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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

#181

Post by monsieurbanana »

ryandrake wrote: post #133
IshKebab wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> different developers on HN have very different jobs and skill levels. Definitely this. When I use AIs for web development they do an ok job most of the time. Definitely on par with a junior dev. For anything outside of that they're still pretty bad. Not useless by any stretch, but it's still a fantasy to think you could replace even a good junior dev with AI in most domains. I am slightly worried for my job... but…

Yea, LLMs produce results on par with what I would expect out of a solid junior developer. They take direction, their models act as the “do the research” part, and they output lots of code: code that has to be carefully scrutinized and refined. They are like very ambitious interns who never get tired and want to please, but often just produce crap that has to be totally redone or refactored heavily in order to go int…

> LLMs produce results on par with what I would expect out of a solid junior developer

This is a common take but it hasn't been my experience. LLMs produce results that vary from expert all the way to slightly better than markov chains. The average result might be equal to a junior developer, and the worst case doesn't happen that often, but the fact that it happens from time to time makes it completely unreliable for a lot of tasks.

Junior developers are much more consistent. Sure, you will find the occasional developer that would delete the test file rather than fixing the tests, but either they will learn their lesson after seeing your wth face or you can fire them. Can't do that with llms.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#182

Post by 1718627440 »

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…

> If you are just writing a large volume of code over and over again

But why would you do that? Wouldn't you just have your own library of code eventually that you just sell and sell again with little tweaks? Same money for far less work.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#183

Post by [deleted] »

leptons wrote: post #160
threethirtytwo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m an expert in what I do. A professional, and few people can do what I do. I have to say you are wrong. AI is changing the game. What you’ve written here might’ve been more relevant about 9 months ago, but everything has changed.

This is a typical no-proof "AI"-boosting response, and from an account created only 35 days ago.

[deleted]

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#184

Post by llmslave2 »

user34283 wrote: post #171
hansmayer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said "planted", that is your own assumption, albeit a wrong one. I do respect it though, as it is at least a product of a human mind. But you don't have to be "planted" to champion an idea, you are clearly championing it out of some kind of conviction, many seem to do. I was just giving you a bit of reality check. If you want to show me how to "guess where things are heading" / I am actually one of the early…

How would you know whether he is an expert on the topic of software engineering or not? For all I know, he is more competent than you; he figured out how to utilize Claude Code in a productive way, which is a point for him. I'd have to guess whether you are an expert working on software not well suited for AI, or just average with a stubborn attitude towards AI and potentially not having tried the latest generation o…

> How would you know whether he is an expert on the topic of software engineering or not?

Because of their views on the effectiveness of AI agents for generating code.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#185

Post by llmslave2 »

stackghost wrote: post #141
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…

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…

> and with some back-and-forth you can have an actually-good CRUD app in a few hours

Perhaps the debate is on what constitutes "actually-good". Depends where the bar is I suppose.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#186

Post by frankie_t »

Just like the pro-AI articles, it reads to me like a sales pitch. And the ending only adds to it: the author invites to hire companies to contract him for training.

I would only be happy if in the end the author turns out to be right.

But as the things stand right now, I can see a significant boost to my own productivity, which leads me to believe that fewer people are going to be needed.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#187

Post by ChicagoDave »

Here’s how I see it. Writing code or building software well requires knowledge of logic, data structures, reliable messaging, and separation of concerns.

You can learn a foreign language just fine, but if you mangle the pronunciation, no one will talk to you. Same thing with hacking at software without understanding the above elements. Your software will be mangled and no one will use it.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#189

Post by chii »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #187

Here’s how I see it. Writing code or building software well requires knowledge of logic, data structures, reliable messaging, and separation of concerns. You can learn a foreign language just fine, but if you mangle the pronunciation, no one will talk to you. Same thing with hacking at software without understanding the above elements. Your software will be mangled and no one will use it.

> Your software will be mangled

the quality of how maintainable the source code is has no bearing on how a user perceives the software's usefulness.

If the software serves a good function for the user, they will use it, regardless of how badly the datastructures are. Of course, good function also means reliability from the POV of the user. If your software is so bad that you lose data, obviously no one will use it.

But you are conflating the maintainability and sensibilities of clean tools, clean code and clean workspaces, with output.

A messy carpentry workshop can still produce great furniture.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#190

Post by llmslave2 »

baq wrote: post #146
hansmayer wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't understand this idea that non-believers will be "steamrolled" by those who are currently adopting AI into their workflows. If their claims are validated and the new AI workflows end up achieving that claimed 10x productivity speedup, or even a 2x speedup, nobody is cursed to be steamrolled - they'll simply adopt those same workflows same as everyone else. In the meantime they aren't wasting their time trying to figure out the best way to coax and beg the LLM's into better performance.
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