People will go "no, I nerd out and tinker more than ever" where by "nerd out and tinker", and what they mean is "I prompt the AI, and it does the tinkering for me".
I say the question isn't if you use AI to build you something, but if you nerd out and tinker yourself.
Same how you're not a musician just because you had Suno create something.
In this analogy, the person calling themselves a musician would have to be falsely calling themselves a programmer after using AI to code something. The word used here was "tinker" which can be any number of things. One can "tinker" with business ideas, investment theses, hardware designs, economic models, gameplay concepts, baking recipes, brewing formulas, and more.
For some tinkerers, the tinkering is writing the code. That's you.
For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing. That's maybe Matthias Wandel.
I used to be like you (when I was a pro coder), and now I'm more like Matthias (I have a homestead and a small business). You're welcome to write the code and enjoy yourself that way. I want to enjoy the thing I've built, with the help of AI. You can say I didn't build it, I don't really care--my ego isn't wrapped up in it.
For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing
Those are not tinkerers then, as there's no tinkering involved. Or there might be in other parts (e.g. with electronics to hook up and house the code AI wrote for you, if it's something that will run on a Raspberry Pi), but not in the coding part.
The question implies: "do you still enjoy nerding out and tinkering by writing code yourself, now that AI can write it". Else asking if you're demotivated from doing it "because of AI" wouldn't make sense.
So I would say that "I like making stuff by having AI write the code" is still an admission of not nerding out and tinkering (regarding code) anymore.
Those are not tinkerers, as there's no tinkering involved.
This seems closed minded view of tinkering. There are plenty of ways to tinker aside from just writing code. It could be in driving traffic to a website, selling a product, combining datasets, automating a task, etc.
I personally love economics and have used AI to tinker with combing multiple datasets to create new ways of viewing economic growth at the metro level across variables.
Opposite, AI has let me delve into resources that were hard to find, compare and confirm approaches to problems, and make progress on dozens more projects that I'd had sitting around.
I now have Home Assistant established at home. LibreElec for a home media server. Time lapse camera for home mushroom growing. Wine steeping projects. And much more.
I have way more hard problems that engage me then ever.
I do both human and AI coding. The former more to learn and mold my mind around a problem. The latter when I feel I am ready to delegate to a junior dev.
I think of AI coding like how I’ve operated as a principal engineer at a company. It works well when you study the problem well enough to know precisely what you want. That often requires actual hands on technical work IMO. The coding isn’t for the machine, its not even to ship, it’s to help me think. Then I have a basis to really understand and care about the details. I can micromanage agents to do what’s expected at this point.
There are things I’ve made that I wouldn’t have made without AI. But I don’t feel like it’s “nerding out” or “tinkering”. I get the end result, but I don’t learn anything or become more capable in the process. As a result, I get very little satisfaction from it.
you just have to take the software to a higher level of abstraction... software that builds software. its different, but the tinkering is very much there, its just a massive paradigm shift
I'm tinkering much more because I have an easy way to enter into a new domain and apply what I know to that domain. I can also get unstuck a bit more quickly as I go deeper. Before it was reading textbooks, this turned into searching the web, now I have a minion who can go write me a summary. Is the minion perfect? No, but more often it is.
Opposite for me. I'm reading & understanding more because I know most people will depend on it 100% without understanding. That gap feels like leverage.
Personally, no. The existence of genAI has zero impact on that for me. It's simple to ignore it entirely.
this; I don't like it so I simply don't use it.
The opposite is true for me. I have always wanted to try Godot as a platform and AI is helping me make that happen.
People will go "no, I nerd out and tinker more than ever" where by "nerd out and tinker", and what they mean is "I prompt the AI, and it does the tinkering for me".
I say the question isn't if you use AI to build you something, but if you nerd out and tinker yourself.
I'd further say it's not a TRUE Scottish tinkering unless you're hand writing machine code yourself and feeding it via punch cards.
"I asked somebody else to do this hobby project for me" is not the same as "I tinkered" whether that somebody else is a person or AI.
Same how you're not a musician just because you had Suno create something.
So, no, sticking to the actual meaning of a thing is not true scotsman fallacy.
