> Programming for the sake of "writing code" is probably going to miss the target.
Why do you have to be so demeaning?
I'd argue almost nobody is "writing code for the sake of writing code". In my case I love solving problems with code. Not by clicking through AWS' terrible website. Not through taking a deep breath and trying to reformulate a ChatGPT prompt for the 17th time.
Most places with a decent level of engineering maturity are using some form of infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/OpenTofu, Cloudformation, etc). Though more broadly speaking, it's true that software developers are now frequently expected to move beyond just compiling a JAR file and calling it a day. Expectations of knowledge of the underlying infrastructure that's running your code and how to operate it is more common than it was 15 years ago. I consider this a good thing overall though.
> Not through taking a deep breath and trying to reformulate a ChatGPT prompt for the 17th time.
I don't know anyone who's doing this at their programming job. GenAI is really good at 1) acting as an enhanced, customizable StackOverflow replacement for specific one-shot algorithms ("given a pandas dataframe with these columns, write code that groups by X and gets the median of the top 3 values"), and 2) pumping out boilerplate code that wasn't interesting to write anyway, like object mappers and certain unit tests. The tougher problems around software architecture, class design, and the trade-offs are still fully in the realm of humans, for now.
> Though more broadly speaking, it's true that software developers are now frequently expected to move beyond just compiling a JAR file and calling it a day.
And you are demeaning as well for no reason. I even went out of my way to clarify I like SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH CODE, not "just compile a JAR file" which you conveniently ignored and pushed your narrative. Not cool, dude.
> Expectations of knowledge of the underlying infrastructure that's running your code and how to operate it is more common than it was 15 years ago. I consider this a good thing overall though.
I don't deny it on the premise but again, most vendors want to lock you in so their UX is terrible and specific. I had much more fun making scripts and cookbooks that setup a VPS for my customer's app. Nowadays this has been mostly remedied by Dockerfiles though integrating with k8s and its 5000+ friends is making me want to retire for the next 3 lives.
> I don't know anyone who's doing this at their programming job.
I don't do it either but I've met plenty of "programmers" who do, and swear by it, even though they had to chase 2-3 subtle bugs that took them 12+ hours to find and correct... whereas just writing those 150-200 coding lines would have taken them 4 hours tops, tests included. It's quite funny.
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My bigger comment here was to criticize the very weird direction the area is trying to go to. It will fail btw. Marketing people are pushy and get their way... INITIALLY. Sooner or later reason prevails.
> Look into IaC (infrastructure as code) which all major clouds, and even smaller clouds support. Much more sane way of managing resources.
No, sane way is automating it 100% with zero UI required. But you do you.
> Is the company mandating you use AI to solve problems... or? Anecdotally I don't use AI very much at $DAYJOB, nor do any of my co-workers.
As mentioned in a reply to your sibling comment, I don't do it because I was sure from the get go that it will only get some algorithms right, and only for the most popular languages, and I was on point. But I had fun watching colleagues banging their heads against the wall many times.
And again as per the reply to the sibling comment, I was commenting on the general "future" state of the area.
Programming for the sake of "writing code" is probably going to miss the target.
For example "analyst". My take is that is where it all started. Someone looking at numbers and needing computers to help making sense of them.