Nothing says it like this quote: “quickly discovered that readable syntax didn’t eliminate the complexity of logic, data structures, or system design”
The recurring dream of replacing developers
141–150 of 535 posts
Re: The recurring dream of replacing developers
#142Re: The recurring dream of replacing developers
#143[flagged]
> lowers the barrier to entry, way more people try to build things, and then those same people need actual developers when they hit the edges of what the tool can do
I was imagining companies expanding the features they wanted and was skeptical that would be close to enough, but this makes way more sense
Re: The recurring dream of replacing developers
#144Don't take it personal. All business want to reduce costs. As long as people cost money, they'll want to reduce people.
Some businesses want to reduce costs. Some want to tackle the challenge of using resources available in the most profitable manner, including making their employees grow to better contribute in tackling tomorrow's challenges. A business leader board that only consider people as costs are looking at the world through sociopath lenses.
This is just a layer of emotion on top of raw capitalism. And it will always prove to be a lie when push comes to shove.
Re: The recurring dream of replacing developers
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actual AI seems like a possibility here. Also the percentage of adults working has been dropping for a while. Retired used to be a tiny fraction of the population that’s no longer the case, people spend more time being educated or in prison etc. Overall people are seeing a higher standard of living while doing less work.
> Also the percentage of adults working has been dropping for a while. There are lots of negative reasons for this that aren’t efficiency. Aging demographics. Poor education. Increasing complexity leaves people behind.
Efficiency is why things continue to work as fewer people work. Social programs, bank account, etc are just an abstraction you need a surplus or the only thing that changes is who starves.
Re: The recurring dream of replacing developers
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Classic Jevons Paradox - when something gets cheaper the market for it grows. The unit cost shrinks but the number of units bought grows more than this shrinkage.
Of course that is true. The nuance here is that software isn’t just getting cheaper but the activity to build it is changing. Instead of writing lines of code you are writing requirements. That shifts who can do the job. The customer might be able to do it themselves. This removes a market, not grows one. I am not saying the market will collapse just be careful applying a blunt theory to such a profound technological…
> The customer might be able to do it themselves
Have you ever paid for software? I have, many times, for things I could build myself
Building it yourself as a business means you need to staff people, taking them away from other work. You need to maintain it.
Run even conservative numbers for it and you'll see it's pretty damn expensive if humans need to be involved. It's not the norm that that's going to be good ROI
No matter how good these tools get, they can't read your mind. It takes real work to get something production ready and polished out of them
Re: The recurring dream of replacing developers
#147Consider what happened to painters after the invention of photography (~1830s). At first the technology was very limited and no threat at all to portrait and landscape painters. By the 1860s artists were feeling the heat and responded by inventing all the "isms" - starting with impressionism. That's kept them employed so far, but who knows whether they'll be able to co-exist with whatever diffusion models become in 3…
But the 18th century artist who did portraits and wedding paintings is the today’s (wedding) photographer.
Does it take less money to commission a single wedding photo rather than a wedding painting? Yes. But many more people commission them and usually in tens to hundreds, together with videos, etc.
An 18th century wedding painter wasn’t in the business of paintings, but in the business of capturing memories and we do that today on much larger scale, more often and in a lot of different ways.
I’d also argue more landscape painters exist today than ever.
Re: The recurring dream of replacing developers
#148> We’re still in that same fundamental situation. We have better tools—vastly better tools—but the thinking remains essential. But less thinking is essential, or at least that’s what it’s like using the tools. I’ve been vibing code almost 100% of the time since Claude 4.5 Opus came out. I use it to review itself multiple times, and my team does the same, then we use AI to review each others’ code. Previously, we whit…
Those whiteboarding sessions and discussions used to serve as useful opportunities for context building. Where will that context be built within the cycle now? During a production incident?
Re: The recurring dream of replacing developers
#149Kind of off topic but this has got to be one of my least favorite CSS rules that I’ve seen in recent memory: .blog-entry p:first-letter { font-size: 1.2em; }
I love me a good drop cap, but you're right in that this example is not good.
Re: The recurring dream of replacing developers
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Popularity gets you nowhere though. What matters is money and money. Those 401k holders are tied down to the oligarchy.
Not imputing that to you, but it seems like they are people out there that believe money is all that matters. The map with the richest details won't save anyone in a territory that was turned into a wasteland unable to produce a single apple on the whole land.
Yes, but thats because Capitalism is mostly built of the idea of fungibility. So yeah, Americans have told themselves for over a century, whatever they need, just substitute money and you can get it eventually. All other things aside, that's a pretty toxic way if not downright psychotic, way to reframe your relationship with society and other people.