In this analogy, the person calling themselves a musician would have to be falsely calling themselves a programmer after using AI to code something. The word used here was "tinker" which can be any number of things. One can "tinker" with business ideas, investment theses, hardware designs, economic models, gameplay concepts, baking recipes, brewing formulas, and more.
For some tinkerers, the tinkering is writing the code. That's you.
For other tinkerers, the tinkering is accomplishing an objective or building a thing. That's maybe Matthias Wandel.
I used to be like you (when I was a pro coder), and now I'm more like Matthias (I have a homestead and a small business). You're welcome to write the code and enjoy yourself that way. I want to enjoy the thing I've built, with the help of AI. You can say I didn't build it, I don't really care--my ego isn't wrapped up in it.
So if I outsource all the work to some guy on fiverr am I also a tinkerer?
All of the coding work? Or all of the work?
(Depends what you're building, of course)
Those are not tinkerers then, as there's no tinkering involved. Or there might be in other parts (e.g. with electronics to hook up and house the code AI wrote for you, if it's something that will run on a Raspberry Pi), but not in the coding part.
The question implies: "do you still enjoy nerding out and tinkering by writing code yourself, now that AI can write it". Else asking if you're demotivated from doing it "because of AI" wouldn't make sense.
So I would say that "I like making stuff by having AI write the code" is still an admission of not nerding out and tinkering (regarding code) anymore.
This seems closed minded view of tinkering. There are plenty of ways to tinker aside from just writing code. It could be in driving traffic to a website, selling a product, combining datasets, automating a task, etc.
I personally love economics and have used AI to tinker with combing multiple datasets to create new ways of viewing economic growth at the metro level across variables.
I don't redefine my words because someone else used them poorly in context or something.
Matthias is obviously a tinkerer.
The post didn't say anything about code, maybe you didn't notice that.
This is on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711544
If the guy didn't write any code, don't you still think he's a tinkerer? I do. Don't you think he's nerding out? I do.
I'm using AI to mess with all kinds of things I didn't do before AI. Like working on 90s Ford trucks.
If you've narrowed the scope of the question, or narrowed the definition of "tinkering" to require writing code, I'm just left scratching my head.
Opposite, AI has let me delve into resources that were hard to find, compare and confirm approaches to problems, and make progress on dozens more projects that I'd had sitting around.
I now have Home Assistant established at home. LibreElec for a home media server. Time lapse camera for home mushroom growing. Wine steeping projects. And much more.
Getting really deep into some technical thing becomes way less. Most of it is solved by a prompt.
On the other hand there are new techniques like keeping the agents on track and imagining about which things now became possible.
But the real tinkering: In real life with real physical work.
No. Quite the opposite.
Absolutely not.
I have way more hard problems that engage me then ever.
I do both human and AI coding. The former more to learn and mold my mind around a problem. The latter when I feel I am ready to delegate to a junior dev.
I think of AI coding like how I’ve operated as a principal engineer at a company. It works well when you study the problem well enough to know precisely what you want. That often requires actual hands on technical work IMO. The coding isn’t for the machine, its not even to ship, it’s to help me think. Then I have a basis to really understand and care about the details. I can micromanage agents to do what’s expected at this point.
its the opposite, i can build far more and get stuck much less
There are things I’ve made that I wouldn’t have made without AI. But I don’t feel like it’s “nerding out” or “tinkering”. I get the end result, but I don’t learn anything or become more capable in the process. As a result, I get very little satisfaction from it.
you just have to take the software to a higher level of abstraction... software that builds software. its different, but the tinkering is very much there, its just a massive paradigm shift
I'm tinkering much more because I have an easy way to enter into a new domain and apply what I know to that domain. I can also get unstuck a bit more quickly as I go deeper. Before it was reading textbooks, this turned into searching the web, now I have a minion who can go write me a summary. Is the minion perfect? No, but more often it is.
no, we go along together
no way, the time to tinker is now
Opposite for me. I'm reading & understanding more because I know most people will depend on it 100% without understanding. That gap feels like leverage.
No. Before AI, I have never wrote any code outside of work because nothing I could do in a reasonable time would be worth the effort.
With AI, if there's software I wish existed, I can make it happen without making it an unpaid second job.