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So true, it is always mind-boggling to read entire threads of thoughtful and methodical programming advice started with a clearly google translated noob question along the lines of "how to make web server, please help deadline thursday??"

Not programmers, AI is replacing them, by definition, they self code and “program”. AI phone systems can learn and adjust to accents, dialects and zip codes. The one question they don’t answer is, “are you AI or are you human”

and build something not from a manual in Lego ;)

and now the same sources that used to supply said information are being filled with slop

I grew up typing BASIC programs from magazines.

Standing on the corpses of giants

Regardless of code or art, the tools you use are the tools you use. "Gatekeeping" is when you try to shame people for those tools, whether it's the people who sneered at Photoshop in the 90s or people who sneer at Claude Code in the 2020s.

I completely agree, but must also point out that word spacing is also tainted. As in: Satan's own taint got a hold of the dials in InDesign. 😄

This *still* carries on today with FE being seen as “less technical”, especially worse when certain demographics of people are seen to be doing it.

Not an area I know about but very much can see how that tracks. It's so sad. I worked somewhere where we had a whole multi-layer set of perceived prestige based on what things you worked on. SQL was under C#. Support and testing were seen as under all of it, and Support didn't even get flexitime.

There was that. I’m old enough to remember when open-source code (incl. libraries) was explicitly forbidden for use in government/DoD projects in any capacity. That of course had to change pretty drastically pretty quickly as open source stuff like OpenSSL became essential internet infrastructure.

Internet communities tend to become, well, communal. Unless their subject matter is exclusionary or there's money being thrown at them to artificially influence them (see: Steve Bannon right wing investor money being spent to artificially propagandize young boys into GamerGate nonsense for years)

Which eventually proves wrong as databases routinely store json in columns now and it's not that far off from what the OP was doing. Still a horrible pattern for the time, but we evolved and we store arrays in varchar fields all the time now.

Wow that blog is giving me stackoverflow ptsd. Those assholes looove going "you're wrong" and never ever actually go "here's the steps to change it", and there's absolutely always one of these idiots in every single stackoverflow post.

And over time, people seeking useful or enjoyable sites on [topic] tend to gravitate away from those places where the main objective is to assuage one's own insecurities by being a prick, and towards places where people...share info about [topic]. Thus the pissing match communities wither and die.

Ah yes good ol ExpertSexchange

I had similar thoughts when people say it makes music more accessible. Music is extremely accessible! We've been making music since before we were making wheels. We're born with instruments!

You’re damned right. I never did game programming. Lots of business systems, for 40 years, several platforms, several languages. Probably 10% of my code was comments of what it did and why. To me and those who came after. Kick ass, lady. Btw, great hair.

Correct.

Yes, you’re doing what academics have been doing for ages, using free flow of information for the good of all. And all the open licenses, whether MIT, BSD, or GPL all are predicated on that sort of common sharing. The AI bros are all take and no give, and you can’t trust slop anyway.

I have so much respect for programmers. I looked into script/code writing in college. WAY above my understanding. All the programmers are absolute UNITS! And technology would be useless without them

I think they mean something other than gatekeeping, unless we’re talking about the type of people who think that hard work is gatekeeping. My guess is that they are talking about all the autistic idiots who make it impossible for normal people to want to spend any sort of time in tech spaces.

people don’t even know how their cars work or how plumbing works or how most simple things work (and for the most part things actually work pretty simply). which is why so many latch on to the dumbest of conspiracies. just add “gate keeping” to the list.

Yeah. People don't get it that we don't even know how to churn out really good programmers. CS Departments have tried for years with limited success. It isn't a matter of just intelligence apparently. And LLMs do not do really good programming. Not in terms of reuse and maintainability.

I'll now be asking further, on each one, even for code, but which I'll then understand every line, unlike "vibe coders".

Different professions, but a few years ago it did cross my mind that all the free online info posted out of joy for the profession could come back to bite us. Few young people funnelling in at this point. They see the writing on the wall.

Yeah, I've run into it in multiple places, and it always breaks my brain every time I see it.

My standard come back with AI is: just because you learned it from the internet doesn't mean it's right.

