Software Engineer Then vs Now: From 3 Tools to an Entire SaaS Ecosystem

Description

A two-panel comparison meme using scenes from the Korean TV series Squid Game, framed with a yellow border. The top panel shows a smiling, happy character (Gi-hun) with the text 'Software Engineer Then:' accompanied by just three tool icons: VS Code (blue), IntelliJ IDEA (red/black), and a database tool with a green play button. The bottom panel shows the same character looking exhausted, stressed, and defeated with 'Software Engineer Now:' followed by an overwhelming grid of application icons including: VS Code, IntelliJ IDEA, the database tool (same three as before), plus Cursor AI, Notion, Vercel, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Perplexity, Gemini, plus additional tools like RecCloud, Tidio, Zapier, Calendly, PicWish, and a Figma-like icon. The contrast illustrates how modern software engineering has gone from needing just an IDE and a database client to requiring an entire constellation of AI assistants, deployment platforms, automation tools, scheduling apps, and productivity software

Common Tags

DeveloperTooling Vscode AITools ToolingOverload Chatgpt DeveloperBurnout ContextSwitching DeveloperProductivity Saas

Comments

Anonymous ★ Top Pick In 2020, you needed to master your IDE. In 2025, you need to master 15 AI tools just to write the same CRUD app -- but now each one has a $20/month subscription

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

In 2020, you needed to master your IDE. In 2025, you need to master 15 AI tools just to write the same CRUD app -- but now each one has a $20/month subscription
Anonymous

My IDE used to just fight with the linter. Now my IDE, five AI copilots, three cloud CLIs, and a dozen SaaS plugins all fight over who gets to leak my API keys first
@greyxray 7mo

2 ide but no slack? he must be a staff
1. dev_meme 7mo
  
  That’s bottom text, about more icons being needed sigh
@aytomik 7mo

Software Engineer Before:
1. @realVitShadyTV 7mo
  
  Me still (somethimes):
  
  @ramillimar 7mo
  
  Better than vs code unironically
@ramillimar 7mo

what is bottom line
@ramillimar 7mo

and second bottom line
@azureceo 7mo

where is antigravity
@ramillimar 7mo

i feel myself sometimes like an old man for not delegating code to ais, and now there are more layers of bloatware beyond my knowledge and comprehension
1. @sysoevyarik 7mo
  
  No, you just young enough to use functioning brain instead of digital wheelchair for thinking
2. @ZmEYkA_3310 7mo
  
  i feel like delegating coding to ai is something i would never do because something that literally can only suggest the next word makes my code drift off in the opposite direction of where i want it to go Edit: also if ai can write it, then it already exists, so why am i writing that? (unless its for learning, in which case why is ai even relevant?)
@fleebz 7mo

eclipse code::blocks and netbeans forgotten
@deadgnom32 7mo

now
@fleebz 7mo

any other nano users here
@q_rsqrt 7mo

fuck you
1. @chupasaurus 7mo
  
  Says compiler to you each time.
  
  @q_rsqrt 7mo
  
  it takes me 5 seconds to get the compiler error, fix a typo, and compile again
@RiedleroD 7mo

…5 of those are just different LLMs
@H6B1If 7mo

Why would anyone use so much different AIs?
1. @Algoinde 7mo
  
  prompt one llm -> fail -> prompt another llm -> fail -> prompt another llm ->
  
  @H6B1If 7mo
  
  This is some Las Vegas gambling level shit. If you don't know how to tell an LLM what to do, you don't know what you're doing
  
  @chupasaurus 7mo
  
  The whole vibe coding is fake it till "you" make it type shit
  
  dev_meme 7mo
  
  The only two LLMs I can recommend, that are truly helpful (call them whatever you like, they don't comprehend)
@deadgnom32 7mo

so it has begun.
@G0IEA 7mo

zed.dev
1. @vgy4sw 7mo
  
  Another vscode
  
  @DerKnerd 7mo
  
  Nope, build from scratch in rust
@DerKnerd 7mo

Regarding editors and IDEs I am completely fine with new developments but just a VS code fork is meh
@DerKnerd 7mo

I think simple editors, Kate, Notepad++ and Sublime do have a very well defined use case. You wouldn't open a full IDE to check a small config file. I prefer Jetbrains Fleet for that, but yeah. And Android Studio is actually used a ton for Android dev. IntelliJ, sadly, is not up on the latest changes in Android and takes rather long to integrate them. So yeah, code editor is surprisingly broad in the industry. IDE though? That is mostly Jetbrains, VS, Android Studio (which is kinda Jetbrains) and XCode
1. @chupasaurus 7mo
  
  it is IDEA with some unique plugins
  
  @DerKnerd 7mo
  
  Not quite, it has also some changes in it that are not portable to IDEA
  
  @chupasaurus 7mo
  
  I know, but 90+% are still IDEA.
  
  @DerKnerd 7mo
  
  but these 10% make, sadly, a huge difference
@Algoinde 7mo

yeahhhh
1. @Algoinde 7mo
  
  pycharm is epic for python vscode is for frontend dogshit visual studio because C# and I'm CBA to set up Rider sublime works extremely well for grepping extremely huge codebases
  
  @chupasaurus 7mo
  
  Better than ripgrep?)
  
  @Algoinde 7mo
  
  not literally grepping, for navigating & find & replace
_ 7mo

In embedded dev vendors all provide their own IDE, but most of them are just repackaged Eclipse. (The notable exception is the repackaged NetBeans)
@seyfer 7mo

Only Cursor, only vibecoding. Don't type anything except prompts Chat window is the only window you can edit

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Software Engineer Then vs Now: From 3 Tools to an Entire SaaS Ecosystem

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