of a hobby programmer is themselves. There is never a reason to rush things, because your only stakeholder - yourself - is fine with whatever your only developer - also yourself - does. You always have all the time you'd ever want for the technical puzzles because there are never any deadlines except self-imposed ones.

Unless you mean your hobby is other people using your software, rather than programming for the sake of programming in the literal sense. In which case, yeah, sucks to be beaten by AI on all fronts at the same time.

> Ultimately, the only target audience of a hobby programmer is themselves.

This is true when you don't share it with others.

I don't share most things with others anymore, I just make things with LLMs, and then use them for myself. When I make something to share with others, I pay closer attention. But for myself, I don't really appreciate the process of learning so much, because that's how I end up stalling out and never finishing the project. Maybe it resulted in useful skills anyway, but it really sucks for my mental health.

You can share your work with others while still not caring about the others when working. Others using AI to duplicate your work only matters if you care about people actually using your software, as opposed to getting some likes when you publish your project etc.

> Unless you mean your hobby is other people using your software, rather than programming for the sake of programming in the literal sense. In which case, yeah, sucks to be beaten by AI on all fronts at the same time.

For my case (modding games), yes, a big part of my reason for doing it vs. any other software project is experiencing others enjoying my work.

I also have projects I make for myself for personal practical reasons. In those cases very little has changed, because whether or not I use AI only affects me.

Not everyone can enjoy the process when a comparable outcome already exists. I'm aware the act of learning alone may be fulfilling enough for some, but many (including myself) got into programming to make things. When those things already exist, there's no point to making them anymore. I don't find it fun to make things for nobody.

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