Interesting generalization; that’s almost the opposite of my experience.
A common hiring anecdote we share with people outside tech is literally: “A CS degree doesn’t teach you how to code.”
For me, ~25 years ago in the UC system, it was all math/science/theory-oriented. Some C++/Java that was introduced to get you through all that theory. Learning how to code/actual software engineering comes with practical experience.
I started coding AddonInteractive/AddonChat in 2001 shortly after graduating. A simple Java-based chat SaaS. When I felt it was good enough I put up a web site and started marketing.
Within six months of starting development I had my first customer- who hated my product's bugs, but helped me find and offered ideas for improvements. A year later I was at $30k ARR. That doubled year after year for some time before leveling out. It was enough to live comfortably for ~15 years, but nobody mistook me for wealthy.
No exit opportunities.
I didn't start by dwelling on ideas. Some parity has to come first, then add value. I looked at companies building things of interest to me that I knew to be attainable wrt time and money. I emulated in my own style what they did best, I avoided or improved upon what they did poorly and I shouldered my way into the market. Above all, I listened to my customers and followed their lead.
4.5 works well for me too and avoids adaptive-dismissal, though anymore Codex is crushing them all. If 4.8 just brings us back to Opus circa February, it'll be a massive improvement.
I think it's natural to lose enthusiasm over time when a joy becomes a job.
"I don't care for coding new stuff. Everything I may need either already exists or is too complex to do on my own (and no, I won't vibe-code it, what's the fun in that?)"
I'm not sure if you mean "code gen without a plan/expertise" or just code gen. If you found joy because you enjoyed building things, now be the best time to explore and prototype something you've always dreamt of.
If you found joy because of the craft itself, low-level hands-on stuff (breadboards, esp32s, soldering, ..) can scratch that itch too.
IME, based on an in-house bench it's still good to about 20% on the 1M for 4.6 and 4.7 with a code base >50k loc. The trick I used before switching providers was to have it write a handoff when it hit ~18% of context and reset.
There are also many people running 4.5 with specific parameters that claim to be having luck.
Astonished to see so many bright people on HN taking the bait, especially from a company whose gone to such lengths to screw over their paying customers.
They're a commodity provider. They're no more special than any of the others, and it's just a matter of time before their trillion parameter models are running on my watch.
So, of-course they're trying to snatch up giant, long-term contracts now while they hype the hell out of another minor incremental improvement.
And we'll be paying the price to all the Enterprises that lock in, only to wake up a week from now and realize there is another player with a better product.
I switched some time after Anthropic bricked their models with adaptive thinking. It's a legit mystery to me how people are still using CC professionally.
Codex is far less frustrating and manages context better. It's also costing me about 1/3rd as much as Opus 4.7 on CC.
I was fortunate to be taught by my father when I was younger. It may be an age/luck-of-the-draw thing, but check out "MILD"; it's the name for the simple technique that worked for me.
A common hiring anecdote we share with people outside tech is literally: “A CS degree doesn’t teach you how to code.”
For me, ~25 years ago in the UC system, it was all math/science/theory-oriented. Some C++/Java that was introduced to get you through all that theory. Learning how to code/actual software engineering comes with practical experience.