Thoughts on the Future of Software Development • Hacker News Board

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#291

Post by beryilma » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 10:47 PM UTC

windowshopping wrote: post #285

beryilma wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming too much about what I think of myself. I am a software engineer and have been so for a long time. And I've written my fair share of UIs and apps. If all the things we do are so varied and creative, then we shouldn need to worry about AI replacing our jobs. But that is not what I am reading in this post. What software engineering jobs will AI replace then? In fact, what I wrote suggests that specializ…

> If all the things we do are so varied and creative, then we shouldn need to worry about AI replacing our jobs. Your argument is built on this flawed premise. ChatGPT can generate poetry and stories. Does that mean writing poetry and stories is neither varied or creative? The fact that AI can do something doesn't diminish its value when it comes from the hands of a human. Machines in factories can make all sorts of…

> The fact that AI can do something doesn't diminish its value when it comes from the hands of a human.

Sure. Morally it doesn't. Financially, it certainly does. This is essentially in the definition of automation.

Turning software engineers into artisans will not save %95 of software engineers.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#292

Post by xpl » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 10:50 PM UTC

Why just "software development"? People should really think of the endgame. Everything will change.

I mean, what business, science, [popular] art, and even politics are all essentially? Just a clever optimization process against the real world. Throw ideas/hypotheses on the wall and see what sticks.

Computers are very good at optimization! No reason to believe it won't all be solved in N years, with like 100x more efficient compute and a couple more cool math tricks.

Give future "GPT-10" interfaces for interacting with the real world, and it could do everything — no human supervision/"prompting" needed at all. Humans would only be an unneeded bottleneck in that optimization process.

There will be big companies consisting only of their founder and no one else. And I am not sure there will many such companies (so like "everyone could have one") — no, it is more likely that due to economies of scale, there will be only a few megacorps, owning all the compute.

What we should worry about is how to avoid extreme wealth disparity/centralization that seems imminent in that future...

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#293

Post by ta1243 » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 10:57 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #230

Towaway69 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a developer, I heartily agree with you. Being a human, I realise that I as a developer have put a lot of people out of a job. Those folks have had to adapt to that change. I guess now it's our time to adapt to change. At least it keeps me on my feet!

> I guess now it's our time to adapt to change. I'm just saddened by the prospect that, for me, "adapting to change" would mean "no longer being able to make a living doing what I actually enjoy". that's why if this is the future, it's a career-killing one for me. Whether or not I stay in the industry, there is no future in my chosen career path, and the alternative paths that people keep bringing up all sound pretty…

We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. When it comes to your job, that's different. And it always will be different.

That was 1968. Plus ca change...

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#294

Post by pydry » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 11:03 PM UTC

geodel wrote: post #63

pydry wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market consolidation (Microsoft/Google/Amazon) might cause a jobpocalypse, just as it did for the jobs of well paid auto workers in the 1950s (GM/Chrysler/Ford). GM/Chrysler/Ford didn't have to be better than the startup competition they just had to be mediocre + be able to use their market power (vertical integration) to squash it like a bug. The tech industry is headed in that direction as computing platforms all c…

Seems about right to me. Hyper-standardization around few architecture patterns using Kubernetes/Kafka/Microservice/GraphQL/React/OTelemetry etc can roughly cover 95-99% of all typical software development when you add a cloud DB. Now I know there are ton of different flavors in each of these tech but they will be mostly distraction for employers. With heavy layer of abstraction of above pattern and SLAs by vendors a…

I've noticed over the years that those abstractions have moved up a step too. E.g. we used to code our own user auth with OSS, now we use cognito.

At some point it'll become impossible to build stuff off platform because it'll have to integrate to stuff on platform to be viable. Your startup might theoretically be able to run on 3 servers but your customers' first question will be "does it connect to googazure WS?" and googazure WS is gonna be like "you wanna connect to your customers' systems? Pay us. A lot.".

There goes your profit margins.

Then, if your startup is really good googazure WS will clone it.

There goes your company.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#295

Post by bugbuddy » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 11:06 PM UTC

jjmarr wrote: post #237

tejohnso wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems so. Those friends did have to contend with the enjoyable part of their job disappearing. Whether they called it cheating or not is doesn't diminish their loss.

