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The Post-Developer Era
21–30 of 71 posts
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#22This "AGI" definition is extremely loose depending on who you talk to. Ask "what does AGI mean to you" and sometimes the answer is:
1. Millions of layoffs across industries due to AI with some form of questionable UBI (not sure if this works)
2. 100BN in profits. (Microsoft / OpenAI definition)
3. Abundance in slopware. (VC's definition)
4. Raise more money to reach AGI / ASI.
5. Any job that a human can do which is economically significant.
6. Safe AI (Researchers definition).
7. All the above that AI could possibly do better.
I am sure there must be a industry aligned and concrete definition that everyone can agree on rather the goal post moving definitions.
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#23Big part of coding is understanding the code and making decisions on what needs to be added/removed/changed. LLMs can code, even if they generate perfect code every single time, someone still needs to read the code and make decisions. Others speak about understanding business logic, interfacing with clients and stakeholders,etc... I get that, but even without that, someone will always need to decide how things should be done, improved,etc.. LLMs are not going to benchmark your code and they will never understand the developer/client's intent perfectly.
Why are LLMs in these context being viewed as more than really powerful auto-complete/intellisense? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't LLMs still years away from auto-generating a complete complex codebase that works without fixing a lot of bugs/assumptions?
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#24After some experience, starting to use a new programming language is not such a big challenge. Mastering the new language eco system is. AI might help you generate new code faster, but feel like crunching code has not been so much of an issue. Bigger picture system design, something that scales and is maintainable is the challenge.
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#25There used to be a job of a "Typist". Now everyone does their own typing. In the near future we'll probably see a lot more subject matter experts creating their own tools instead of requiring a dedicated person to translate their requirements.
I'm not sure subject matter experts will still be a thing. I worry that we'll just see expectations gradually lower to the point where kinda shitty is the baseline, and we just trust or accommodate the machine for everything.
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily. Should the market action bump up a company PE very high (hello, Costco at PE 53 today) that's not a reason to splurge on projects. On the contrary, many shareholders would expect the company to behave responsibly, save cash, pause share buybacks and build up war chest for leaner times, where buying a competitor could be way cheaper. My 2c.
If the PE ratio is high enough, the company can raise money by simply issuing more shares. Giving the company a money-printer is the whole point of the stock market. That's what makes you an investor -- you're offering the company the value of your shares by exposing yourself to "inflation" whenever the company needs to raise some money.
On paper. In reality, issuing shares (or debt) takes time and is a complex process, a mere sign of which can dampen share prices.
> That's what makes you an investor -- you're offering the company the value of your shares by exposing yourself to "inflation" whenever the company needs to raise some money.
I beg to differ. What makes me an investor is buying a share of future company profits, directly via dividends or indirectly via a future sale of shares. Many of the companies I invested in over the last 30 years were (over time) reducing share counts via buybacks, not issuing shares like candy.
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#27I think the crux of this post is spot-on: we’re nowhere near a “post-developer” era. LLMs are great accelerators, but they still need a competent human in the loop.
That said, I do think he understates how much the value of certain developer skills is shifting. For example, pixel-perfect CSS or esoteric algorithmic showmanship used to signal craftsmanship — now they’re rapidly becoming commoditized. With today’s tools, I’d rather paste a screenshot into an LLM and tweak the output than spend hours on handcrafted layouts for a single corporate device.
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#28Big part of coding is understanding the code and making decisions on what needs to be added/removed/changed. LLMs can code, even if they generate perfect code every single time, someone still needs to read the code and make decisions. Others speak about understanding business logic, interfacing with clients and stakeholders,etc... I get that, but even without that, someone will always need to decide how things should…
> LLMs are not going to benchmark your code
If I may focus on this particular line without invalidating the rest of the content -- why aren't they going to benchmark the code?
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#29Funny how a foreign country got America to compromise on its core value of free speech that we used to lecture Europeans on.
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#30The other day I was reviewing the work of a peer on a relatively easy task (using a SDK to manage some remote resources given a static configuration). At several times I was like « why did you do that this way? This is so contrived ». And I should have known better but of course the answer started with « … I know but Copilot did this or that… ». Of course no test to validate properly the implementation. The sentiment…
Its actually amazing news, worse software quality means more oportunities for hackers and better tools