The future of software development is software developers • Hacker News Board

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#271

Post by jvanderbot » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:29 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #265

monsieurbanana wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in that these discussions (this whole hn thread tbh) are seriously lacking in concrete examples to be more than holy wars 3.0. Besides one point: junior developers can learn from their egregious mistakes, llms can't no matter how strongly worded you are in their system prompt. In a functional work environment, you will build trust with your coworkers little by little. The pale equivalent in LLMs is improving…

> Besides one point: junior developers can learn from their egregious mistakes, llms can't no matter how strongly worded you are in their system prompt. I think if you set off an LLM to do something, and it does a "egregious mistake" in the implementation, and then you adjust the system prompt to explicitly guard against that or go towards a different implementation and you restart from scratch again yet it does the…

And honestly this is precisely why I don't fear unemployment, but I do fear less employment overall. I can learn and get better and use LLMs as a tool. So there's still a "me" there steering. Eventually this might not be the case. But if automating things has taught me anything, it's that removing the person is usually such a long tail cost that it's cheaper to keep someone in the loop.

But is this like steel production or piloting (few highly trained experts are in the loop) or more like warehouse work (lots of automation removed any skills like driving or inventory work etc).

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#272

Post by molteanu » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:35 PM UTC

trashb wrote: post #217

john61 wrote: post #124

It is just the Eliza effect on a massive scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect Reading Weizenbaum today is eye opening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Power_and_Human_Reaso...

I agree the ELIZA effect is strong, additionally I think it is some kind of natural selection. I feel like LLM's are specifically selected to impress people that have a lot of influence. People like investors and CEO's. Because a "AI" that does not impress this section of the population does not get adopted widely. This is one of the reasons I think AI will never really be an expert as it does not need to be. It only…

I got this wild idea a short while ago and your comment helped cement it: probably one of the reasons why languages like Lisp are not "successful" has something to do with the impressability factor? If the people with money (and the decision) do not understand the tech or are not able to even fake that understanding, will they bet their money on it?

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#273

Post by mrwrong » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:39 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #250

snickerer wrote: post #198

After working with agent-LLMs for some years now, I can confirm that they are completely useless for real programming. They never helped me solve complex problems with low-level libraries. They can not find nontrivial bugs. They don't get the logic of interwoven layers of abstractions. LLMs pretend to do this with big confidence and fail miserably. For every problem I need to turn my brain to ON MODE and wake up, the…

> After working with agent-LLMs for some years now, I can confirm that they are completely useless for real programming. "completely useless" and "real programming" are load bearing here. Without a definition to agree on for those terms, it's really hard not to read that as you're trying to troll us by making a controversial unprovable claim that you know will get people that disagree with you riled up. What's especi…

agreed. we should instead be sneering at the AI critics because "you're holding it wrong"

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#274

Post by mrwrong » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

embedding-shape wrote: post #202

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hum…

For all we know, you both could comparing using a Nokia 3310 and a workstation PC based on the hardware, but you both just say "this computer is better than that computer". There are a ton of models out there, ran in a ton of different ways, that can be used in different ways with different harnesses, and people use different workflows. There is just so many variables involved, that I don't think it's neither fair no…

> The variance is great

this strikes me as a very important thing to reflect on. when the automobile was invented, was the apparent benefit so incredibly variable?

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#275

Post by mrwrong » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:43 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #256

gentooflux wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it empirically works, then sure. If instead every single solution it provides beyond a few trivial lines falls somewhere between "just a little bit off" and "relies entirely on core library functionality that doesn't actually exist" then I'd say it does matter and it's only slightly better than an opaque box that spouts random nonsense (which will soon include ads).

Those are 2024-era criticisms of LLMs for code. Late 2025 models very rarely hallucinate nonexistent core library functionality - and they run inside coding agent harnesses so if they DO they notice that the code doesn't work and fix it.

get ready to tick those numbers over to 2026!

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#276

Post by nevercat » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:43 PM UTC

laszlojamf wrote: post #153

The way I see it, the problem with LLMs is the same as with self-driving cars: trust. You can ask an LLM to implement a feature, but unless you're pretty technical yourself, how will you know that it actually did what you wanted? How will you know that it didn't catastrophically misunderstand what you wanted, making something that works for your manual test cases, but then doesn't generalize to what you _actually_ wa…

The self driving car analogy is a good one, because what happens when you trust the car enough to do most of your driving but it suddenly thrusts the controls upon you when it shits the bed and can't figure out what to do? You suddenly realise you've become a very rusty driver in a moment that requires fast recall of skill, but your car is already careening off a cliff while you have this realisation.

[The "children of the magenta line"](https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/sp/2015/05/msp2015050...) is a god explanation of this, and is partly why I often dissuade junior devs from pretty user friendly using tools that abstract away the logic beneath them.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#277

Post by mrwrong » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:44 PM UTC

foxygen wrote: post #46

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,…

I think I've been using AI wrong. I can't understand testimonies like this. Most times I try to use AI for a task, it is a shitshow, and I have to rewrite everything anyway.

have you tried using $NEWEST_MODEL ?

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#278

Post by threethirtytwo » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:52 PM UTC

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.

Right I’m a bot made to promote AI like half the people on this thread.

I don’t know if you noticed a difference from other hype cycles but other ones were speculative. This one is also speculative but the greater divide is that the literal on the ground usefulness of AI is ALREADY going to change the world.

The speculation is that the AI will get better and will no longer need hand holding.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#279

Post by threethirtytwo » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 1:55 PM UTC

skydhash wrote: post #258

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.

> I’m an expert in what I do. A professional, and few people can do what I do Are you an astronaut?

Obviously not troll, I know I’m bragging. But I have to emphasize that it is not some stupid oh “only domain experts know AI is shit. Everyone else is too stupid to understand how bad it is” That is patently wrong.

Few people can do what I do and as a result I likely make more money than you. But now with AI… everyone can do what I do. It has leveled the playing field… what I was before now matters fuck all. Understand?

I still make money right now. But that’s unlikely to last very long. I fully expect it to disappear within the next decade.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#280

Post by spicyusername » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 2:01 PM UTC

snickerer wrote: post #198

After working with agent-LLMs for some years now, I can confirm that they are completely useless for real programming. They never helped me solve complex problems with low-level libraries. They can not find nontrivial bugs. They don't get the logic of interwoven layers of abstractions. LLMs pretend to do this with big confidence and fail miserably. For every problem I need to turn my brain to ON MODE and wake up, the…

    I can confirm that they are completely useless for real programming

And I can confirm, with similar years of experience, that they are not useless.

Absolutely incredible tools that have saved hours and hours helping me understand large codebases, brainstorm features, and point out gaps in my implementation or understanding.

I think the main disconnect in the discourse is that there are those pretending they can reliably just write all the software, when anyone using them regularly can clearly see they cannot.

But that doesn't mean they aren't extremely valuable tools in an engineer's arsenal.