I learnt to program through forum posts, Web articles, and help from random people on irc. I've been a professional for fifteen years I have never paid a penny for any of that knowledge, and most of it is still right there. Hell I'm currently learning NES dev the exact same way!

Same with the 3d render community. We’ve been spitting out tutorials for free since before youtube. There are a million free hours of training on the subject. No one can “democratize” it more than that.

What? I figured programming language was the best kept open secret because nobody knows where to find it until you actively start looking, then you can find it everywhere because you weren't looking for it prior. wtaf?

We always desperately wanted more qualified programmers because there was always too much work to do but most people couldn't do it for shit no matter how many times we repeated simple stuff.

Was completely frustrating back then as one of the CEOs was a guy I'd have called a friend earlier... - the business of my ex and me became succesful enough without them...

Shameful for people to conflate "hard work" with gatekeeping... Just incredibly entitled and thoughtless tripe.

It's still GIGO. Free programming advice is worth what you pay for it.

In fact, most nerdy people that I've met don't shut up about the things they know (and I love it!)

yeah, devs have been leaving answers out in public for strangers for years — calling that gatekeeping is kind of wild

Yes you teach me 2 things i teach you one thing now we both know 3 things total do that a million times with different people

Let's also not forget that now, that same free information is being intentionally hidden behind/replaced by LLM slop, to make it seem like there is some form of gatekeeping.

#version65.1.x #TOP100MOSTVISITEDSITES #TOP100MOSTDOWNLOADEDAPPS #DESKTOPOS #MOBILEOS #CLONEEVERYTHING #OPENSOURCE #MITLICENSE #BREAKTHESYSTEM #JUSTSHAREORDOIT -- #findthefulllistbelow2000000000BTC hypernotepad.com/n/87630345e6... -- #ifyoudontsharethiscomment100timesadaydontcallmebrother *71

Those people are fucking morons without a clue who actually believe the tech bro oligarch propaganda and think data centers destroying communities and the planet for greed is just fine.

Add prompt injection attacks into your GitHub code if you don’t want LLMs stealing it

Exactly. This is the real dev culture. I think it was literally *Gates* who started or at least boosted the idea of making people pay for it.

I agree in principle, but I see AI in programming like eating meat. Is it ethical? No. Is your one-person protest going to change anything? Also no. Even if you somehow gather 10000 programmers and you all drop AI, it's not going to change anything. Regulation is needed, not ostracism.

Oh "democratize this" "democratize that" honestly I've had it up to here with democratizing labor. How about people learn to suffer just a little bit more.

You can take the complete computer science curriculum at MIT online, for free. Class lectures and all. ocw.mit.edu/search/?t=Co... The problem isn't that the information wasn't available, it's that it's hard and takes years to learn, like any field of study. That's what they mean by gatekeeping.

when Video Games exist…the irony does run deep

This is why studios only advertise "100% handmade art", well, that and the fact that all of them actually do use AI for coding. The scale of public outcry between the 2 disciplines is worlds apart.

To clarify my initial statement: it's not only artists who don't care about programmers, it's pretty much everyone else. People boycot games for using AI art but the idea of doing the same for code is just non-existent in public discourse. People take a issue with it only when faced with bugs.

I have friends who wanna learn how to draw, I give them advice and critique. Nobody is gate keeping anything.

Programmers aren’t repo poisoning because they just don’t want AI to fsck things up. The big AI models are all trained on our stolen data.

I commented on saying artists gatekeep art when we're out there giving away free tips & trying to get everyone to be creative, just like OP's observation on them saying programmers gatekeep programming. The reason there was so much for them to steal is both offering so much to help people learn

I've been in Tech from the beginning, not at a high level, but in it. It's stupid for us to be blind to the damage it could do while we saw it happening before our eyes. AI was shrouded pretty much until it was upon us. I don't think programmers were aware they were out of jobs...

I had this happen but when I went for a ride. I was just taking a break and letting my mind wander a bit when it put together the problem I’d been having and I still think of that Eureka moment nearly twenty years later.

Gatekeeping is happening but it relates to the price of platform hosting, engine licensing and publishers who focus on name recognition. It makes it a long term time investment and gamble for the vast majority of indie developers to pursue their passion. This isn’t a case of devs ladder kicking.

