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Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

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Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#511

Post by collyw »

danielvaughn wrote: post #117
SoftTalker wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to understand the domain in which its intended to be used. Bash scripts are essentially automating what you could do at the command line with utility programs, pipes, redirects, filters, and conditionals. If you're getting very far outside of that scope, bash is probably the wrong tool (though it can be bent to do just about anything if one is determined enough).

I don't know too much about the history, but wasn't this one of the original motivations for Python? Like it was meant to be basically "bash scripting but with better ergonomics", or something like that.

Sounds more like Perl. I do miss Perl. It was far nicer than Python as a bash replacement. Python is better for larger projects in my opinion, as Perl is too flexible and expressive.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#512

Post by dartos »

XenophileJKO wrote: post #309
dartos wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in group 3 for sure. The hardest part of any job I’ve had is doing the not so fun parts (meetings, keeping up with emails, solidly finishing work before moving on to something new)

As I progressed, I've learned I am more valuable for the company working on things I am interested in. Delegate the boring stuff to people that don't care. If it is critical to get it done right, do it yourself.

This wasn’t possible for me at my last job at all.

0 autonomy, the only people who got recognition were those who self promoted on internal blogs, etc.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#513

Post by brandall10 »

CMCDragonkai wrote: post #498
brandall10 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copilot isn't particular useful. At best it comes up with small snippets that may or may not be correct, and rarely can I get larger chunks of code that would be working out of the gate. But Claude Sonnet 3.5 w/ Cursor or Continue.dev is a dramatic improvement. When you have discrete control over the context (ie. being able to select 6-7 files to inject), and with the superior ability of Claude, it is an absolute gam…

Which do you prefer Cursor or Continue.dev?

Honestly haven't tried out Cursor yet, it looks impressive but I've heard it has some teething issues to work out. For my use case I'd end up using it very similar to how I use Continue.dev and probably pay for Claude API usage separately, which has been working out to about $12-$15 a month.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#514

Post by ang_cire »

sgt101 wrote: post #324
TeMPOraL wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is happening across the board, not just to IT workers, and I suspect it's the major factor as for why the expected productivity improvements from technology didn't materialize. Think of your "DevSecOps" people doing 3x the work they should. Do you know what else are they doing? Booking their own business travels. Reconciling and reporting their own expenses. Reporting their own hours, broken down by business cat…

And yet we are told that competition will determine that capital and talent will flow towards that most efficient organisations over time. Thus, surely organisations that eschewed this practice would emerge and dominate? So, either capitalism doesn't work, or your thesis isn't quite right... I have two other counters to offer, first we have seen GDP per capita gradually increasing in major economies for the last 50 y…

> So, either capitalism doesn't work

Yes, it's definitely this.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#515

Post by ang_cire »

ozim wrote: post #404
ang_cire wrote: post #90

I sometimes wonder about whether the decline in IT worker quality is down to companies trying to force more and more roles onto each worker to reduce headcount. Developers, Operations, and Security used to be dedicated roles. Then we made DevOps and some businesses took that to mean they only needed 2/3 of the headcount, rather than integrating those teams. Then we made DevSecOps, and some businesses took that to mea…

For me DevOps/DevSecOps is reaction movement against toxic turf wars and silos of functions from ambitious people - not some business people scheme to reduce headcount and push more responsibilities. I have received e-mails "hey thats DB don't touch that stuff you are not a DBA" or "hey developers shouldn't do QA" while the premise might be right, lots of things could be done much quicker. I have seen throwing stuff…

Like I said, I have no issue with integrated operations models, but if you try to have one person be a Jack of All Trades, you will end up with them all being 'masters of none'.

DevSecOps works very well when you have your coding specialists, operations specialists (including DBAs), and Security specialists all on the same team together, rather than being different silos with different standups and team meetings, etc. But it doesn't work at all well if you just ask the devs to also be Ops and Security, and lay off the rest.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#516

Post by trashtester »

finikytou wrote: post #378
lrem wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really about the numbers. My pile of money at retirement would definitely be larger if I moved across the pond. But here my children walk themselves to school from the age of six. I don’t worry about them getting killed by a madman. And even the homeless get healthcare, including functional mental health support. Things no employer can offer in the US.

Im in western europe and I would never let my children walk themselves to school at 6. europe is far from being a safe place minus some eastern europe.

That depends on location within Western Europe. Where I live (also W. Europe), it's common for kids to walk to school from the age of 6, or soon after if the kids are not yet mature enough.

In similar places in the US it may not even be the risk of criminals that is the largest threat. It may simply be that the road network is built for cars only, with few safe ways to cross roads without a vehicle.

