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The future of software development is software developers

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Re: The future of software development is software developers

#141

Post by stackghost »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #88
63stack wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like shilling/advertisement.. Coding AIs are struggling for anything remotely complex, make up crap and present it as research, write tests that are just "return true", and won't ever question a decision you make. Those twenty engineers must not have produced much.

I think part of what is happening here is that different developers on HN have very different jobs and skill levels. If you are just writing a large volume of code over and over again to do the same sort of things, then LLMs probably could take your job. A lot of people have joined the industry over time, and it seems like the intelligence bar moved lower and lower over time, particularly for people churning out larg…

Absolutely this, and TFA touches on the point about natural language being insufficiently precise:

AI can write you an entire CRUD app in minutes, and with some back-and-forth you can have an actually-good CRUD app in a few hours.

But AI is not very good (anecdotally, based on my experience) at writing fintech-type code. It's also not very good at writing intricate security stuff like heap overflows. I've never tried, but would certainly never trust it to write cryptography correctly, based on my experience with the latter two topics.

All of the above is "coding", but AI is only good at a subset of it.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#142

Post by hansmayer »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #112
hansmayer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 - I wish at least one of these AI boosters had shown us a real commercialised product they've built.

Are you joking? You realize entire companies and startups are littered with ppl who only use AI.

> littered with ppl who only use AI

"Littered" is a great verb to use here. Also I did not ask for a deviated proxy non-measure, like how many people who are choking themselves to death in a meaningless bullshit job are now surviving by having LLMs generate their spreadsheets and presentations. I asked for solid proof of succesful, commercial products built up by dreaming them up through LLMs.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#143

Post by pjmlp »

As someone having watched AI systems being good enough to replace jobs like content creation on CMS, this is being in denial.

Yes software developer are still going to be need, except much fewer of us, exactly like fully automated factories still need a few humans around, to control and build the factory in first place.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#144

Post by photios »

63stack wrote: post #19
mohsen1 wrote: post #3

I really really want this to be true. I want to be relevant. I don’t know what to do if all those predictions are true and there is no need (or very little need) for programmers anymore. But something tells me “this time is different” is different this time for real. Coding AIs design software better than me, review code better than me, find hard-to-find bugs better than me, plan long-running projects better than me,…

This reads like shilling/advertisement.. Coding AIs are struggling for anything remotely complex, make up crap and present it as research, write tests that are just "return true", and won't ever question a decision you make. Those twenty engineers must not have produced much.

Ok, let's say the 20 devs claim is false [1]. What if it's 2? I'd still learn and use the tech. Wouldn't you?

[1] I actually think it might be true for certain kinds of jobs.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#145

Post by bryanrasmussen »

charcircuit wrote: post #140
pfannkuchen wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of what is happening here is that different developers on HN have very different jobs and skill levels. If you are just writing a large volume of code over and over again to do the same sort of things, then LLMs probably could take your job. A lot of people have joined the industry over time, and it seems like the intelligence bar moved lower and lower over time, particularly for people churning out larg…

>at least in the sense that your abstractions are novel and the shape of the abstraction set is different from the standard things that exist People shouldn't be doing this in the first place. Existing abstractions are sufficient for building any software you want.

I'm supposing that nobody who has a job is producing abstractions that are always novel, but there may be people who find abstractions that are novel for their particular field because it is something most people in that field are not familiar with, or that come up with novel abstractions (infrequently) that improve on existing ones.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#146

Post by baq »

hansmayer wrote: post #138
threethirtytwo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you wrote here was relevant about 9 months ago. It’s now outdated. The pace and velocity of improvement of Ai can only be described as violent. It is so fast that there are many people like you who don’t get it.

Yeah, sure buddy :)

Disrespect the trend line and get rolled over by the steamroller. Labs are cooking and what is available commercially is lobotomized for safety and alignment. If your baseline of current max capability is sonnet 4.5 released just this summer you’re going to be very surprised in the next few months.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#147

Post by bigstrat2003 »

mohsen1 wrote: post #3

I really really want this to be true. I want to be relevant. I don’t know what to do if all those predictions are true and there is no need (or very little need) for programmers anymore. But something tells me “this time is different” is different this time for real. Coding AIs design software better than me, review code better than me, find hard-to-find bugs better than me, plan long-running projects better than me,…

> Coding AIs design software better than me, review code better than me, find hard-to-find bugs better than me, plan long-running projects better than me, make decisions based on research, literature, and also the state of our projects better than me.

That is just not true, assuming you have a modicum of competence (which I assume you do). AIs suck at all these tasks; they are not even as good as an inexperienced human.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#148

Post by BirdieNZ »

photios wrote: post #144
63stack wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like shilling/advertisement.. Coding AIs are struggling for anything remotely complex, make up crap and present it as research, write tests that are just "return true", and won't ever question a decision you make. Those twenty engineers must not have produced much.

Ok, let's say the 20 devs claim is false [1]. What if it's 2? I'd still learn and use the tech. Wouldn't you? [1] I actually think it might be true for certain kinds of jobs.

Jevon's Paradox: more software will be produced, rather than fewer software engineers being employed.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#149

Post by matthewmacleod »

hansmayer wrote: post #136
wiseowise wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you've never programmed but can now scaffold a React application and basic backend in a couple of hours? Ahaha, weren’t you the guy who wrote an opus about planes? Is this your baseline for “stuff where LLMs break and real engineering comes into the room”? There’s a harsh wake up call for you around the corner.

What wake up call mate? I've been on board as early adopter with GH Copilot closed beta since 2021, it was around time when you did not even hear about the LLMs. I am just being realistic about the limits of the technology. In the 90s, we did not need to convince people about the Internet. It just worked. Also - what opus? Have the LLMs affected your attention span so much, that you consider what typically an primary…

I expect it’s your “I’m an expert and everyone else is merely an idiot child” attitude that’s probably making it hard to take you seriously.

And don’t get me wrong - I totally understand this personality. There are a similar few I’ve worked with recently who are broadly quite skeptical of what seems to be an obvious fact to me - their roles will need to change and their skillsets will have to develop to take advantage of this new technology.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#150

Post by bloppe »

EagnaIonat wrote: post #92

I read a book called "Blood in the machine". It's the history of the Luddites. It really put everything into perspective to where we are now. Pre-industrial revolution whole towns and families built clothing and had techniques to make quality clothes. When the machines came out it wasn't overnight but it wiped out nearly all cottage industries. The clothing it made wasn't to the same level of quality, but you could c…

Luddism arose in response to weaving machines, not garment-making machines. The machines could weave a piece of cloth that still had to be cut and sewn by hand into a garment. Weaving the cloth was by far the most time consuming part of making the clothing.

Writing code is not at all the most time consuming part of software development.

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