It didn't; there are still many roles for skilled assembly programmers in performance-critical or embedded systems. It's just their market share in the overall world of programming has decreased due to high-level programming languages; although better technology has increased the size of the market that might have demands for assembly.

I am not skilled in these areas so I am very scared. I am going to go back to school to get a nursing degree because it is guaranteed to not be disrupted by the disrupters like now where the disrupters are disrupting themselves. Despite the personal risks of a healthcare job, it will bring me so much more peace of mind.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#296

Post by scubbo » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 11:13 PM UTC

Normalcy294812 wrote: post #176

AlwaysRock wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the future imagined by A Fire Upon the Deep and its sequel. While less focused on the code being generated by ai, it features seemingly endless amounts of code and programs that can do almost anything but the difficulty is finding the program that works for you and is safe to use. To some extent... This is already the world we live in. A lot of code is unreadable without a lot of effort or expertise. If all c…

Thanks for the Book Title. It looks like an interesting read.

Caution - lots of people like to talk about this "code archeology" idea as if it's a central driving point of the book, whereas in fact it's mentioned once in passing in the prologue and is never again relevant to the story.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a decent book on its own merits - but don't go into it expecting that to be the main point of the book (I did, and disappointed as a result).

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#297

Post by the_arun » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 11:15 PM UTC

warbled_tongue wrote: post #97

JohnFen wrote: post #83

> In summary, I believe there would still be a market for Software Developers in the foreseeable future, though the nature of work will change This is precisely what I dread. When it comes to software development specifically, the parts that the AI cheerleaders are excited about AI doing are exactly the parts of the job that I find appealing. If I wanted to be a glorified systems integrator, I would have been doing t…

This resonates strongly with me. I don't want to describe the painting, I want to paint it. If this is indeed where we end up, I don't know that I'll change professions (I'm 30+ years into it), but the joy will be gone. It will truly become "just a job".

Agreed. But isn't this what is happening over a period for all manual jobs? I mean people used to carve wood. Now, machines do that with more precision & speed. The same goes for laying roads, construction & other professions.

All niche jobs will become mundane chores. I don't know if it is good or bad. Because humans always find a way to cultivate something new.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#298

Post by mbil » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 11:16 PM UTC

ActionHank wrote: post #93

JohnFen wrote: post #83

> In summary, I believe there would still be a market for Software Developers in the foreseeable future, though the nature of work will change This is precisely what I dread. When it comes to software development specifically, the parts that the AI cheerleaders are excited about AI doing are exactly the parts of the job that I find appealing. If I wanted to be a glorified systems integrator, I would have been doing t…

Also if there are fewer humans involved in the code production there is a lot of room for producing code that "works", but is not cohesive or maintainable. Invariably there will be a point at which something is broken and someone will need to wade through the mess to find why it's broken and try to fix it.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic but in a future where a model can digest hundreds of thousands of lines of code, write unit tests, and do refactors, will this even be a problem?

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#299

Post by CuriouslyC » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 11:17 PM UTC

thetacitman wrote: post #233

CuriouslyC wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how bads use GPT to code. The right way is to ask GPT to break the problem down into a bunch of small strongly typed helper functions with unit tests, then ask it to compose the solution from those helper functions, also with integration tests. If tests fail at any point you can just feed the failure output along with the test and helper function code back in and it will almost always get it right for reasonab…

How do I know if a problem needs to be broken down by GPT, and how do I know if it broke the problem down correctly? What if GPT is broken or has a billing error, how do I break down the problem then?

1. Intuition built by trial and error 2. Domain expertise backed by automated checks 3. The old fashioned way, and if your power is out you can even bust out a slide rule

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#300

Post by hnick » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 11:32 PM UTC

tomashubelbauer wrote: post #70

Toutouxc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been my cope mantra so far. I don't mind if my job changes a lot (and ideally loses the part I dislike the most — writing the actual code), and if I find myself in a position where my entire skillset doesn't matter at all, then well a LOT of people are in trouble.

I have seen programmers express that they dislike writing code before and I wonder what the ratio of people who dislike it and people who like it, is. For me, writing code is one of the most enjoyable aspects of programming.

It's my favourite part, except maybe debugging. I really like getting into the guts of an issue and working out why it happens which I suppose will be around for a while yet with AI code. It's a lot less fun with transient network issues and such though.