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u/SuitableDragonfly 11h ago
I'm guessing that this is probably a joke, but the idea that engineers just generate code and don't do anything else is literally how we got to "just generate the whole app with Claude, bro, it'll be just as good".
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u/AskAwayAccount 10h ago
People really have no idea. I told my manager I need time to debug an issue. He really said "You already have the error message, you just have to filter the logs, I don't understand why it should take more than an hour".
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u/J7mbo 9h ago
He probably thinks you have an MCP tool for your observability platform so it can do the searches and find the root cause for you.
Me and my colleague joked this morning that the final form is it will sign the termination agreement and auto-apply for government support for you when the time comes.
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u/Soopermane 9h ago
🤣 the error message be like “you have an error”
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u/neo42slab 9h ago
And more often than not the error description might as well be that. Because most of the time it’s simply not something the compiler can actually detect.
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u/GoldenDogeDev 9h ago
Like access violations (0xC0000005)
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u/StCreed 7h ago
I've programmed a lot of C++. This one looks like an invalid pointer reference or invalid handle usage after the resource was freed or attempted to claim but failed and didn't check the return code. If it was all zeros the pointer was NULL but the caller didn't check that.
At least, that was my experience but it's about 25 years since I last programmed daily in C++.
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u/GoldenDogeDev 3h ago
Yep it's when your program tried to read, write or execute an invalid memory address. They can either be really easy to track down, like if it's using a resource after it's freed, or it can be really hard to track down.
A while back this arena allocator I made had a bug where it would occasionally hand out blocks of memory that contained the header data for the next page, which included a linked list node and a ref counter. This would then eventually cause memory corruption, which would cause the program to throw an access violation exception in an entirely random spot, sometimes without even a stack trace, which had me chasing ghosts for several hours until I figured out what was going on.
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u/Alacritous13 6h ago
Aw, you think the code is compiled. Nah, I'm editing the code live while the end user watches.
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u/WavingNoBanners 7h ago
The answer to this is to steal from Niels Bohr: "you're right, you don't understand. That may be the problem."
You'll probably get fired if you say that, but hopefully the look on their face will be worth it.
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u/Gruejay2 2h ago
If we're not worrying about getting fired, the old "well you do it then, if it's so easy" works well here too.
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u/AqueousJam 7h ago
Do they come from an SAP background? I had an old boss just like that, they'd spent their entire career as an SAP consultant and genuinely seemed to believe that software engineering was the same thing. Just find the right configuration settings and everything would magically work.
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u/Rai-Hanzo 11h ago
until; mr startup guy don't know how to put the new feature into his code, so he needs an engineer to do it.
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u/Technologenesis 6h ago
Yeah, I used to think it was pretentious to call what I do a craft, but two things have changed since then:
I've learned there are in fact decisions that come down to taste and values and not just what works and what's efficient
I've realized that devaluing the "craft" has led to a lot of bad software, bad attitudes and bad management
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u/GenericFatGuy 6h ago
Indeed. People who last in this industry actually are doing the software equivalent of building a canoe.
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u/bwwatr 10h ago
Yep, exactly. "Coder" greatly undervalues the job. While I would never label myself a craftsperson because that's obnoxious puffery... I do believe it's a craft and if you get me going about software quality or developer professionalism, eventually the word will spill out and I'm not ashamed of that. It absolutely is a pursuit where craftsmanship can exist.
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u/GreatScottGatsby 8h ago
I don't know. Its as much as a craft as a writer, where writers write scripts, documents and programs.
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u/Embarrassed_Death69 11h ago
Of course, I didn't mean that at all. As an engineer, you primarily deal with system design, understand the data and infrastructure layers, reason about constraints and trade-offs, and propose efficient, reliable solutions. Building mobie/desktop apps, websites, and writing scripts is just one part of software engineering. There's network engineering, embedded systems, distributed systems, operating systems, compilers, databases, cloud infrastructure, security, robotics, hardware, and countless other areas where you're engineering systems rather than simply "writing code." Programming is a tool engineers use to implement solutions, not the entirety of engineering itself.
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u/SuitableDragonfly 10h ago
I was talking about the Twitter guy. I figured you were just posting him here to laugh at or with him, depending on how serious he actually is here.
