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Comment by tkdb | Hacker News Reader

Someone who writes code without LLMs is now an artisan software developer.

An artisan is (by definition) someone who creates manually, using traditional methods. Before there are automated or higher tech means of creating the same output, artisans don't exist, they are just craftspeople or tradespeople.

A factory worker, or factory owner, can care deeply about the quality of the product, and can be "in the loop" as you write about, but they are in the loop with the factory equipment vs. in the loop in manually crafting the product.

I don't think I'm refuting or in any real disagreement with you, in fact I may be here pushing artisan pedantry because I didn't see the literal use of the term coming through strongly enough.

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The traditional way to program computers is using switches, wires, and plugs. If you are still programming computers that way, I think we can fairly call you an artisan.

Calling people who write programs in yesterday's programming language that really only differ from today's programming language by having fewer built-in keywords 'artisans' is, per your definition, a stretch. We've been adding more and more built-ins to programming languages ever since the first one was created.

I agree! And I see it as a continuum, not a single or distinct threshold.

At some point, it was clear to everyone that punchcards were no longer the most efficient way to program. People who chose to keep using them could for whatever reason could be considered artisans.

I also thing we should avoid automatically attaching to "artisan" value. I know some artisan bakers whose bread is amazing and sells out virtually every day they bake (alas, they still don't make much money which is why most people don't eat artisan bread). So artisan products can be better than their modern counterparts, but it's a mistake to assert it automatically is higher value.

It is true that there is no official body of standards and measures that defines exactly where artisan begins and ends, but it seems typically that the threshold occurs when the medium changes. To stay with your example, artisan bread is generally to be considered bread that isn't prepared mechanically.

Computing saw as similar medium shift from, as it pertains to programming, mechanical switching to digital switching. And I posit that is the threshold.

But we've yet to leave the digital switching realm. We still write our programs the same way we did 50 years ago. The compilers have gotten way, way, way more featureful and smarter, but it is still the same old story: You write a program in a language the computer can interpret, feed it to a compiler (or layers of compilers), and out comes something the machine can execute.

...and LLMs seem to be another obvious threshold, right? Perhaps the fastest and most dramatic introduction ever of new, automated ways of producing the same output?

If there is a threshold, it is certainly not obvious.

There has been no apparent change in the medium. Developers are still writing out their code in a programming language, inputting that code into a compiler, and see another representation of that program come out on the other side. Just like we've been doing since the early days of using digital switching. Whether or not a compiler is built using an LLM is just an implementation detail.

It does appear that the REPL has grown in popularity where in the past was used sparingly, but I don't really think a small difference in input method is a change in medium. I don't consider the introduction of punchcards to have been a change in medium over when switches were switched by hand either. It is still actuating the same mechanical switches.

Today's programming languages are way better than the ones we had even a few years ago. Like night and day difference. I suspect that is where your threshold idea is coming from. But, like, today's mechanical saws are way better than the early mechanical saws but I don't think we would normally consider a woodworker to be an artisan just because he's using a primitive deathtrap instead of a modern sawstop. Perhaps I'm out of touch with the kids today, but I expect an artisan woodworker is normally considered one that uses hand tools — that being a different medium from mechanized tools which do the work in a completely different way, not just an earlier version of the same thing.

This was my exact reaction as well, in case you find that reassuring.

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