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If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?

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161–170 of 173 posts

Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?

#162

Why would there be a correlation between how fast something is developed and its quality? Assuming that AI is helping developers to write more code, it could mean: * there are fewer developers * developers are working less * the efficiency gains are resulting in more products being created rather than existing products being improved * AI isn't widely enough adopted or used to make enough of a difference * the benefi…

the efficiency gains are resulting in more products being created rather than existing products being improved This has been perhaps the only constant in the history of this industry. As software tooling and hardware get better, we never really feel or see the gains because companies and individual developers are pressed to do more. If a tool makes my job 2x easier, then I'm simply expected to have 2x more output. No…

Because the quality of the product is not solely in engineering's hand. We build the products, and have a lot of impact on the microdecisions, but larger feature planning usually comes from product management, who ultimately should be the ones deciding what features to build to make the customer experience better

Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?

#164
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It, undeniably, makes prototyping incredibly fast. I’ve been forcing myself to use Cursor for the past month, and could create a fairly functional web app, given my skills aren’t front end dev. Very sweet for one off deterministic python scripts, figuring out the UI bugs, filling up boilerplate code and especially handy with languages/frameworks you’re not that familiar with. Sure, we’re not at the “hook it up to pro…

If your github-fu was good, you could get the same result with copy-pasting. But then you would need to worry about licenses. It's very convenient that Copilot and the like don't disclose the licenses of their training data.

I'm curious, have you tried to use it on a week-long project? It's really not just copy pasting through GH, once you figure out the workflow. I consider myself an okayishly experienced dev (10+ years, if it even matters), and for things I've never touched (in my case, mobile/front end development), it's incredible how it sped me up.

Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?

#166
I’m old enough to remember databases like IDMS before SQL came along. SQL simplifies database access in a similar way to how AI and low-code tools simplify application that have minimal logic - things like web pages, dashboards and the like. But the moment you need to do something at the other end of the spectrum - like a complex financial model - they fall down completely. That’s because you need someone to program the logic. Right now, only a programmer can do that. New tools are on the way, but they don’t use LLMs

Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?

#168
Having used a lot of these AI tools and products over the last two years, my experience is, while these tools are useful for creating MVPs with better UIs than before, a lot of work still needs to be done to scale the applications and systems you are building. Therefore, there is still probably as many developers or more working within organisations and not much have changed in terms of the quality of work being produced.

Re: If AI is helping people code better, why aren't products getting better?

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT came out in late 2022 so it has been almost 2 years since the "AI is going to change everything" wave started. Looking at myself and my coworkers I don't feel there has been an uptick in developer output in that time. We all have copilot licenses as well, I don't use mine but pair with people who do and it seems cool but not for much more beyond advanced autofill. My big concern with all this stuff is it is p…

I haven't tried copilot yet. I have tried Claude 3.5, which is unexpectedly brilliant. I use it very regularly. But almost entirely useful for writing new code, not fixing old code. I take your point with respect to understanding large existing codebases. AIs don't yet seem to deal well with strategic large-context thinking. But things are changing at such a furious pace, so that may change sometime much sooner than…

Co-Pilot is, surprisingly, a great competitor [in certain situations]. Imo
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