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Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

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Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#561

Post by netdevphoenix »

Maybe not 90% but everyone can see the signs in the horizon.

The tale goes like this: one day visual arts got commoditised to the point any given visual artwork could be obtained for virtually free digitally. This has been the case for centuries. The aural arts (see records of spoken poetry, podcasts, music) have been commoditised for a long time. Full commodisation might never been happen (ie you can still work in the field) but it is undeniable that it has had a massive impact in their respective fields. Getting a Picasso-like painting might not be quite possible but we are getting quite there, same with music.

The same is coming for devs.

Devving is still far away but it doesn't really take that much to produce a significant impact in the field. The percentage of devs who can be able to get late 10s salaries will be gradually diminishing over time. This is what early stage commodisation looks like.

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#562

Post by yakattak »

> The agentic coding tools have got extremely good at converting business logic specifications into pretty well written APIs and services.

I haven’t experienced this at all. They can do okay with greenfield services (as the author mentioned). However it’s often not “extremely good”. It’s usually “passable” at best. It doesn’t save me any time either. I have to read and audit every line and change it anyway.

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#563

Post by Covenant0028 »

an0malous wrote: post #13

Then why is all my software slower, buggier, and with a worse UX?

To reinforce that point: we've got the world's most prominent AI promoting company (MSFT), that has finally realized that Windows Explorer is too slow to start.

And this company, with all the formidable powers of AI behind them, can find no way to optimize that other than pre loading the app in memory. And that's for a app that's basically a GUI for `ls`

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#564

Post by KallDrexx »

r_lee wrote: post #507
tangotaylor wrote: post #498

> Engineers need to really lean in to the change in my opinion. I tried leaning in. I really tried. I'm not a web developer or game developer (more robotics, embedded systems). I tried vibe coding web apps and games. They were pretty boring. I got frustrated that I couldn't change little things. I remember getting frustrated that my game character kept getting stuck on imaginary walls and kept asking Cursor to fix it…

These posts like the one OP made is why I'm losing my mind. Like, is there truly an agentic way to go 10x or is there some catch? At this point while I'm not thrilled about the idea of just "vibe coding" all the time, I'm fine with facing reality. But I keep having the same experience as you, or rather leaning more on that supercharged Google/SO replacement or just a "can you quickly make this boring func here that d…

EVERY DX survey that comes out (surveying over 20k developers) says the exact same thing.

Staff engineers get the most time savings out of AI tools, and their weekly time savings is 4.4 hours for heavy AI users. That's a little more than 10% productivity, so not anywhere close to 10x.

What's more telling about the survey results is they are also consistent in their findings between heavy and light users of AI. Staff engineers who are heavy users of AI save 4.4 hours a week while staff engineers who are light users of AI save 3.3 hours a week. To put another way, the DX survey is pretty clear that the time savings between heavy and light AI users is minimal.

Yes surveys are all flawed in different ways but an N of 20k is nothing to sneeze at. Any study with data points shows that code generation is not a significant time savings and zero studies show significant time savings. All the productivity gains DX reports come from debugging and investigation/code base spelunking help.

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#565

Post by unregistereddev »

bonzini wrote: post #523
Jean-Papoulos wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite experience. Claude can't get it all in the context window and make changes that will completely break something on the other side of the program. Granted that's because the program is incredibly poorly written, but still, context window will stay a huge barrier for quite some time.

Yep. It can refactor very well but that's it. For complex code bases it cannot even build boilerplate that makes sense; at most it saves some typing.

> It can refactor very well but that's it.

Can it though? I thought it was most useful for writing new code, but have so far never had it correctly refactor existing code. Its refactoring attempts usually change behavior / logic, and sometimes even leave the code in a state where it's even harder to read.

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#566

Post by mrwrong »

IshKebab wrote: post #430
dimal wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually gone in the other direction. A year ago, I had that feeling, but since then I've gotten more certain that LLMs are never going to be able to handle complexity. And complexity is still the real problem of developing software. We keep getting more cool features in the tools, but I don't see any indication that the models are getting any better at understanding or managing complexity. They still make dumb…

Yeah but on the other hand there are plenty of human programmers that are bad at understanding complexity, make dumb mistakes, and write terrible code. Is there something fundamentally different about their brains to mine? I don't think so. They just aren't as good - not enough experience, or not enough neurons in the right places or whatever it is that makes some humans better at things than others. So maybe there i…

this whole analogy is so tired. "LLMs are stupid, but some humans are stupid too, therefore LLMs can be smart as well". let's put aside the obvious bad logic and think for one second about WHY some people are better than others at certain tasks. it is always because they have lots of practice and learned from their experiences. something LLM categorically cannot do

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#569

Post by mrwrong »

adriand wrote: post #541
mrwrong wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, I know this sounds ridiculous and over-the-top. in that case you should come with more data. tell us how you measured your productivity improvement. all you've said here is that it makes you feel good

Work that would have taken me 1-2 weeks to complete, I can now get done in 2-3 hours. That's not an exaggeration. I have another friend who is as all-in on this as me and he works in a company (I work for myself, as a solo contractor for clients), and he told me that he moved on to Q1 2026 projects because he'd completed all the work slated for 2025, weeks ahead of schedule. Meanwhile his colleagues are still wading…

this is just not a very interesting way to talk about technology. I'm glad it feels like a religious experience to you, I don't care about that. I care about reality

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#570

Post by digitalsushi »

r_lee wrote: post #507
tangotaylor wrote: post #498

> Engineers need to really lean in to the change in my opinion. I tried leaning in. I really tried. I'm not a web developer or game developer (more robotics, embedded systems). I tried vibe coding web apps and games. They were pretty boring. I got frustrated that I couldn't change little things. I remember getting frustrated that my game character kept getting stuck on imaginary walls and kept asking Cursor to fix it…

These posts like the one OP made is why I'm losing my mind. Like, is there truly an agentic way to go 10x or is there some catch? At this point while I'm not thrilled about the idea of just "vibe coding" all the time, I'm fine with facing reality. But I keep having the same experience as you, or rather leaning more on that supercharged Google/SO replacement or just a "can you quickly make this boring func here that d…

does anyone remember that episode of star trek tng where the kid is given a little laser engraver that carves a dolphin from a block of wood? and the kid is like "i didn't make this" and the teacher (who abducted him, ew) is like "yeah but it's what you wanted to make, the tool just guided you"

so in 2026 we're going to get in trouble doing code "the old way", the pleasurable way, the way an artist connects with the work. we're not to chefs any longer, we're a plumber now that pours food from a faucet.

we're annoyed because our output can suddenly be measured by the time unit. the jig is up. our secret clubhouse has a lightbulb the landlord controls.

some of us were already doing good work, saving money, making the right decisions. we'll be fine.

some of us don't know how to do those things - or won't do those things - and our options are funneled down. we're trashing at this, like dogs being led to the pound.

there's before, there's during, and there's after; the during is a thing we so seldom experience, and we're in it, and 2024 felt like nothing, 2025 feels like the struggle, and 2026 will be the reconciliation.

change sucks. but it's how we continue. we continue differently or we dont exist.

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