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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

#371

Post by boredtofears »

baq wrote: post #346
dent9 wrote: 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.

These anecdotes feel so worthless. I notice almost no difference between the two and get generally high quality results from either. This is also a worthless anecdote. I'm guessing what kind of codebase you are working in matters a lot as well as the tasks you're giving it.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#372

Post by dilly-dally »

The more articles written like this only reflect the inevitable. This is not an era of slow progress which may have supported the authors opinion. This era is a rapid replacement of what was once dominated by masters of one who edged out others and arrogantly tried to hold onto their perceived positions of all knowing. There will always be those types unfortunately, but when the masters of one realize theyve wasted time stalling the inevitable, instead of accepting and guiding the path forward and opening the door to a broader audience, you will see a lot more articles like this which are a clear signal to many of us that theyre simply doing and saying too much trying to hold on to their perceived worth.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#373

Post by sevensor »

dw_arthur wrote: post #361
sevensor wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sure, if writing code is applied math, deciding what needs to be written is applied philosophy. I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit for applied philosophy.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#374

Post by bloppe »

EagnaIonat wrote: post #324
bloppe wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Luddism arose in response to weaving machines, not garment-making machines. It started there, yes. > Writing code is not at all the most time consuming part of software development. The current Vibe coding systems can do the full pipeline.

> The current Vibe coding systems can do the full pipeline.

For small and relatively simple projects, sure. In codebases that are either large, complex, or fairly novel, I've been consistently disappointed by the hands-off approach.

There are plenty of small, relatively simple projects out there. Lots of websites and cookie cutter apps to make. But that's never been the stuff I wanted to work on anyway.

I use Claude code constantly, but it's not nearly as reliable as any of the colleagues I've worked with.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#375

Post by baq »

elktown wrote: post #332
baq wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should drop the prejudice and focus to be aware of the situation. This is happening all over the world, most people who have crossed this bridge just don’t share, just like they don’t share that they’ve brushed their teeth this morning.

I think I'll keep defaulting to critical thinking rather than some kinda pseudo-religious "crossing the bridge" talk.

Just a metaphore - used to code by hand, now he doesn't, but still produces software. Keep religion out of this.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#376

Post by __float »

JeremyNT wrote: post #367
solaire_oa wrote: post #356

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.

You're counting the cost of running the model, but what about training it? You can't count the compute and data costs at $0.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#377

Post by elktown »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #369
elktown wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because, among other claims, "5x now or you're fired!" is completely ridiculous.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#378

Post by harrisreynolds »

I think "The Bitter Lesson" is relevant here [1].

This wave IS different.

It isn't a matter of "if" but "when".

I am a long-time software developer too... but I am strongly encouraging people to embrace the future now and get creative in finding ways to adapt.

There will always be demand for smart and creative people. BUT ... if you don't look up and look around you right now at some point you will be irrelevant.

Also see Ray Dalio's "Principles" book on embracing reality. A critical principle in the modern age of AI.

Nothing but love for my fellow developers!!

[1] http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#379

Post by yakattak »

theshrike79 wrote: post #340
jader201 wrote: post #320

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…

Also 5: "But LLMs produce a bunch of code I need to read and review". Yes, but so do your coworkers? Do you complain about every PR you need to read? Are they all compressed diamonds of pure genious, not a single missed character or unoptimised function? Not a bad or suboptimal decision in sight? If so, shoot me a mail, I want to work where you're working =)

My coworkers do sure. But I don’t have to completely reread what I wrote to grok it. That’s the issue.

You either prompt and read the code it wrote to understand it before making a PR, or you prompt and drop the PR for your team. The latter is disrespectful.

This has been my biggest hurdle so far. Sure the models do great at writing code, find things faster than I would. But time wise I still have to read what it wrote, in depth.

ETA: I also implicitly trust my coworkers. This trust has been built over years. I don’t trust LLM generated code the same way.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#380

Post by kenforthewin »

solaire_oa wrote: post #356

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 find the cost discussion to be exceedingly more tedious. This would be a more compelling line of thinking if we didn't have highly effective open-weight models like qwen3-coder, glm 4.7 etc. which allow us to directly measure the cost of running inference with large models without confounding factors like VC money. Regardless of the cost of training, the models that exist right now are cheap and effective enough to push the conversation right back to "quibbling about the exact degree of utility LLMs provide".
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