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Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

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Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#311

Post by Clubber »

jameshart wrote: post #302

This is the part where I disagree: > Business logic must always be defined in an unambiguous format No. That’s only the case because unambiguous ‘business logic’ is what we have to use when trying to explain to rigid, unthinking machines how we want our business to operate. Business processes aren’t naturally rigid. Computerization has just made us think that they have to be. What LLMs have the potential to do is to…

>Business processes aren’t naturally rigid. Computerization has just made us think that they have to be.

I would argue it is more finance, accounting and management theory that made it rigid. Perhaps a little HR/legal as well. I remember the days when customer service was allowed to actually help you and it was nice.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#312

Post by PlunderBunny »

hnick wrote: post #301
Aperocky wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that's what low code is today. You'll have to describe it in such detail that you might as well as paint it yourself. Maybe it will abstract away setting up the paint and brush and the canvas, that part I'm fine with though.

From the perspective of the programmer, true. Not necessarily from the perspective of the manager/customer, who can say in broad terms what needs to be done, and the programmer-black-box spits something out.

The manager/customer is going to be very disappointed that the computer can't just "do what I ask it to".

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#313

Post by galdosdi »

Pugpugpugs wrote: post #154
barfbagginus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will be able to speak what human needs must be fulfilled. Then the code will appear and you'll be able to meet those human needs. You, not a boss, will own the code. And if you have any needs, you will be able to speak the word and those needs will be met. You will no longer need to work at all. Whatever you want to build, you will be able to build it. What about that frightens you?

What if we don’t hit AGI and instead the tools just get pretty good and put lots of people out of work while making the top 0.1% vastly richer? Now you’ve got no prospects, no power, and barely any money.

The only real wealth have, at the end of the day is: your health, your relationships, and your ability and willingness to eat beans.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#314

Post by acchow »

iteratethis wrote: post #252

In the late 90s I was in an introduction class to programming in C. I kept making memory allocation mistakes that crashed the machine. My mentor: "Don't worry, by the time you graduate, you don't have to program, the world will soon be modeling software". We'd go from 3G languages to 4G and beyond. That never happened. Three decades have passed and we still develop at an obscenely low abstraction level. If anything,…

> That never happened. Three decades have passed and we still develop at an obscenely low abstraction level.

Have you seen how APIs are written for ChatGPT plugins? It is in plain English. There's no code.

Function calls also done in plain English.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#315

Post by acchow »

clktmr wrote: post #26

As long as there is no AGI, no software engineer needs to be worried about their job. And when there is, obviously everything in every field will change and this discussion will soon be futile.

Depends how expensive the AGI is. If it requires $1M of electricity per year to run, it will for sure not replace human jobs paying only $100k.

The highest paying jobs will probably get replaced first.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#316

Post by wyclif »

bugbuddy wrote: post #295
jjmarr wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm afraid it's naive to think that nursing is not going to get disrupted by AI. Seems like robotics is going to massively impact medical caregiving in the near future.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#317

Post by codeyperson »

acedTrex wrote: post #109
pizzafeelsright wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue future engineers should be worried a bit. We no longer need to hire new developers. I was not trained professionally yet I'm writing production code that's passing code reviews in languages I never used. I will create a prompt, validate it compiles, passes tests, have it explain so I understand it was written as expected and write documentation about the code, write the PR, and I am seen as a competent…

I have yet to see either copilot or gpt4 generate code that I would come close to accepting in a PR from one of my devs, so I struggle to imagine what kind of domain you are in that the code it generates actually makes it through review.

That you know of

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#318

Post by recroad »

hintymad wrote: post #236

> Though coding all day sounds very appealing, most of software development time is spent on communicating with other people or other admin work instead of just writing code This sounds very...big corp, which inevitably needs many professional box drawers, expert negotiators, smooth communicators, miracle alignment workers, and etc. But guess what, if you are in a core group in a small company, you function as a grad…

In a big corporation, 100% yes. In a smaller, nimbler company, you’ll do more of what you love.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#319

Post by bluerooibos »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #202

There is one fundamental flaw with the AI generated code: unmaintainability and unpredictability. An attempt to modify the already generated specific piece of code or the program in general will produce an unexpected result. Saving some money on programmers but then losing millions in lawsuits or losing customers and eventually the whole business due to an expected behaviour of the app or a data leak might not be a g…

Unmaintainability? You should see the stuff some of my colleagues write. I'm fairly certain GPT could outperform them in the readability/maintainability department at this point.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#320

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I'm sure that there's a bunch of CEOs, drooling over the thought of firing all their engineers, and doing everything with AI.

That may actually work.

For a year or two.

Then, the engineers that learn to leverage AI, and add their own skills, will knock those folks into the skip.

Personally, I'm having a difficult time, integrating AI stuff into my work; but that's more because the stuff I do, and the platforms I use, are currently not a particularly rich AI substrate. I suspect that will rapidly change, and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do.

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