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Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

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Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#411

Post by CyberDildonics »

iteratethis wrote: post #410
CyberDildonics wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So even though there has been small incremental progress at most in the last 30 years and your mentor's predictions were wildly wrong about how much easier anything would become, you still think "AI" will give you the power of 50 programmers?

No, quite a lot more. 50 effectively becomes and unlimited amount as capability grows. If AI can match the capability of a single programmer, it would then be trivial to scale up. Although in that case the term programmer makes little sense.

A single programmer can create something new, which is not something any "AI" is doing now.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#412

Post by agentultra »

bgandrew wrote: post #383
agentultra wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had mentioned that. This is true today when software developers are writing proofs and why automation is useful. You would still need to be able to read the proof that a computer generated and understand what it contains in order to judge whether it is correct with respect to your specifications. So in some sense elegance would be useful since the proof isn’t written by a human but has to be understood by one. If t…

Meanwhile, the shovels learned to solve mathematical problems of the international math olympiad. https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/alphageometry-an-olymp...

Deep learning also learned how to play Go, not terribly interesting.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#413

Post by brailsafe »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #307
brailsafe wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

software engineers already need to be worried about either losing their current job or getting another one. The market is pretty much dead already unless you're working on something AI

Do you know how many hype trains I’ve seen leave the station? :-D

True, but I didn't say dead permanently, just evidently and relatively dead since about late 2022

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#414

Post by bamboozled »

majani wrote: post #238
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…

Takes like this miss the forest for the trees. The overall point is that automated programming is now a target, just like automating assembly lines became a target back in the day. There will be kinks in the beginning, but once the target is set, there will be a huge incentive to work out the kinks to the point of near full automation

You do realize how predictable an assembly line is though right?

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#415

Post by vczf »

withinboredom wrote: post #364
ta1243 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans aren't bored any more [0]. In the past the US the US had 250 million people who were bored. Today it has far more than than scrolling through instagram and tiktok, responding to reddit and hacker news, and generally not having time to be bored Maybe we'll start to evolve as a species to avoid that, but AI will be used to ensure we don't, optimising far faster than we can evolve to keep our attention [0] https:…

I’m bored all the time and I’m a human. Last I checked anyway.

I agree, it's definitely still possible to get bored.

If I stop making progress on my personal projects, sinking my free time into games or online interaction is very unsatisfying.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#416

Post by copperx »

jimbokun wrote: post #339
xandrius wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels that people commenting on this post are forgetting that tools have evolved since the times of punch cards or writing only in pure assembly. I personally wouldn't have enjoyed being that kind of programmer as it was a tedious and very slow process, where the creativity of the developer was rather low as the complexities of development would not allow for just anyone to be part of it (my own assumption). Today…

That’s like saying Shakespeare couldn’t be productive as a writer because he didn’t have a word processor.

The few people at the rightmost edge of the bell curve shouldn't be used as an example in this case

The average attorney became much more productive after the introduction of the word processor.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#417

Post by dt3ft »

Oioioioiio wrote: post #140
dt3ft wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing code by typing on a keyboard will be just a hobby? Sure, and who is supposed to understand the code written by AI when we retire? Since writing code by typing on a keyboard will apparently cease to exist, who will write prompts for an AI and put the code together? Person: Hey AI, build me a website that does a, b and c. AI: Here you go. Person: Looks like magic to me, what do I do with all this text? AI: Push…

Have you seen devin the ai developer demo? Business already doesn't know what security is, they will jump head first into everything which allows them to get rid of those weird developer dudes which they have to cater to and give a lot of money. I personally would also assume that there might be a new programming language AI will invent. Something faster, more optimized for AI.

Scripted? Did you get access to it? I’ll believe it when I try it hands-on.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#418

Post by guappa »

margorczynski wrote: post #361
guappa wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me 2 AIs talking to each other and agreeing on a protocol and successfully both implementing it on their side in a way that it works then.

Where did I say that is the current state of its capabilities? My argument was about the future and the perspective on its skills.

If we are writing a scifi novel, sure.

If we mean that the current way of doing things will lead to that… I have strong doubts.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#419

Post by withinboredom »

lazide wrote: post #401
withinboredom wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really get them going when you mention that "too big to fail" is a logical fallacy.

For some reason 'logical fallacy' just results in frowns and 'Needs Improvement' ratings when used on MBAs. Weird.

Oh, I just mention how dinosaurs were too big to fail; it really helps when the whole team starts making fun of them for saying something stupid like that.

Re: Thoughts on the Future of Software Development

#420

Post by scubbo »

JackMorgan wrote: post #386
scubbo wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

As a counterpoint, the main nemesis of the book comes from software that is found in archaeological expedition. While software archeology doesn't show up after the first chapter, the ramifications of what happens in that world due to so much software is pretty central.

This is certainly true, and doesn't detract from my disappointment not to have actually seen the software archeology in practice.
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