By comparison, where I live, parents are expected to act as a kind of traffic police a couple of mornings every year. That means that every place where the kids have to cross the road will have an adult blocking all cars from passing even if a kid is merely getting close (even if the speed limit is only 30km/h or 20mph)

In other words, pedestrians get the highest priority while motorists are treated as second class.

Nation wide, about 50-60% of the kids will walk or ride a bike to school in my country (and those who don't tend to either live far from the school or in a higher crime area).

Compared to ~10% in the US.

Also, while in the US kids of low income households are more likely to (have to) walk to school.

In my country, it's possible that the relationship is, if anything, inversed. Having the kids walk to school is seen by many resourceful families as healthy, both from the physical activity in a screen-rich world and to teach them to be independent and confident.

That means that in neighborhoods with a large percentage of such parents the parents are likely to ensure that the route to school is safe and walkable for kids.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#517

Post by ang_cire »

ipaddr wrote: post #258
ang_cire wrote: post #90

I sometimes wonder about whether the decline in IT worker quality is down to companies trying to force more and more roles onto each worker to reduce headcount. Developers, Operations, and Security used to be dedicated roles. Then we made DevOps and some businesses took that to mean they only needed 2/3 of the headcount, rather than integrating those teams. Then we made DevSecOps, and some businesses took that to mea…

Developers of the past worked towards the title of webmaster. A webmaster can manage a server, write the code and also be a graphic artist. Developers want to do it all. What has changed is micromanaging of daily standup which reshapes work into neat packages for conversation but kills a non linear flow and limits exploration making things exactly as requested instead of what could be better.

> Developers of the past

I'm only 36, but you're making me feel extremely old.

To me, "developers of the past" were the people working on COBOL and JCL and FORTRAN and DB2, on z/OS or System 390/370/360, to whom "RPG" was only a 4GL[1], not a type of game, and there was no webmaster or graphic designer involved... not some dotcom era dev in the 90s when "webmasters" became a widespread thing.

Here's an interesting article on webmasters and their disappearance below[2].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RPG 2: https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/what-happened-to-t...

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#518

Post by ang_cire »

spacecadet wrote: post #405
ang_cire wrote: post #90

I sometimes wonder about whether the decline in IT worker quality is down to companies trying to force more and more roles onto each worker to reduce headcount. Developers, Operations, and Security used to be dedicated roles. Then we made DevOps and some businesses took that to mean they only needed 2/3 of the headcount, rather than integrating those teams. Then we made DevSecOps, and some businesses took that to mea…

This is happening across most industries. My friends in creative fields are experiencing the same "optimizations". I call this the great lie of productivity. The worker (particularly tech workers) have dreamed of reducing their time spent doing "shit jobs" while amplifying their productivity, so that we can spend more time doing what is meaningful to us... In reality businesses sell out to disconnected private equity…

Yep, it's 100% MBA-bros who don't understand the actual technical foundations of their companies "optimizing" away their specialized knowledge workers. They get stuck in fire-and-hire cycles of boom-and-bust, and tend to slowly degrade into obscurity.

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#519

Post by 4b11b4 »

scruple wrote: post #443
dimal wrote: post #402

It matters what you measure. The studies only looked at Copilot usage. I’m an experienced engineer. Copilot is worse than useless for me. I spend most of my time understanding the problem space, understanding the constraints and affordances of the environment I’m in and thinking about the code I’m going to write app. When I start typing code, I know what I’m going to write, and so a “helpful” Copilot autocomplete is…

I used the Copilot trial. I found myself waiting to see what it would come up with, analyzing it, and most often time throwing it away for my own implementation. I quickly realized how much of a waste of time it was. I did find use for it in writing unit tests and especially table-driven testing boilerplate but that's not enough to maintain a paid subscription.

copilot isn't a worthwhile example

Re: Effects of Gen AI on High Skilled Work: Experiments with Software Developers

#520

Post by Viliam1234 »

mike_hearn wrote: post #489
Viliam1234 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it feels like there is no planning... and as a consequence also no documentation. Or maybe there are tons of outdated documentation because the project is so agile that it was redesigned a few dozen times, but instead of updating the original documents and diagrams, the architects always only produced a diff "change this to this", and those diffs are randomly placed in Confluence, most of them as attached W…

What you're asking for is not for the company to hire technical writers but reverse engineers. That's a much harder role to hire as the people who have the skills to do it are the same developers who don't want to do it. Ultimately, mature developers just have to write docs. There's no alternative or lifestyle hack managers can come up with.

> What you're asking for is not for the company to hire technical writers but reverse engineers.

Definitely not.

First, if the architects properly document what they designed, there is no need to reverse engineer it. I don't know how frequent this is, but it's my experience that the architects often don't bother to have a model of the entire system -- they only care about the feature they are designing currently. It is then the developer's job to reverse engineer the entire design by looking at the code. And I would like this to stop.

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