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Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

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Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#191

Post by red-iron-pine »

al_borland wrote: post #104

Our last CIO bought into all the AI hype early on and pushed it hard, before we were even allowed to use it. It was an odd time. We’d go to a town hall and get told that AI is going to change everything, and then get an email telling us we weren’t allowed to use it. Now that we can use Copilot, we have a new CIO and I don’t hear about it so much. There is still some AI hype, but it’s more about how it’s being used in…

same experiences. lots of talk but most AI was locked down -- for good reasons, probably -- and we have explicitly allowed platforms.

in practice copilot is only useful for advanced search and it is really only useful for surface answers. Was a time saver for researching common tech I'm not strong in, like if certain Cisco platforms support X, or if there are simple ways to do Y in MongoDB, etc.

for example we had it search for 9-10 CVEs to see if any were exploited in the wild. Copilot got most of them wrong. ChatGPT got most of them right... except for one or two. But now I'm not sure I can trust anything and I'm checking them all from scratch anyway.

Both were confident in ways my security intern was not, and my intern was able to tell me "I have no idea about [CVE]".

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#192

Post by red-iron-pine »

torginus wrote: post #33
827a wrote: post #15

Its a nice productivity and capability boost that feels on the same magnitude as, for example, React. The "dream" of it being able to just take tickets and agentically get a PR up for review is possible for ~5% of tickets. That goes up to ~10% if your organization has no standards at all, including even a self-serving standard like "at least make sure the repository remains useful to future AI usage". My organization…

> Stack Overflow has to be actually dead at this point. There's no reason to go there, or even Google, anymore. I wonder if we are going to pay for that, as a society. The number of times I went there, asking some tricky question about a framework, and have the actual author or one of the core contributors answer me was astonishing.

AI has to draw it's answers from somewhere.

if they're not in stack overflow they have to be in reddit, or a discord channel, or something.

or else the AI has to be able to discern answers from first principles themselves, which most LLMs can't -- they're language model.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#193

Post by red-iron-pine »

mirekrusin wrote: post #49
kazinator wrote: post #5

I feel like I suddenly have a superpower. I'm wearing glasses that tell me who all the fucking assholes and impostors are.

Do you mind elaborating on how? It's hard to say if it's sarcasm or you're referring to some genuinely interesting insight.

the vibe coders are only able to code them into a corner.

the experienced devs with an ability to do the deep dives become superheros since they can wade in and unfuck situations.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#194

Post by xtracto »

ponector wrote: post #164
xtracto wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a comment: One of the reasons why offshoring is increasing and will likely increase in the following year, is because CXOs are being sold that a cheap Mexican, Tico, or Indian using AI can be as performant as a local.(also Language barriers are decreasing also due to AI) I'm Mexican (in Mexico) and I've seen this firsthand. There may be some truth to it, but soon enough these new companies will find out what sev…

The next stage of offshoring: companies offshored to Eastern Europe are now offshoring to India due to substantial rise of salaries and costs in EE.

Someone close to me works in Workday. About 3 years ago, Workday arrived to Mexico and opened a lot of positions. They opened offices in several cities as well.

Fast forward to today, Someone up in the management chain decided that Costa Rica was better, closed any openings in Mexico and even "downgraded " the manager positions (became ICs) of people already working there.

I find it a bit funny watching my connationals get angry at exactly the same thing that allowed them to be employed in the first place.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#196

Post by mattmanser »

ponector wrote: post #134
jckahn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the necessary MCP servers.

Good luck to receive security clearance for that. Even Cursor is not allowed, though everyone is using it with private account.

Do you realize that's gross misconduct?

You're sending the intellectual property of your employer to a third party without their consent. Hell, it's much worse as it sounds like they've explicitly told you not to.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#197

Post by mattmanser »

thisisit wrote: post #161
beambot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't use any AI - drafting documentation, write boilerplate code, transcribing meetings, simplifying team communications, searching product documentation, alternative to Google or StackOverflow, creating presentations, as a brainstorming partner? I would consider all of these "work". If you say AI does 0% of your work, I'd say you're either a genius, behind the curve or being disingenuous.

Is that so hard to believe? My work uses proprietary language. Something like ABAP for SAP [1]. AI has ingested lot of documentation available on the internet. But it cannot tell the difference between versions. So, AI code often has correct but deprecated functions. And don't get me started on the "time savings" for boiler plate documentation. It messes up every time. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABAP

You should be able to get around that by copying what the context7 MCP does. Essentially pre-prompt the AI with the correct, modern, syntax.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#199

Post by antisol »

revskill wrote: post #121
ath3nd wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it's just logical, LLM is a useful tool How open are you to the possibility that it's the other way around? Because the study suggests that it's actually junior code monkeys that benefit from LLMs, and experienced software engineers don't instead get a decline of their productivity. At least that's what the only available study so far shows. That's corroborated with my experience mentoring juniors, the more the…

Those "experienced" actually are just senior code monkeys if u ask me, it's trivial right ? I don't assume the reason why, but it's just illogical for a junior to get benefits and the seniors don't. The wrong ones here is the "experienced". I know how to use the AI tools for my purpose (that's why i use them), and of course, to make the impossible possible. Even if i failed to do so, it's not the decrease in producti…

  >  i don't think i can do better than the LLM.
I'd just like to point out just how sad, self-defeating, and ignorant this statement is.

I could literally teach a below-average-intelligence 16-year-old how to write better code than any LLM I've ever seen - if they're interested and willing to learn.

Re: Ask HN: With all the AI hype, how are software engineers feeling?

#200

Post by wahnfrieden »

ath3nd wrote: post #124
revskill wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "experienced" actually are just senior code monkeys if u ask me, it's trivial right ? I don't assume the reason why, but it's just illogical for a junior to get benefits and the seniors don't. The wrong ones here is the "experienced". I know how to use the AI tools for my purpose (that's why i use them), and of course, to make the impossible possible. Even if i failed to do so, it's not the decrease in producti…

> Those "experienced" actually are just senior code monkeys if u ask me, it's trivial right Well, it seems you are not open for discussion. There is no reason to disparage the senior devs that participated in the study just because you don't like the results of the study. But the study happened, and it is clear: experienced developers are the ones that suffered from using LLMs. > but it's just illogical for a junior…

That study was not conducted well at all. The participants haven’t learned how to use these tools. For example one was interviewed later and said a lot of the time they would wait for an agent and get distracted playing with something irrelevant and then forget to go back until much later. That has solutions they are not aware of to implement.
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