This is a technical forum. One of the best traditions in engineering has always been taking beginners seriously and helping people who are trying to learn. Most of us are here because someone did the same for us. You come from a good place but I don't see why say a tech forum is a place you need to hide.
Those saying it's fine come from a good place. I come from a world where we see young people groomed, pursued and manipulated. There is no serious reason to posting your age as a minor on an adult forum.
It's crazy that in 2018 a cellular automata written in JS by a 12 year old was considered special (which it is) and today, nobody would even bat an eye because you can just vibe code this without effort.
I'm going through this. It's demoralizing. I want to spend weeks coding something cool. The idea of asking an AI to do it in 30 minutes is like... what's even the point. I know I can, so why bother. I'd rather go get a beer.
It's like getting all the cheat codes and then the game isn't fun anymore.
You learn much more by doing the actual grunt work. Some people enjoy learning for the sake of learning.
We can learn assembly even though compilers exist. We can learn OpenGL even though 3D engines exist. We can learn to write a relational database even though SQLite/MariaDB/Postgres exist. Et cetera.
You can also play games for which you have all the cheat codes and simply choose to not use them.
Instead of spending weeks building a new wall in your house, you spend a week building a new house. With AI mundane problems are solved easily and effectively, giving you time to go bigger.
I get the most satisfaction out of building small solutions that work really well. Problems that are beyond the scope of an individual to solve are not really as motivating. At that point you are just one of a group who slings code at the problem and hopes some of it sticks.
Exactly. Or you can go physical and do some HW+SW project, there is no AI (yet) for the physical world, at least at a price point for hobbyists. Although you can already go a long way 3D-printing
> nobody would even bat an eye because you can just vibe code this without effort.
To me, this is implying that software engineering in 2026 is less impressive than 10 years ago because "you can just vibe code this without effort". Having used AI a fair bit for both business and pleasure I can assure you that you can't always "just vibe code" something useful. Discrediting software engineering because a power tool was popularized in the field is... eh. I don't agree with that.
It sounded like you thought that with AI anyone, even children, can solve literally any problem with ease and therefore it's not very impressive (...and "perhaps we don't need 20+ software engineers building that app if 5 can do it with AI").
This is a technical forum. One of the best traditions in engineering has always been taking beginners seriously and helping people who are trying to learn. Most of us are here because someone did the same for us. You come from a good place but I don't see why say a tech forum is a place you need to hide.
100% this. My favourite new colleague is an intern. Why? Because watching them grow just like I once did is worth every penny.
(Ps: yes, I'd rather have two passionate, eager interns under my wings than one burnt-out senior by my side.)
Those saying it's fine come from a good place. I come from a world where we see young people groomed, pursued and manipulated. There is no serious reason to posting your age as a minor on an adult forum.
Brothers think alike ;)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17871313
It's crazy that in 2018 a cellular automata written in JS by a 12 year old was considered special (which it is) and today, nobody would even bat an eye because you can just vibe code this without effort.
It would still be impressive if it wasn't vibe coded.
Hold up, are you the type of person wanting to fire software teams because we can just ask the Product Owner to vibe code the new features?
No, I think the bar is just too high nowdays.
The projects I built as teenager spending weeks, it's just would take half hour of vibecoding now.
I'm going through this. It's demoralizing. I want to spend weeks coding something cool. The idea of asking an AI to do it in 30 minutes is like... what's even the point. I know I can, so why bother. I'd rather go get a beer.
It's like getting all the cheat codes and then the game isn't fun anymore.
You learn much more by doing the actual grunt work. Some people enjoy learning for the sake of learning.
We can learn assembly even though compilers exist. We can learn OpenGL even though 3D engines exist. We can learn to write a relational database even though SQLite/MariaDB/Postgres exist. Et cetera.
You can also play games for which you have all the cheat codes and simply choose to not use them.
Instead of spending weeks building a new wall in your house, you spend a week building a new house. With AI mundane problems are solved easily and effectively, giving you time to go bigger.
Be more ambitious, there are projects that take months even with frontier agents
I get the most satisfaction out of building small solutions that work really well. Problems that are beyond the scope of an individual to solve are not really as motivating. At that point you are just one of a group who slings code at the problem and hopes some of it sticks.
If you place enough bricks you will behold a castle
Exactly. Or you can go physical and do some HW+SW project, there is no AI (yet) for the physical world, at least at a price point for hobbyists. Although you can already go a long way 3D-printing
> Hold up, are you the type of person wanting to fire software teams because we can just ask the Product Owner to vibe code the new features?
No, and I don't even know how you can even read this from my post.
> nobody would even bat an eye because you can just vibe code this without effort.
To me, this is implying that software engineering in 2026 is less impressive than 10 years ago because "you can just vibe code this without effort". Having used AI a fair bit for both business and pleasure I can assure you that you can't always "just vibe code" something useful. Discrediting software engineering because a power tool was popularized in the field is... eh. I don't agree with that.
It sounded like you thought that with AI anyone, even children, can solve literally any problem with ease and therefore it's not very impressive (...and "perhaps we don't need 20+ software engineers building that app if 5 can do it with AI").
Why not?