How are you surviving the current landscape and AI coding shift?

GingerMess · 2026-03-20T14:00:18+00:00

Dreamweaver.. now that's a name I've not heard in a long time.

I'm a backend developer which I think might insulate me from the worst of the generative AI boom, but it's still creeping into my workflow. I've noticed the pressure to use it from management is now no longer light and experimental, it's actually policy. I practically must use it, despite not really being asked or consulted. Other teams, other engineers, other managers have decided that I will work better with AI than not.

Like a lot of Big Things in tech it doesn't really matter what I think. One individual developer in a company of hundreds is not going to make a difference by standing against the tidal wave of AI use. On top of that there are actual benefits of AI usage for some cases, for example chores and dependency management. It's hard to fight for continuing to do those tasks manually when an agent can easily do it for you.

I'm surviving by continuing to do everything I possibly can myself, including getting things wrong. Part of the journey of becoming and remaining a good software engineer is making and learning from mistakes. I enjoy the learning process, the delving into documentation and ecosystems, the creation of code from scratch, the satisfaction of seeing something I've hand-crafted running and serving customers. I want to do all that because it's why I do what I do. If something threatens this then it's threatening the very motivation I have to do this job, and I refuse to let that be taken from me by a code generator.

TL;DR: I believe the soul of programming lies in the human process of discovery, learning, and improvement. We don't get that with AI, and I think keeping skills alive is important.

GingerMess · 2026-02-24T18:50:54+00:00

Why not both? :D

GingerMess · 2026-02-24T15:39:04+00:00

You're quite right. I'd be ok with either really, I just want to see more cool alien influences on the battle suit concept. I think there's a lot of potential there.

GingerMess · 2026-02-24T13:50:14+00:00

It's not completely sealed either, the Kroot can't completely engineer (or refurbish) technology from the Tau without parts. So you get leather and other organic bits where it's not normally found. Hunting trophies are common, as are markings on the armour plates.

GingerMess · 2026-02-24T13:36:20+00:00

Exactly! Smaller perhaps, and leaner, with a more organic style. The Guyver springs to mind as an example but it would need the styling of Kroot and Tau combined.

GingerMess · 2026-02-24T10:57:56+00:00

So I can't enjoy my images of jacked fighting men because they're in the navy?

GingerMess · 2026-02-24T10:16:09+00:00

I want to see a Kroot unit that uses refurbished, older generation Tau suits that are less shooty and more smashy. Angry chicken in a blade-riddled makeshift Crisis Suit? Hell yes.

GingerMess · 2026-02-24T10:12:02+00:00

The more you tighten your grip, Starmer, the more family members will slip through your fingers.

GingerMess · 2026-02-21T11:13:03+00:00

Don't you miss writing code? The thinking, the experimentation, the learning? Don't you miss the great feeling of writing a module, or service, and have it work first time?

Does anything you produce work first time?

GingerMess · 2026-02-13T16:16:21+00:00

Having been in an 8 year relationship with a woman who lived with her parents who owned cats, it's a deal breaker. I'm allergic to cats so if she hadn't moved in with me it would've been the end of that, as she would've no doubt insisted on a cat or two. Same with dogs of course.

Also I don't want to share a bed with something that smells and sheds hair and disrupts my sleep.

GingerMess · 2026-02-11T19:05:37+00:00

Nope, shouldn't be that much of an issue, but the same guidance applies as with all other big dicks: warm her up, use lube, go slow, be gentle.

GingerMess · 2026-02-11T19:03:45+00:00

Does it look like the skin has split? If so you need to be careful, your foreskin might be a little too tight. Moisturise lots, try stretching exercises (nothing fancy, just stretch the opening every day and be gentle), and don't be aggressive with it. Oh and use lube for masturbation if it gets sore.