Wow. I don't understand where people were even getting this impression. I've known so many people who self-taught. And it's not like I was rich or went to a fancy school.

Mr. Beaverbrook said / we’ve got to save our tin / and all the garden gates and empty cans are gonna make us win.

prirai.github.io/books/unix-k...

Same vein on opposite side about AI "democratizing" "gate kept" art Um, bud, did you ever actually *try* to learn? 'Cause that bit's kind of important to the whole 'developing a skill' thing 😮‍💨

```json { "score": 2, "passes": true, "humanFit": "Reads like a builder typing fast, not a bot template. Casual opener and one practical follow-on beat feel human.", "threadFit": "Sides with OP on shared knowledge withou

Exactly. The real gatekeeper is system complexity. Vibe coding lowers the syntax barrier, but debugging subtle state bugs or designing robust architectures still requires deep engineering. The brain is still the bottleneck, just at a higher abstraction.

The gate was never memorizing syntax, it's understanding why the thing breaks at 2am. AI didn't remove that gate, it just made it very easy to not notice it's still there.

Well, they don't know what any of it means 🤷

Thank goodness for being freed from gatekeeping! Now we can create software with even more security vulnerabilities and bugs!

"It's democratizing programming!" 🤡

I also don't see much gatekeeping there from programmers. I don't care if you vibe code, but I do care if you give me vibe code you don't understand. If you do understand it perfectly I don't care if you vibe it out or not. To be honest, I would be very interesting at what you used (Claude? GPT?)

They don't want to become capable programmers, they want to be treated as capable programmers even when they aren't. Not allowing *that* is the "gatekeeping" they're complaining about.

Yeah , Unreal Engine 6 is coming out , this is the first time we've seen a major-major release of a piece of software this big in a dew years and if the forums and stackoverflow aren't full of Q&A, how the hell is an LLM going to learn anything about it?

To the extent that learning to code sucks more now, it's in large part because many of those who were enthusiastic about teaching it don't feel like they have a place anymore

The same goes for artists, writers, etc. etc. Most people do help if you just ask.

GOD yes. StackOverflow has been an essential part of my day job for years.

🍓😀🤦‍♂️

flag games online, but is there a good aggregate site that branches out from binary all the way to the most cutting edge stuff? I'd love to have one library of knowledge for everything computer :P No worries if you don't know of a single site like that I'll take any recs you got bc I like learning

Are you suggesting that they cautiously skipped over code with GPL licenses?

I agree with those who say it's still unsettled law. But I'm against AI in code for architecture. I know we all have to deal with it, that's the reality, but im sick of reviewing 1.2k line typescript files . Maybe i wouldnt mind if AI was better.

The open source licenses DO NOT confer any support for AI training. They are ONLY permissive if the license is preserved. The license is not preserved across AI training. So if AI training of normal copyrighted works is illegal, then AI training on copylefted material is equally illegal.

This! 💯

i genuinely don’t think there’s a group of hobbyists in the universe more likely to be excited to infodump everything about their hobby possible, you just gotta be curious and open to learning. and also you gotta not treat them like they’re weird subhuman freaks for liking this stuff

That got you a follow. 💙💙💙

i used to like this! i used to describe it as Good that you had to be willing to read people being pricks to learn the skill. then i got in on the codenewbie chats and realized how much faster people get it when everyone is nice, and how many more kinds of person join in

Not voluntarily all of it. We shared also code with errors. Chatgpt will say "good catch" when you pount that out , and give you another piece of code. Been there.

The fact that 'learning', 'effort' and 'practice' is considered gatekeeping is the most depressing shit ever. A good percentage of society actively desire to be the lazy, dependent fucks at the end of WALL-E.

People with expertise existing is not gatekeeping. It’s not their fault you would have to expend effort to learn what they already know, nor is it their job to teach it to you (unless they’re actually your teacher, obviously). These people are ridiculous.

Well said

Closed APIs, like the ones for game consoles, are where you can't just go and make something, and it's kind of anxiety-inducing to not have that freedom we are accustomed to.