Take a class on machine learning first.
I suspect once you know how the sausage is made, you'll understand how short sighted this question is.
Also if you want to make the most money, get the heck out of CS and into finance.
Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
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Re: Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
#12lol it's just a tool, chill out.
https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1637087219591659520
nothing stops you from enhoying both industries though.
Re: Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
#13Most of what we do in business is figuring out requirements and breaking down a big project into manageable tasks. The code winds up feeling like an easy afterthought once that's done.
...and patiently explaining why one requirement interferes with or contradicts another...
Re: Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
#14Why are you interested in CS in the first place? Computer _Science_ will not be affected by LLMs and other technologies at all. I friend of mine once said that if all computers were wiped off the face of the Earth, her Computer Science research would be unaffected (except that she would have to use typewriters for her papers). One can reason that - barring development of AGI - that improved AI capabilities won't affect the basics that much. Until they can prove P = NP, create entirely novel algorithms or solve the halting problem, we don't have to worry on the science front.
Now, if you want to go to CS just to get a programming job at some company and you are doing this for money, I would indeed ask you to reevaluate. If you like programming as a hobby, a good way to kill the passion is to turn it into a boring 9/5 job. Physics and engineering may use programming as a tool and that may be more interesting to you?
That said, LLMs will not make a dent anytime soon. Yes they will plagiarize code and spit it out in a way that's similar to what you have requested – and for this very reason, have been banned at my Fortune company (Intellectual property is tricky). But they have no reasoning capabilities, there's still demand for solving actual problems. These days, writing code is a fraction of what I do, a lot of work goes into syncing with other teams and figuring out _what to write_. When I actually sit down to write code, that usually takes just a few days. That pales in comparison to all the architecture and coordination work that had to happen to reach that point.
Even if we assume that computers will write the code for us and it's no problem, that would only save a few days for most of my tasks. And any task where it would save more than that probably isn't worth my salary at all.
This might heavily affect pure programming outsourcing companies that only write code and require detailed specifications. That might be a true concern for them. Everything else will just adapt to the use of a new tool.
Like you mentioned, few people program in assembly these days (although some still tweak and plenty more read assembly) but I don't really see anyone complaining about that.
Re: Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
#15Do what you like, follow your curiosity.
Go broad, things are changing fast it’s better to hedge your bets.
AI, computers science and robotics will completely change our world in this decade.
Re: Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
#16My advice: if you major in physics and keep getting A’s, you can still easily get a programming job, and probably in areas that are more AI-proof than webdev. The opposite is not true.
IMO, taking programming classes in college is a waste. It’s nearly all the type of thing you can learn on the job or in an online course. The real reason to take CS is if you’re interested in applied math, because most math departments lead you into pure theory, but this depends heavily on the school.
Re: Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
#17I'm an incoming freshman to college for CS and I've thought about this a lot. Here's some of my thoughts:
1. There has always been competition in CS. If not LLMs, there are international developers and bootcamp people and just regular engineers. However, good software engineers from universities are still finding good jobs. Generalists are common, specialists are hard to find and companies will pay the specialists what they are worth.
2. Modern software engineers reply on networks similar to LLMs all the time. Think StackOverFlow or google. LLMs will just be able to generate better responses that will be quicker to find.
3. If there is a LLM that can program as good as a well educated SWE, many more jobs will be replaced besides programming. I reckon a LLM will have a much easier time understanding physics, which changes a lot less than CS.
4. Don't concentrate all learning in one place! You could do a double major with physics or a minor. You could do computer engineering or you could do a business minor with CS. Nobody knows the future, we can only guess. However, in the case that CS becomes totally replaceable by LLMs, it will be good to have other skills.
5. Remember that your major does not define you! I know many people who studied physics in college and ended up in the banking industry. Many others who studied engineering ended up in a software development role. Just because you chose a major now does not mean it defines you for the rest of your life. You can always pivot careers, go to grad school, or shift departments within your company!
It is more about becoming a specialist in a subset of CS where
think you may be thinking about it
1. Programmers will always be needed for maintaining and upgrading LLMs.
Re: Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
#18> I also just don't find asking a LLM in the "correct" way and having it spit out code trained on millions of other programmers interesting in the slightest. Think broader. Right now our only interface to these powerful models is prompts, but this is an artifact of how we discovered them. Future you will not be (paraphrasing) "finding the right prompt to have an LLM spit out the right code" nor "translating client re…
> Instead [...] you think bigger and write programs with with substantially more complexity and capability.
I fear that this is true, but that the complexity will be accidental rather than incidental. Humans are capable of understanding architecture and design patterns - as far as I've seen so far, Copilot and the like do not.
Re: Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
#19My advice as an older programmer who has a son in engineering school (who is asking similar questions) … stay in CS. The world will change as a result of LLMs, of course, but new opportunities emerging will be one of those changes, and a CS background will help you prepare for such opportunities. My $0.02.
Programming in the 2010s was nothing like programming in the 2000s, was nothing like programming in the 1990s, was nothing like programming in the 1980s , was nothing like programming in the 1970s... etc..
I personally experienced the paranoia of the "end of programming " when VisuslBasic was first released, and when UML code generation ('member Rational Rose?) Tools arrived.
I'm still doing a good living with my programming skills.
Re: Ask HN: Year old CS student. Should I continue?
#20If you like writing code, CS is the most sensible option regardless of LLMs.
If you want to make money, the picture is less clear - hopefully LLMs will reduce the demand for code monkeys which is skewing dev salaries to such absurdly high levels (though admittedly this is less of a problem in the UK).
If you want to feel some sense of pride or accomplishment in your working life, I'd advise engineering instead. I work for a FAANG company but my friends all have real jobs like "teacher" and "engineer". I'm much wealthier, but they are much happier.
For now, don't worry about it and just go to a good uni and enjoy the 4 years (definitely do an undergrad-masters course, not just a BSc). Keep an eye on the economic climate in years 3 and 4 - if you think you have it in you and no obvious better options are available, do a PhD with the intent of ducking out of academia immediately afterwards.
Good luck!