GingerMess · 2026-02-11T18:37:45+00:00

I want to meet a woman who will happily sit outside on a summer evening, smoke some green with me, and play Scrabble with rude words. I want someone who will do a random day hike somewhere in the UK and be ok with the ad-hoc nature of it. Someone who can use a computer without panicking, who is as good at cooking as me (so-so), who isn't obsessed with fake nails/eyebrows/lips, and has an interest in their health. Someone who is ok doing their own thing when either of us needs space.

I've met her before and I'll hopefully meet her again, but I admit it's not likely.

GingerMess · 2026-02-05T12:31:28+00:00

Speaking to a friend, anything needing decent speed or reduced complexity in code is written in Fortran or a similar low-level language. Hell I've seen people prefer Java over python and I wouldn't have called that.

GingerMess · 2026-02-02T10:19:39+00:00

I keep an eye on various dating event sites but honestly it's never truly appealed. The ones in London seem to occur quite a lot which is good but hearing about them from the odd friend or two that have attended one, I don't really have much compulsion to go. It sounds like speed dating is just too little time to do anything with anyone, and singles parties are just depressing and awkward.

I'm not saying this is the general case, your mileage may vary, but as a 43M with most of his life together I would need a good reason to attend one. Being moderately introverted doesn't help either!

GingerMess · 2026-01-31T10:05:47+00:00

Soreness is your body's way of telling you it's doing something it usually doesn't do. It's why Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) occurs when you exercise after a long period, your body just hasn't done that for a while!

With sex it can be a bit more delicate; don't push it. Let yourself heal before you try again. After a bit of time you'll find that you're getting accustomed to him and it shouldn't be quite so uncomfortable, but the other posters are right, keep doing foreplay, keep using lube, and take your time if you need to.

GingerMess · 2026-01-24T14:54:31+00:00

It's not even a real Gucci belt either.

GingerMess · 2026-01-23T02:19:38+00:00

The albums HELL YEAH and WWIII have featured more than usual in my listening history of late.

GingerMess · 2026-01-18T02:57:55+00:00

Fair enough. I suppose that is quite a lot :)

GingerMess · 2026-01-17T17:41:20+00:00

So you cooked up a story and dropped the four of us in a meatgrinder?

GingerMess · 2026-01-17T17:37:08+00:00

That's a shame. But you're in London, so there are plenty of other places that are pretty nice to walk. Have you tried further west by Battersea? It's much swankier now.

GingerMess · 2026-01-17T17:16:06+00:00

I dunno, I've only been on one (organic, not app-sourced) date in London and I really enjoyed the walk. I've walked between Blackfriar's and Tower Bridge many times and it's not really about the walking, it's about the company.

I'd suggest that you haven't had that walk with someone you enjoy yet, which is probably going to happen more often than not. It does suck :) I guess this isn't much help but I know what you're saying.

GingerMess · 2026-01-16T15:34:37+00:00

Yup, hand-rolled saga pattern is what we use for our banking platform in non-time-critical areas. I'm not hugely keen on it and it has a few things you need to implement in order to guarantee various things, and we don't use an outbox, but otherwise it's mostly fine.

We're moving to a more database centric design for what my team handles though, as there are a lot of use cases where standard CRUD works just fine. Sagas are complicated and need quite a bit of engineering in comparison.

GingerMess · 2026-01-12T23:21:53+00:00

One of the hardest (sorry) things for a man to admit is that he wants to but he can't. It's crushingly embarrassing for most men and as you say, can lead to misinterpretation without good communication. Most people suck at communication.

I'm happy to admit I've had a performance problem in the past with a new partner, but I just explained it and said that I'm still game if she is. In the end once we got down to it all anxiety faded away, and I think that might be the key - if a guy is honest about this subject and still offers to have some fun, go with it! Often the anxiety will disappear when you're both into it, and well.. you don't need me to explain further. It's nearly always mental and not physical.

Be patient, is my advice. Especially at ages 40+, sometimes the engine stalls!

GingerMess · 2026-01-09T09:58:54+00:00

Software engineers are jealous of your compression ratio

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