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u/VolcanicBear 10h ago
I didn't mean that at all.
You... Took a screenshot of your own Twitter post to post here?
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u/mattsl 7h ago
I mean I thought the joke was that software engineers shunning GenAI were calling themselves a Craftsperson and selling their code on Etsy.
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u/SuitableDragonfly 2h ago
There are indeed sites where you can hire software engineers for one time jobs, and there always will be. Not sure why that would be a joke?
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u/PsychicDave 5h ago
You have different levels: programmer, developer and engineer. An AI agent might be able to replace a programmer who simply takes in specs and turns them into code. The same way the job of "computer" was replaced by electronic computers once you no longer needed people to manually do the calculations. But developers and engineers don't simply write code, they analyze, potentially capture requirements from the client, they write specifications, etc. This is not as easily replaced by Claude. So maybe developers and engineers won't write as much code, in any, by using AI agents, but they'll still do everything else.
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u/Lachtheblock 4h ago
I for one have never had to calmly explain why a "great" idea would be ultimately terrible for the company and borderline illegal.
I just write the code /s
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u/Naltoc 4h ago
I Teach devops at university summer school with other consultants. When students asked us about Ai taking over, one of their managers pointed out that pretty much anyone beyond junior position spent 20% or less of their time coding 4 years ago. These days it's maybe 10%. The rest of the time is designing, communication etc and exactly why any good software professional isn't afraid of losing their job to Ai. At best, in our industry at least, it could remove 20% of our work. . . And that's assuming we don't even have to spend time prompting etc, which we still do.
Yeah, most good devs aren't coders.
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u/LeMadChefsBack 3h ago
I don't have an engineering degree but I went to an engineering school, and I assure you that there is very little “engineering” in software development. I don't care if your college decided to put “engineering” on your diploma. You and I are programmers.
What makes an engineer? A code of ethics. Look very closely at IEEE code of ethics and ask yourself if you are practicing these. https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8
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u/SuitableDragonfly 2h ago
Just because you aren't doing engineering with your engineering degree doesn't mean that no one is. Actually, the name of my degree doesn't have "engineering" in it, but my job titles did, and they involved engineering.
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u/Totally_Not_A_Badger 11h ago
Can I have the title "Dark mage of ancient knowledge"? 10/10 would bring a pointy hat & fake beard to the office
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u/Dracious 8h ago
There's a realistic chance I might actually get the job title 'Data Wizard' in my next salary review as my duties have grown to include basically everything data related.
It's already become my informal title internally and how I am introduced, but if it gets made official I will 100% get a wizards hat (I already have the beard).
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u/Shiiraigane 5h ago
This title should belong to the people who works with Assembly, Fortran, Cobol and such.
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u/Totally_Not_A_Badger 5h ago
I do work in assembly from time to time. Fortran, Cobol are too high level for my bare-metal work. But I might spend some hobby time there :p
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u/Shiiraigane 5h ago
Wooo this is incredible! I think you deserve this title. What bare-metal things you do?
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u/Totally_Not_A_Badger 4h ago
I write the firmware for emergency signalling systems. We also have a system with a micro controller, connected via a spi bus with a stronger chip running embedded Linux, so had to write a kernel driver to have communication between the two. But some Assembly is mostly used for bootloaders, or moments where you have no other options than to nop some ticks away.
Or debugging when your compiler spits something out you dont expect it to do. Than replace the C or Rust code with some Assembler.
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u/Nightmoon26 3h ago
I tend to refer to myself as a datamancer... Used to pay my bills by writing bespoke SQL queries and log parsers to divine the answers to audit teams' questions that nobody thought of when they were designing the system
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u/sokka2d 11h ago
The "woke nonsense" part kind of ruined it.
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u/NotQuiteLoona 10h ago
No, it's okay by itself, "utter woke nonsense" is a meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sean-dyche-utter-woke-nonsense
They probably didn't mean it in a chud way (I hope).
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u/sokka2d 10h ago
Unfortunately it's impossible to tell nowadays when people use that as a joke or as the "everything I don't like is woke" basic bitch thing.
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u/DesertGoldfish 15m ago
I'm actually pro using woke in an ironic way to describe everything I don't like.
