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Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

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Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#11

Post by afiodorov »

Even without LLMs, we were approaching a point of saturation where software development was bottlenecked by market demand and funding, not by a shortage of code. Our tooling has become so powerful that the pure act of programming is secondary.

It's a world away from when the industry began. There's a great story from Bill Gates about a time when his ability to simply write code was an incredibly scarce resource. A company was so desperate for programmers that they hired him and Paul Allen as teenagers:

  "So, they were paying penalties... they said, 'We don’t care [that they are kids].' You know, so I go down there. You know, I’m like 16, but I look about 13. They hire us. They pay us. It’s a really amazing project... they got a kick out of how quickly I could write code."
That story is a powerful reminder of how much has changed. Writing code was the bottleneck years ago. However the core problem has shifted from "How do we build it?" to "What should we build and is there a business for it?"

Source: https://youtu.be/H1PgccykclM?si=YuIFsUcWc6sHRkAg

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#12

Post by mgaunard »

Right, we all know this. LLMs write a lot of bad code that cannot be realistically reviewed.

I've even had code submitted to me by juniors which didn't make any sense. When I ask them why they did that, they say they don't know, the LLM did it.

What this new trend is doing is generating a lot of noise and overhead on maintenance. The only way forward, if embracing LLMs, is to use LLMs also for the reviewing and maintenance, which obviously will lead to messy spaghetti, but you now have the tools to manage that.

But the important realization is that for most businesses, quality doesn't really matter. Throwaway LLM code is good enough, and when it isn't you can just add more LLM on top until it does what you think you need.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#13

Post by gwervc »

IshKebab wrote: post #6

Was anyone claiming it is the bottleneck? Seems like a straw man.

A few weeks ago people were discussing here how their typing speed was making them code faster. On the other hand I haven't been limited by writing code, the linked article match my professional experience.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#14

Post by CerebralCerb »

gabrielso wrote: post #8

The article misses the point that LLMs are not removing the bottleneck of writing code for people who know how to write code . It's removing this bottleneck for everyone else.

I have yet to see anyone who previously could not write code be able to do so, beyond simple scripts, with LLM's.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#15

Post by mgaunard »

smoothdev-bp wrote: post #7

I dont think the authors comments are without merit. My experience has shown me issues are usually more upfront and after the fact. Either the bottleneck between product organizations and engineering on getting decent requirements to know what to build and engineering teams being unwilling to start until they have every I dotted and T crossed. The backend of the problem is that already most of the code e see written…

In my experience the difficulty in building good software is having a good vision of what the end result should look like and how to get there.

If the developer is not savvy about the business case, he cannot have that vision, and all he can do is implement requirements as described by the business, which itself doesn't sufficiently understand technology to build the right path.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#17

Post by OtherShrezzing »

afiodorov wrote: post #11

Even without LLMs, we were approaching a point of saturation where software development was bottlenecked by market demand and funding, not by a shortage of code. Our tooling has become so powerful that the pure act of programming is secondary. It's a world away from when the industry began. There's a great story from Bill Gates about a time when his ability to simply write code was an incredibly scarce resource. A co…

>Even without LLMs, we were approaching a point of saturation where software development was bottlenecked by market demand and funding, not by a shortage of code

I think it's credible to say that it was just market demand. Marc Andreessen's main complaint before the AI boom was that "there is more capital available than there are good ideas to fund". Personally, I think that's out of touch with reality, but he's the guy with all the money and none of the ideas, so he's a credible fist-hand source.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#19

Post by gabrielso »

CerebralCerb wrote: post #14
gabrielso wrote: post #8

The article misses the point that LLMs are not removing the bottleneck of writing code for people who know how to write code . It's removing this bottleneck for everyone else.

I have yet to see anyone who previously could not write code be able to do so, beyond simple scripts, with LLM's.

In my experience, non-coders with LLMs can go beyond simple scripts and build non-trivial small applications nowadays, but the difference of outcomes between them and a competent coder with LLMs is still staggering.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#20

Post by afiodorov »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #17
afiodorov wrote: post #11

Even without LLMs, we were approaching a point of saturation where software development was bottlenecked by market demand and funding, not by a shortage of code. Our tooling has become so powerful that the pure act of programming is secondary. It's a world away from when the industry began. There's a great story from Bill Gates about a time when his ability to simply write code was an incredibly scarce resource. A co…

>Even without LLMs, we were approaching a point of saturation where software development was bottlenecked by market demand and funding, not by a shortage of code I think it's credible to say that it was just market demand. Marc Andreessen's main complaint before the AI boom was that "there is more capital available than there are good ideas to fund". Personally, I think that's out of touch with reality, but he's the…

I think the "more capital than ideas" problem is highly contextual and largely a Silicon Valley-centric view.

There is immense, unmet demand for good software in developing countries—for example, robust applications that work well on underpowered phones and low-bandwidth networks across Africa or Southeast Asia. These are real problems waiting for well-executed ideas.

The issue isn't a lack of good ideas, but a VC ecosystem that throws capital at ideas of dubious utility for saturated markets, while overlooking tangible, global needs because they don't fit a specific hyper-growth model.

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