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Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

adiamond.me

21–30 of 110 posts

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#21

This is not an Age of AI. Why do so many not-real-programmers think this is an age of AI? It's just a hype. I am developing my own app 2+ years manually, and not use "AI" at all. Using AI usually can cause many problems, which the author pointed at. Programming should be enjoyable, not an annoyed or unhappy thing.

There are still bespoke craftsman in this era of machinery and assembly lines.

You choosing to do something in one specific manner is more the exception that proves the rule then any rebuttal.

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#22
For me the biggest issue with AI coding model is not that it writes code, or how it writes code, or whether it will replace me or not. I mean, these are real problems, but just not the ones that makes the difference to me daily. Instead what sets my feeling about the AI is simple: the experience of working with AI models, because it's the worse experience of my life so far.

Every single LLM will make up stuff, go down rabbit holes I didn't even ask it to visit and infuriate me all day long by doing ALMOST what I asked it to do, but just not quite. Take "yes" to one question as an approval to some other question. Come up with a plan but one you review the plan and accept it it hits some minor issue and then throws away the plan and do whatever it wants. Or when I reject some line of code or don't approve a command it wants to run 9/10 times it just tries to re-add or re-run it as if my rejection was meaningless. And no amount of rules and markdown files ever seems to change its behaviour for long, if at all. It's like working with a sociopath who just doesn't remember anything that happened 5 minutes ago. It's the classic case of "my computer doesn't do what I want, only what I tell it".

And all of that would be fine if it didn't pretend to be a human, if all the UX didn't create the illusion that you interact with some intelligent being, because as long as I remember that this is a cli tool it's all good, I manage my expectations, but the experience sooner or later makes you annoyed and frustrated - and if this was a person they would either stop or you wouldn't never work with them again.

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#23
I wonder if we're being overly selfish here and ignore the positive effects of democratizing programming and making software more accessible to less well funded causes and organizations. A good software engineer used to cost 100k/year, very few businesses could afford that.

I also disagree that AI results are lower quality. Codex Pro results I get are marvelous but they sometimes miss things that humans understand naturally - all of the edges - coherence of visuals, passage of time, etc.

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#24

This is not an Age of AI. Why do so many not-real-programmers think this is an age of AI? It's just a hype. I am developing my own app 2+ years manually, and not use "AI" at all. Using AI usually can cause many problems, which the author pointed at. Programming should be enjoyable, not an annoyed or unhappy thing.

> I am developing my own app 2+ years manually, and not use "AI" at all.

How does this mean this isn't an age of AI? Because you're The Representative of Programmers?

> so many not-real-programmers

Oh sorry I missed this part. It seems that you really are!

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#25

This is not an Age of AI. Why do so many not-real-programmers think this is an age of AI? It's just a hype. I am developing my own app 2+ years manually, and not use "AI" at all. Using AI usually can cause many problems, which the author pointed at. Programming should be enjoyable, not an annoyed or unhappy thing.

[flagged]

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#26
post #7

> Someone asks you to add a feature to an existing program While I empathize with the tone, even before AI the creativity was largely at the feature definition step, not in the implementation. Outside of the very few computer scientists working on novel algorithms, the vast majority of software development is a mapping problem between the feature request and the mundane technical details, something repeatedly (and co…

Also typically new features resemble ones I implemented in the past and I won’t learn that much from implementing them. Often times I immediately know what to do and although I do enjoy typing I do prefer just having it done in way less time.

In the meantime I can concentrate on more interesting problems.

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#27
post #7

> Someone asks you to add a feature to an existing program While I empathize with the tone, even before AI the creativity was largely at the feature definition step, not in the implementation. Outside of the very few computer scientists working on novel algorithms, the vast majority of software development is a mapping problem between the feature request and the mundane technical details, something repeatedly (and co…

> Outside of the very few computer scientists working on novel algorithms, It's a quite a bit broader than that: for instance most of science and engineering is heavily supported by simulations (very useful when the system you're considering doesn't have perfect spherical or cylindrical symmetry), and there is still tons of algorithm development going on. The world is vast, and thus so is the domain of programming. A…

> It's a quite a bit broader than that: for instance most of science and engineering is heavily supported by simulations (very useful when the system you're considering doesn't have perfect spherical or cylindrical symmetry),

That isn't the vast majority of traditional software engineering work, and arguably is better called applied physics or applied science. Super interesting though - and definitely uses programming as a core skill/tool - but it leans heavily into traditional engineering and science.

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#28

How does Andrew manage being a full-time software developer and an author? Both jobs are so cognitively demanding.

One of the things that's neat about the software field in this day and age is that you can see when someone started out 20+ years ago, when things were pretty easy (relatively) and the boom was still on the horizon.

It's pretty common that someone who was born around the right time to the right people in the right location to become a millionaire by writing some php may do something else, but still consider themselves an engineer.

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#29

I’ve been successfully shipping software since 1998. I just got the first payment on a greenish-field software product I’m doing on the side solo (that I couldn’t have done solo in 2019 without the tools). This is my workflow: 1. Client asks you to add a feature(s) 2. Spend two weeks unpaid walking the client through scoping down to the most minimal viable set of features that tests the business hypothesis and roadma…

For websites this work. But now you are a core developer of the GTA6 engine. Your task is to create a fast efficiënt occlusion mapper. One that works from all angles. Has cavities and rt support. Good luck doing this with Claude. It's not gonna achieve this. Because only a handful of games achieved this partly. Maybe next gen AI can do it. But for complex tasks LLMs are still not good enough.

Re: Reflections on software engineering in the age of AI

#30

This is not an Age of AI. Why do so many not-real-programmers think this is an age of AI? It's just a hype. I am developing my own app 2+ years manually, and not use "AI" at all. Using AI usually can cause many problems, which the author pointed at. Programming should be enjoyable, not an annoyed or unhappy thing.

Yeah it’s gonna be funny looking back in ~5 years. And probably embarrassing for some. “Age of AI” but most people actively dislike it and hasn’t had a clearly positive impact on the economy after ~4 years.

How do you want to define "clearly positive impact on the economy"? NVDA and a bunch of other stocks are way up. If you got in early, you're sitting pretty. I'd call that positive for those lucky people.
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