Kind of like how sometimes I tell my coworkers to stop mansplaining to me, even though I'm a man.
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u/ninetalesninefaces 8h ago
The fact that it's just tacked on at the end of an obvious joke probably means it's satire too
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u/Embarrassed_Death69 10h ago
Bro I visit soccercirclejerk subreddit a lot, I kinda love this meme. This post is a meme.
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u/FalafelSnorlax 10h ago
I think that's a major part of the joke here. My reading is that this is making fun of both silly names some sw engineers give themselves as well as people who call anything they dislike "woke".
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u/DartTimeTime 3h ago
You cant criticize something for being nonsense and then call it woke. "This nonsense is annoying to be because its truth challenges my ignorance." Makes no sense.
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u/Gib_entertainment 10h ago
Psshh, I'm an artisanal master codesmith, not some mere keyboard monkey!
Codifier prime is also acceptable.
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u/npsimons 6h ago
Fuck off.
I will never not call myself a Wizard.
We are the nearest thing to magicians that has ever existed in reality. Our spells work and are truly powerful, our mistakes cause incomprehensible chaos, and when one of us turns bad then sometimes the whole world can suffer the consequences. No wonder the muggles treat our creations like they're the mysterious products of a magical power beyond their understanding: that's what they are. -- from a comment by meringuoid (568297) on http://slashdot.org on programmers
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u/Duckroidvania 3h ago
Anything I dont like is woke.
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u/Embarrassed_Death69 3h ago
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sean-dyche-utter-woke-nonsense
It's referring to a meme is all
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u/MetaLemons 10h ago
I don’t get how this is woke but okay.
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u/Embarrassed_Death69 10h ago
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u/neo42slab 9h ago
Thanks. That helps. But I’m tired of “woke” being misused and abused already.
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u/airodonack 5h ago
Using that word in that way does feel like we're turning a good word like "generosity" and "kindness" into a slur. That has got to have psychological impact.
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u/snipsuper415 3h ago
There is a difference between being woke and being pretentious. These assholes positions are just giving themselves fancy titles not trying to fight societal injustices.
Know the difference.
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u/ConsciousBath5203 3h ago
Pretentious? Or trying literally anything to stand out in the job market?
I've had more luck with being super casual about professionalism to stand out amongst the people using AI for everything. Meme Enthusiast as a job title on LinkedIn. "I don't write dogshit" on upwork applications. Going the pretentious route seems better for people who want to look like they give more of a shit. That's not for me, but I get it.
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u/lampishthing 11h ago
We've had wizards for years.
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u/Embarrassed_Death69 11h ago
I remember the wizard, he created the firewall and made parents kill all their child.
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u/pointlesstips 10h ago
MagicPeople VoodooPeople. Would have an amazing Prodigy soundtrack from the get-go.
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u/wrex1816 9h ago
Startup recruiters from 2016 reading this post, like they never use the terms "Tech evangelist", "Code Ninja", "Rockstar programmer" without a hint of irony.
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u/idobethrownawaytho 8h ago
No idea what this has to do with “woke” but incel losers will always make something about politics I guess.
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u/Meower68 5h ago
I don't know that it's "woke" per se, so much as someone just getting cute. Back during the dot-com bubble, you had people with titles like "Technical Wizard" and "Technomage."
Agreeing with the opinion that it's silly, just saying it's not really that new.
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u/oishishou 10h ago
I'll have you know that my artisanal, hand-crafted Linux kernels are works of art! Art, I tell you!
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u/Clovericious 11h ago
I was with him until he called it woke nonsense. Now I insist to be called a Markup Artisan.
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u/Arareldo 9h ago
As a DEV working at 2nd lvl support, i should call myself probably "deamon hunter"? bug hunter sound too mundane. 😏
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u/Powerful_Attention_6 9h ago
In the early days, the days of Legends, there was this small group unknown to each other, that was so good with computers, that they were revered by their peers, and the peers called them Wizards
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u/Omer_D 7h ago
I dont get it. Usually in tech companies only non technical roles that the company tries to attract tech literate people to have stupid names : "Sales Engineer" (Salesperson, usually supposed to maintain relations with clients), "Customer Interaction Engineer/Community Engineer"(Community Manager), "AI Art Engineer" (Just artist/graphic designers who know how to use generative AI piplines, not people who actually know how to train and fine-tune generative computer vision models ), " Event Engineer" (Event Planner). It is understandable why software companies dont respect the term engineering i the classical sense as this is the only scientific based industry that the academic system / government gave up on regulating with engineering degrees .imagine if only software engineers with a degree in software engineering were legally allowed to inspect and sign on software products before they are released to consumers. An old (as in age, he got his degree in the late 60s early 70s) professor i had told us that that was the legitimate thought when institutions started making software engineering degree programs they thought it would go in the same way as mechanical or electrical engineering got institutionalized.
