I'm OK being left behind, thanks

marnett

> I didn't use Git when it first came out. Once it was stable and jobs began demanding it, I picked it up. What jobs aren’t requiring usage of these tools by now?

redm

I agree with the sentiment of this article. Sadly, I'm still disagreeing while crypto kiddies are driving past me in lambo's. If its the future of money, yes we'll get there eventually, but like every technology shift, there's a lot of money to be made in the transition, not after. * * I sold all crypto a few years ago and I'm a happier person :D

butILoveLife

This would hit harder if Bitcoin didn't win and AI coding didn't completely change our jobs. Why not simply evaluate things instead of ignoring them until its too late? Sure, we don't have infinity time, but the fact that OP mentions these two things, means the pattern showed up enough.

argee

I agree with the conclusion but not with the premise. The conclusion is, "I don't have to be an early adopter," but the premise seems to be "there is zero utility in getting in on anything early."

Aldipower

WordStar for DOS was great! A lot better then my hand-writing. But still, I get the point. :-)

A_Duck

I'm upvoting because it's useful to see and debate this viewpoint — shared by many engineers I know I do think it's a bad take though. Not all new trends are the same: the metaverse was an obvious flop and crypto hasn't found practical applications. AI isn't like those because it's already practically changed the way I get my job done. It takes time to learn skills, and getting started earlier will means more time to use them in your working life.

adriancooney

There are real productivity gains by using these tools right now. Instead of doing 1x your normal work, you can do 5x while still maintaining quality. This is like an accountant sticking to pen and paper because calculators are big and clunky.

make_it_sure

some people are not ok, some people lose their jobs and suffer because they are too complacent and it's too uncomfortable to adapt. This is the lazy guy path, is not the wise one.

heytakeiteasy

Feels like a false equivalency. It's just my experience, but I've completely ignored crypto and the metaverse, and I don't get the sense I'm missing out on much. In contrast, LLMs in their current state have (for me) dramatically reduced the distance between an idea and a working implementation, which has been legitimately transformative in my software dev life. Transformative for the better? Time will tell I suppose, but I'm really enjoying it so far.

MarkusWandel

In general, a good strategy is just staying a little bit behind. Let the new fads play themselves out. Some have staying power. Bitcoin never did turn into a usable currency, just another speculator's toy. Luckily I am - so far - in a position where I can watch the AI thing from the sidelines to see how it plays out.

throwaway330935

>what's the point of "getting in early"? You're trying to make the point using BitCoin, but in the early 2000s I had just over 14,000 of them, so I can quite clearly see a point in getting in early.

A_Duck

Crypto isn't bad because it failed to make early adopters rich — it did make them rich. It's bad because it has horrible externalities in scams, war crimes / sanctions evasion, organised crime — which most of those early adopters were well aware of.

dgxyz

I make my money cleaning up all the stupid fads. The tail end of the curve is profitable.

fdghrtbrt

Guy who's ok with being left behind (crypto, AI) did a MSc on the metaverse. Sounds like he tried to go with the hype once, got burned.

simianwords

Its interesting to see this author's historical takes about AI. IMO it reads a little desperate and very much like the hype bros but from opposite side. Take a look at the articles if you don't believe. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/ai/ - I'm OK being left behind, thanks! - Unstructured Data and the Joy of having Something Else think for you - This time is different - How close are we to a vision for 2010? - AI is a NAND Maximiser - Reputation Scores for GitHub Accounts - Agentic AI is brilliant because I loath my family - Stop crawling my HTML you dickheads - use the API! - Removing "/Subtype /Watermark" images from a PDF using Linux - LLMs are still surprisingly bad at some simple tasks - Books will soon be obsolete in school - Winners don't use ChatGPT - Grinding down open source maintainers with AI - Why do people have such dramatically different experiences using AI? - Large Language Models and Pareidolia - How to Dismantle Knowledge of an Atomic Bomb - GitHub's Copilot lies about its own documentation. So why would I trust it with my code? - LLMs are good for coding because your documentation is shit

pjmlp

Agree with the message, coding since 1986, I have learned to not suffer from FOMO and wait for the dust to settle. Ironically one might even get projects to fix the mess left behind, as the magpies focus their attention into something else. In the case of AI, the fallacy is thinking that even if ridding the wave, everyone is allowed to stay around, now that the team can deliver more with less people. Maybe rushing out to the AI frontline won't bring in the interests that one is hoping for. EDIT: To make the point even clearer, with SaaS and iPaaS products, serverless, managed clouds, many projects now require a team that is rather small, versus having to develop everything from scratch on-prem. AI based development reduces even further the team size.

bogzz

It's a horrifying feeling facing the possibility that the career I spent so much time and money to get into is fading away. Sure, LLMs are not there yet, and they might not ever quite get there. But will companies start hiring again? If productivity has gone up, and it seems like it has, then no. So, a decade of hanging by a thread, getting by and doubling down on CS, hoping that the job market sees an uptick? Or trying to switch careers? I went to get a flat tire fixed yesterday and the whole time I was envious of the cheerful guy working on my car. A flat tire is a flat tire, no matter whether a recession is going on or whether LLMs are causing chaos in white collar work. If I had no debt and a little bit saved up I might just content myself with a humble moat like that.

dakolli

The kid who showed his work in detail in math class is doing better in life 9/10 times than the kids that only knew how to use a calculator. Now consider how well the people who think you just need to know how to yell at the calculator are going to do? When Maps apps came around, people totally lost the brain muscle for being able to navigate. Using LLMs is no different, people over reliant on these tools are simply ngmi. They are going to be totally reliant on their favorite billionaire being willing to sell them competency via their thinking machines. I would caution everyone to consider if the Billionaires who are screaming that you're going to be left behind, laid off and redundant if you don't (pay them to) use their brain nerfing machine, whether or not they have your best interest at heart. You're not going to be left behind. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872

stiiv

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. Broadly speaking, I think this is a wise assessment. There are opportunities for productivity gains right now, but it I don't think it's a knockout for anyone using the tech, and I think that onboarding might be challenging for some people in the tech's current state. It is safe to assume that the tech will continue to improve in both ways: productivity gains will increase, onboarding will get easier. I think it will also become easier to choose a particular suite of products to use too. Waiting is not a bad idea.

eqmvii

A lot of people feel this way. But IMO the most fruitful thing for an engineering org to do RIGHT NOW is learn the tools well enough to see where they can be best applied. Claude Code and its ilk can turn "maybe one day" internal projects into live features after a single hour of work. You really, honestly, and truly are missing out if you're not looking for valuable things like that!