Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What's gonna happen to software engineers?

yakko.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 113 posts

Re: What's gonna happen to software engineers?

#61

Post by caspper69 »

ai_fry_ur_brain wrote: post #41
caspper69 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference, and I think we as an industry will have to reconcile this depending on how advanced llms get, is that you don’t see the quality in handmade code like you do in a high end watch or a luxury automobile or appliance. The veneer might be identical. It’s going to be tough to convince people that handmade software has added value or quality over slop. I still believe it does right now, but that might not al…

What're you talking about? I can instantly detect if software was created with AI. It has a stench much like a cheap product who's materials off gassing, and Im certainly not using it over the handmade solution. There will always be two options, like in clothes or watches.

Wow. At least I know who downvoted me.

Maybe you should take a step back and realize that sofware developers themselves are not the primary purchasers of most software. The average joe or jane purchaser doesn't have some magical AI slop detector, especially if the UI is well done.

Re: What's gonna happen to software engineers?

#62

Post by caspper69 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #23
caspper69 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference, and I think we as an industry will have to reconcile this depending on how advanced llms get, is that you don’t see the quality in handmade code like you do in a high end watch or a luxury automobile or appliance. The veneer might be identical. It’s going to be tough to convince people that handmade software has added value or quality over slop. I still believe it does right now, but that might not al…

> you don’t see the quality in handmade code like you do in a high end watch or a luxury automobile or appliance. But you can't see the "quality" in a high end watch either. They are inferior to low-end watches by every metric you can imagine.

Maybe not the actual quality, but if I put a $50k Rolex on the table and a $50 Timex, 98/100 people will choose the Rolex, right or wrong.

Re: What's gonna happen to software engineers?

#63

Post by Zoo3y »

>after writing all this, I think these categories are a lot more about "what got you into this" rather than what you actually end up doing in this space.

>Nevertheless, my point here was to show a few of the ideas and directions I've been considering, and I'm keen to hear from others what you're thinking about too.

I decided to study computer science in college as a hopeful 18 year old who wanted to learn how video games work and maybe work for a development studio. I needed to find a job right after college, and I ended up going the full stack route. 10 years later (now) I'm working remote, making decent salary, but never fulfilled my original purpose for studying computer science. What's gonna happen to this software engineer? Anecdotally, I'll ride my IT job as long as I can while using AI to learn about game development.

Re: What's gonna happen to software engineers?

#64

Post by dbetteridge »

Writing code by LLM feels like management, or tech leading a project.

It's tiring in a different way, but without the flow state or "high" of solving a particular problem in a clever or intuitive way.

Some days I enjoy shipping a change that would never have been greenlit for the sprint points it would have required, other days it's like herding cats and I'm tired with nothing to show for it.

Re: What's gonna happen to software engineers?

#65

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

gymbeaux wrote: post #51
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feelings right now can be described as follows: If AI progress stalls now or grinds to a halt, we get to keep a lot of new jobs that are going to show up (it opens a lot of doors), while maintaining software devs as an interesting career. Egoistically, I would love that. If it keeps going and software devs get replaced, so many jobs are going to disappear.

Even though the synthetic benchmarks paint a picture of LLMs coming a long way since 2022, my practical experience has been that they aren’t tangibly better. No doubt someone reading this will chime in and say LLMs are way better at writing code or whatever, and maybe that’s true, but there’s no difference between ChatGPT 3.5 and Claude Opus 4.8 as far as my trusting the output. Opus 4.8 still messes up plenty. It’s…

The difference for me has been that you can use llm as your main typing interface, you couldn't do that (without being annoying) before I think opus 4.5

Re: What's gonna happen to software engineers?

#66

Post by b65e8bee43c2ed0 »

seer wrote: post #39

I really liked reading through the Mars trilogy. It imagined a world where AI is used for fluent effortless translation - local languages get a renaissance since now you _dont_ need a lengua Franca, everyone just speaks what they like the most, and can understand everyone else. Much more “flavour” to human interaction. Also ai makes things just resource constrained, not labour - whatever you imagined, you could make…

>I really liked reading through the Mars trilogy. It imagined a world where AI is used for fluent effortless translation - local languages get a renaissance since now you _dont_ need a lengua Franca, everyone just speaks what they like the most, and can understand everyone else. Much more “flavour” to human interaction.

any multilingual person knows that's simply impossible. some things just don't translate, all the subtleties and much of the meaning are lost. even a galaxy-sized superintelligence made of computronium couldn't possibly translate even something as mundane "she sells seashells on the sea shore" into German without either substituting it for another tongue twister or providing a lengthy translator's note.

Re: What's gonna happen to software engineers?

#67

Post by whateveracct »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #65
gymbeaux wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though the synthetic benchmarks paint a picture of LLMs coming a long way since 2022, my practical experience has been that they aren’t tangibly better. No doubt someone reading this will chime in and say LLMs are way better at writing code or whatever, and maybe that’s true, but there’s no difference between ChatGPT 3.5 and Claude Opus 4.8 as far as my trusting the output. Opus 4.8 still messes up plenty. It’s…

The difference for me has been that you can use llm as your main typing interface, you couldn't do that (without being annoying) before I think opus 4.5

i've heard of principle level engineers saying their typing is bad now.

skill atrophy is real. especially for the stupid.

Re: What's gonna happen to software engineers?

#69

Post by thaumasiotes »

caspper69 wrote: post #62
thaumasiotes wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you don’t see the quality in handmade code like you do in a high end watch or a luxury automobile or appliance. But you can't see the "quality" in a high end watch either. They are inferior to low-end watches by every metric you can imagine.

Maybe not the actual quality, but if I put a $50k Rolex on the table and a $50 Timex, 98/100 people will choose the Rolex, right or wrong.

And if you put a $50k Rolex and a $20 Shmolex on the table?

Re: What's gonna happen to software engineers?

#70

Post by tacocataco »

seer wrote: post #39

I really liked reading through the Mars trilogy. It imagined a world where AI is used for fluent effortless translation - local languages get a renaissance since now you _dont_ need a lengua Franca, everyone just speaks what they like the most, and can understand everyone else. Much more “flavour” to human interaction. Also ai makes things just resource constrained, not labour - whatever you imagined, you could make…

Sounds like you would enjoy this short story.

Manna - https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

Post reply on HN