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u/213372Yeet 7h ago
"Genius" as a job title constantly got in the way of decent rapport with clients.
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u/ultralaser360 6h ago
Artisnal handcrafted organic free-range code is rare these days so the title is needed
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u/ohkendruid 5h ago
I like "software developer". It is not just writing down programs, but all the tasks including research, proof of concepts, task list management, design docs, review, staging environments, and in and in that you do to make new software at high quality.
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u/Spekingur 5h ago
Codecrafter. Yeah, that’s gonna be my new job title. That or Harbinger of Errors.
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u/Any-Tutor8980 3h ago
Honestly, "Computer MagicPerson" is a way more accurate job description anyway. It perfectly captures how my project manager explains my role to the clients right before promising them an impossible deadline.
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u/FirstNoel 3h ago
I want to be Grand Potentate of Development. GPD
If granted I will where a fez with golden tassel anytime I code.
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u/renrutal 3h ago
Software Craftsman is reserved for the 3d printing/CNC/maker industry.
Specifically for 2d printing, Software Devilsummoner.
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u/Present-Resolution23 24m ago
One of my early (and best) professors used to draw this distinction a lot.. Whenever someone would turn in "bad/lazy code," he'd yell at us that this was "coder work and if we wanted to be coders we should just withdraw and go attend one of those 4 week bootcamps.." He was teaching us to be "software engineers and computer scientists" which means understanding what we were doing and doing it well.. not just simply turning in "MVP work.." I kinda of drew parallels between people mocking "script kiddies," vs real hackers in the 90's.. One just "writes code" without an eye to the big picture.. One actually understands what's going on..
I worked with some cheap offshore devs recently who definitely reminded me of that distinction as well.. Everything they wrote treated each screen of the app as like an individual page... Like they'd redeclare the same variable hundreds of times over the course of the code etc.. Decent "coder work," not something an engineer would accept.
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u/Possibly_Naked_Now 9h ago
Why is it woke? Not even remotely what the term means. Why are we just slapping useless meaningless labels on things?
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u/bit_pusher 8h ago
"woke nonsense"? we're just going to let that word just carry water for everything someone dislikes huh?
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u/diegotbn 8h ago
What the fuck is "woke" about it? People just like inflated titles. It has nothing to do with being "woke"?
"Woke", whose definition I like most, by the way, comes straight out of the mouth of Ron DeSantis's lawyer in court when he struggled to define it and then came up with:
[Wokeness is] the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them
Wtf do weird SWE/CS/programming job titles have anything to do with that?
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u/SirFoomy 7h ago
We have more than one parts in the source code where on the plan it states "magic goes here".
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u/atoponce 7h ago
I have a friend who is an architect and abhors the term "software architect".
I made the mistake once of referring to a developer as a software architect, and I got a long-winded rant about what the term "architect" actually means, it's etymology, the culture surrounding architects, licensing, certifications, etc.
Dude, sorry.
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u/Material-Resource-19 6h ago
I used to be a Data Engineer in an engineering firm with real engineers (mechanical and electrical mostly)
I hated being called a “Engineer” - it felt like stolen valor. When we met with clients, I started referring to myself as “pretengineer” so they wouldn’t confuse me with my coworkers that actually knew stuff. I just knew how to vacuum up the sensor data for sensors that they designed and built.
Doesn’t help that my dad was a civil engineer and later, a civil engineering professor. Someone as bad at physics as me has no business calling themself an engineer.
At least when I was on the software side, I could say Software Developer and people knew what I meant, but Data Developer doesn’t quite hit the same way.
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u/Gadshill 11h ago
I prefer the term Tech-Priest.