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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

#361

I feel like the comments/articles that continue to point out how LLMs cannot solve complex problems are missing a few important points: 1. LLMs are only getting better from here. With each release, we continue to see improvements in their capabilities. And strong competition is driving this innovation, and will probably not stop anytime soon. Much of the world is focused on this right now, and therefore much of the w…

> Our careers depend on LLMs not being able to solve complex problems so that we don’t risk/fear losing our careers I think both this sentiment and the article are on the same wrong track, which is to see programming as solving well defined problems. The way I see it, the job is mostly about taking ill defined needs and turning them into well defined problems. The rest is just writing code. From this perspective, whe…

Sounds like philosophers will be the new programmers if playing around with language and definitions is all that will be left.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#362

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. > 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.

This was how I felt until about 18 months ago.

Can you give a single, precise example where modern day LLMs fail as woefully as you describe?

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#363

As much as my first gut reaction to this article was to be excited about its conclusion, I can’t say my experience matches up. Are LLMs perfect? Absolutely not, but I can point to many examples in my own work where using Codex has saved me easily a week or more—especially when it comes to tedious refactors. I don’t agree with the conclusion; the real-world improvement and progress I’ve seen in the last year in the pr…

> but I can point to many examples in my own work where using Codex has saved me easily a week or more Care to share a few of these examples?

Sure thing. I work on a few projects for my company. The main one is an Android and iOS audiobook-media-player app. I had to update the Android side to use the Google Media3 library instead of the legacy ExoPlayer library. In a typical app this would be pretty straightforward, but we’ve mixed in a lot of custom elements that made the transition quite challenging. I actually attempted it manually back in the day and probably spent three or four days on it, but I simply didn’t have time to finish, so I shelved it. A few months ago I tried again in Codex; within two prompts it was done flawlessly and starting from the beginning.

Another example: I also maintain the back-end API for these apps. There was a lot of old utility code that was messy, unorganized, and frankly gross. I had Codex completely reorganize the code into a sensible folder structure and strip out any functions that weren’t being used anymore—something like 300-plus functions. Doing that by hand would easily have taken a day or more

I could go on, but those were the two initial “aha” moments that showed me how powerful this tool can be when it’s used for the right tasks.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#365
post #346
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Codex and Claude Sonnet for many months now for personal (Codex) and work (Sonnet) and I agree. Three months ago these tools were highly usable, now with Codex 5.2 and Sonnet 4.5 I think we're at the point where you can confidently rely on them to analyze your repo codebase and solve, at the very least, small scoped problems and apply any required refactor back throughout the codebase. 6-12+ months ag…

Sonnet is dumb as a bag of bricks compared to Opus, perhaps you meant Opus? I never use sonnet for anything anymore, it’s either too verbose or just can’t handle tasks which Opus one shots.

I use the Copilot extension in VS Code, which links back to my enterprise GitHub account, where I have Claude Sonnet 4.5 available amongst other things. I'm not familiar with Opus. I just open the Copilot Chat window in my VS Code, configure it to use Sonnet 4.5, tell it what I need and it writes the responses and code for me. I'm not using it for large tasks. Most of my usage is "examine this codebase and tell me how to fix xyz problem" or "look at this source code file and show me the code to implement some feature, make sure to examine the entire codebase for insight into how it should be integrated with the rest of the project"

There's other more advanced coding AI tools but this has accomplished most all of my needs so far

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#366

Most people in this thread are quibbling about the exact degree of utility LLMs provide, which a tedious argument. What's more interesting to me is, per the article, the concern regarding everyone who is leaning into LLMs without realizing (or downplaying) the exorbitant, externalized cost. Our current LLM usage is being subsidized to the point of being free by outside investment. One day when the well runs dry, you…

I am sorry, but this kind of level-headed and realistic take is completely unacceptable on hackernews, and you should be ashamed of yourself. This is not a place for rational discussion when it comes to LLMs.

LLMs are amazing and they will change everything, and then everything will be changed.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#367

Most people in this thread are quibbling about the exact degree of utility LLMs provide, which a tedious argument. What's more interesting to me is, per the article, the concern regarding everyone who is leaning into LLMs without realizing (or downplaying) the exorbitant, externalized cost. Our current LLM usage is being subsidized to the point of being free by outside investment. One day when the well runs dry, you…

This is a good point but you can see the price "ceiling" by examining the prices for PCs that can effectively run local models. A DGX Spark is ~$4k (plus power) for example.

That's not nothing, but it's still not very much to pay compared to e.g. the cost of a FTE.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#368
post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares about semantics. Ultimately it all boils down to the money - show me the money. OAI have to show money and so do its customers from using this tool. But nope, the only thing out there where it matters is hype. Nobody is on an earnings call clearly showing how they had a numerical jump in operating efficiency. Until I see that, this technology has a dated shelf life and only those who already generate immens…

The "real programming" people are moving the goalposts of their no true scotsman fallacy so fast they're leaving Roadrunner style dust behind them. Yes, there are things LLMs can't do at all, some where they are actively dangerous. But also there are decently sized parts of "software development" where any above average LLM can speed up the process as long as whoever is using it knows hot to do so and doesn't fight t…

Who cares. Focus on what matters. OAI knows this considering they are dedicating a lot of their resources toward figuring out how to become profitable.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First examine your post. Can you create a 3D avatar with legs that can walk and talk? If not, then for this area you’ve been steam rolled. Anyway main point is, you’re looking at the hype headlines which are ludicrous. Where most optimists come from is that they are using it in the daily to code. To them it’s right in front of their eyes. I’m not sure what your experience is but my opinion on AI doesn’t come from spe…

I have a hard time trusting the judgement of someone writing this: > I no longer write code. I’ve been a swe for over a decade. AI writes all my code following my instructions. My code output is now expected to be 5x what it was before because we are now augmented by AI. All my coworkers use AI. We don’t use ChatGPT we use anthropic. If I didn’t use AI I would be fired for being too slow. https://news.ycombinator.com…

Explain to me why my judgement is flawed. What I’m saying is true.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#370

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

This is a bit of no-true-scottsman, no? For you "real programming" is "stuff LLMs are bad at," but a lot of us out in the real world are able to effectively extract code that meets the requirements of our day jobs from tossing natural language descriptions into LLMs.

I actually find the rise of LLM coding depressing and morally problematic (re copyright / ownership / license laundering), and on a personal level I feel a lot of nostalgia for the old ways, but I simply can't levy an "it's useless" argument against this stuff with any seriousness.

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