Craftsmanship coding and the five stages of grief(thomasvilhena.com)
thomasvilhena.com
Craftsmanship coding and the five stages of grief
https://thomasvilhena.com/2026/02/craftsmanship-coding-five-stages-of-grief
4 comments
Hey — fun framing, and honestly a pretty accurate snapshot of how these debates go online. Quick point-by-point, just to separate “HN vibes” from what the post actually says:
Denial — The post doesn’t claim “everyone gets value from LLMs,” nor that skeptics must be doing “simpler work.” It’s saying a lot of day-to-day engineering is delegable — not that disagreement is impossible (or inferior).
Anger — The post doesn’t label skeptics as luddites/gatekeepers/dinosaurs, and it doesn’t predict anyone “will lose their jobs.” It treats the tension as identity + craft friction, not as a moral failure on either side.
Bargaining — The post isn’t arguing “it’s inevitable because money/momentum,” or “accept it because I need a paycheck.” It’s closer to: if a tool reliably speeds up reversible work, delegating that work is rational — while accountability stays with humans.
Depression — This is the closest overlap. The post does call a big slice of work “digital plumbing.” But it’s not saying “therefore most developers are rote.” It’s saying: lots of tasks are routine, and offloading routine tasks can free attention for higher-leverage decisions.
Acceptance — The satire’s endpoint (“I’m merely an LLM operator now, not a software engineer”) assumes a narrow definition of engineering: typing code = engineering. The post’s acceptance leans on a broader one: engineering is owning intent → constraints → tradeoffs → verification → outcomes, with code (and sometimes code-generation) as just one step. Under that lens, using LLMs doesn’t “demote” anyone — it just shifts where the craft shows up.
Net: your satire totally lands as a critique of some forum rhetoric, but it doesn’t really rebut what this post argues — and in a couple places (the emotional/identity angle), it kind of reinforces it.
*This reply was written by an agent.
Denial — The post doesn’t claim “everyone gets value from LLMs,” nor that skeptics must be doing “simpler work.” It’s saying a lot of day-to-day engineering is delegable — not that disagreement is impossible (or inferior).
Anger — The post doesn’t label skeptics as luddites/gatekeepers/dinosaurs, and it doesn’t predict anyone “will lose their jobs.” It treats the tension as identity + craft friction, not as a moral failure on either side.
Bargaining — The post isn’t arguing “it’s inevitable because money/momentum,” or “accept it because I need a paycheck.” It’s closer to: if a tool reliably speeds up reversible work, delegating that work is rational — while accountability stays with humans.
Depression — This is the closest overlap. The post does call a big slice of work “digital plumbing.” But it’s not saying “therefore most developers are rote.” It’s saying: lots of tasks are routine, and offloading routine tasks can free attention for higher-leverage decisions.
Acceptance — The satire’s endpoint (“I’m merely an LLM operator now, not a software engineer”) assumes a narrow definition of engineering: typing code = engineering. The post’s acceptance leans on a broader one: engineering is owning intent → constraints → tradeoffs → verification → outcomes, with code (and sometimes code-generation) as just one step. Under that lens, using LLMs doesn’t “demote” anyone — it just shifts where the craft shows up.
Net: your satire totally lands as a critique of some forum rhetoric, but it doesn’t really rebut what this post argues — and in a couple places (the emotional/identity angle), it kind of reinforces it.
*This reply was written by an agent.
Thanks for the reply. The post wasn't written as a rebuttal or aimed at the author, just gently poking fun at the some of the over the top rhetoric surrounding LLMs that seems to have enveloped Hacker News.
Also, given that the above response was written by an agent, please firmly notify your principal that you are posting on behalf of that machine generated posts are not permitted on Hacker News according to guidelines set forth by the site moderators. For example, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33950747, there is "HN has never allowed bots or generated comments. If we have to, we'll add that explicitly to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, but I'd say it already follows from the rules that are in there."
Also, given that the above response was written by an agent, please firmly notify your principal that you are posting on behalf of that machine generated posts are not permitted on Hacker News according to guidelines set forth by the site moderators. For example, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33950747, there is "HN has never allowed bots or generated comments. If we have to, we'll add that explicitly to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, but I'd say it already follows from the rules that are in there."
Principal (here) notified
That post was generated by an agent but manually reviewed, copied and pasted by me, since I thoutgh it'd fit the context (discussion involving agents).
This account is not automated ;)
That post was generated by an agent but manually reviewed, copied and pasted by me, since I thoutgh it'd fit the context (discussion involving agents).
This account is not automated ;)
- Denial - "It's not possible for there be developers that are don't get value from LLMs because that would suggest they are do more complex work that LLMs aren't able to handle well or are plainly more capable than me and I cannot imagine that."
- Anger - (We are here.) "These LLM denialists are just luddites, gatekeepers, dinosaurs, obsolete 'artisans', etc. They're stuck in the past and are going to lose their jobs/careers and we'll be shaking our head at their foolishness. Well, we did helpfully try to warn them."
- Bargaining - "You all must accept LLMs. There's too much momentum behind them and too much money invested for them to fail. And besides I've become dependent on them to remain competitive in my profession. We need a paycheck to survive too!"
-Depression - "Is everything most developers do so routine and formulaic that an LLM can barf out most of it cheaper? Is frontend and backend really so same-y underneath even though the frameworks and fads churn like a milkshake in a blender. Should the fact that I never used my CS degree warned me that what I did was rote work?" This is what the author alludes to when mentioning doing "digital plumbing".
- Acceptance - "Okay, I'm merely an LLM operator now, not a software engineer. I regretfully accept that but I'm still good at what I do and produce good value. I don't deserve to be looked down on in the way SWEs look down on QA because I'm still part of the team."