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Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

larsfaye.com

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Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#311

Post by esafak »

skydhash wrote: post #168
massagedpelican wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this expresses what I've been trying to form in my mind. I've been trying to map the LLM advancements and the current state of software development onto prior technological improvements. History is littered with similar cases where the abstraction layer ends up getting lifted, and people struggle with getting accustomed to working at that higher abstraction level. For the people that fall in love with a singl…

> History is littered with similar cases where the abstraction layer ends up getting lifted, and people struggle with getting accustomed to working at that higher abstraction level. But there's no abstraction layer that ends up getting lifted. When I use a library like SDL or a standard like POSIX, I don't tend to look at the underlying implementation. Instead I work with the high level concepts that they come up wit…

With AI you learn contributor, project, and product management.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#312

Post by xenadu02 »

There have always been opportunities for those who seek out the less traveled paths.

If all your peers are only accepting what LLMs tell them then you should do the opposite. Spend some of your time writing code by hand, especially when working at a new layer of the system or on new things you've never looked at before.

While the agents churn out more CRUD crap in the background spend your attention learning how everything works.

I do way more experiments with way more things by taking advantage of LLMS. When I have them do research I use that as a starting point for my own reading (but don't blindly trust them).

I find I am learning more faster.

Change is an opportunity. Use it to your advantage. Let other people while and moan while you get things done.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#313

Post by ydat »

greenowl wrote: post #116
not_the_fda wrote: post #105

Writing code was never the job. It was a small part of the job that can now be delegated to AI. Eliciting the right requirements and user needs. Creating a sound architecture and design. Validating final product meets the requirements. Ensuring there is good test coverage. You know `Engineering`. Mechanical and Electrical engineers didn't go away because of CAD.

> Eliciting the right requirements and user needs. Creating a sound architecture and design. Validating final product meets the requirements. Ensuring there is good test coverage. Besides your first point, the rest can be delegated to AI as well. And you don't need to be a "software engineer" to spec out requirements and user needs.

[dead]

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#314

Post by BatFastard »

visarga wrote: post #243
kypro wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first brought this up late last year – that there used to exist a kind of selection pressure against both developers and against features which would prevent certain functionality from ever being shipped, specifically: - Functionality which exceed the technical ability or knowledge of the developer which built it; and - Functionality which would require an excessive number of changes that time/cost became a constra…

There is a limit, after a few 10,000's of LOC ai projects start disintegrating and becoming unmanageable.

10,000 LOC, hell my LLM can do that in a day!

Current project has over 60,000 LOC, I find using an antagonistic agent code and architecture reviews are really handy for keeping things grounded.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#315

Post by oscillonoscope »

It believe the most likely consequence of AI is to promote generalists: people who have a domain expertise, can work cross discipline, and has enough programming knowledge to keep the LLMs on track. I don't think 'pure' software engineers will end up being as highly valued as the last decade though I also think that will be true for other disciplines as well. Just as an example, in signal processing, it's not uncommon to have a person designing the general algorithm and another person dedicated to implementing the algorithm in the embedded system. With the quality of coding agents, it's not really necessary to have both of those people anymore. A person who is moderately experienced in both can do the job now.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#316

Post by adamddev1 »

We are spending sooo much for our intellectual time and energy on discussions about alchemy-like experiments with different models, agents, harnesses, orchestrations.

And there are huge amounts of time, energy, and writing sunk into arguing about AI or trying to convince people of the danger or problems.

Sadly all of this is taking time away that could be spent on real progress and learning about coding/FP/PL/algorithms/type theory/etc.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#317

Post by badc0ffee »

xtracto wrote: post #309

Yes, and it doesn't matter. Writing code in programming languages is a skill/necessity created by us to instruct computers what we want them to do Initially in the 60s, this was done by connecting circuits one way or another (think ENIAC). Then we devised "programmable" computers and devised a bunch of codes (computer code instructions) that abstracted away those cables. The we created Programming Languages to furthe…

Not to detract from your point, but there were software-programmable computers in the 50s. Check out Usagi Electric's videos about the Bendix G-15, where he loads software from punched tape.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#318

Post by efavdb »

larsfaye wrote: post #170
efavdb wrote: post #156

look to past examples. when the greeks developed writing, people complained that the youth were losing the ability to memorize much content. and that is true, but with writing they were able to do better still and that old skill -- though useful -- was lost.

Plato wasn't against just "writing" in a general sense, or that he felt it was going to hold humanity back. He was against treatises and felt that someone could "memorize facts" without having to actually think about them on a deep level. Which I think, ironically, is not all that off the mark especially in the age of the internet and now LLMs, right? He also felt that memory could decay if we relied on written facts…

I agree the tradeoffs are real but consider it obvious that reading and writing were in net a boon and I also expect the same for AI / programming. Of course having some understanding is still required in both cases to make good use of the tools.

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#319

Post by jason_oster »

larsfaye wrote: post #123
xyzelement wrote: post #64

// The need for ongoing friction in long-term skill formation. The subtitle of the story tells it all. There are some people who seek out friction. Think about an athlete or a hardcore nerd. The best engineers are ones who were fascinated with computers and learning as kids and persued it at every opportunity. Found their own friction in other words. For those kinds of people, friction-seeking is the constant and wha…

Curiosity is really key, and I find that LLMs diminish curiosity in people that might otherwise have it because the allure of the answer is often a lot stronger than the allure of the friction. I guess that's just the distilling of the industry over time, but that could certainly lead to a shortage of expertise.

If that is representative of your personal experience, then I'm saddened to hear it. I believe your article is an argument from incredulity [1]. You may not personally know anyone who thrives in learning from and applying knowledge with AI. But being unaware that it is even possible is not evidence that expertise will inevitably collapse.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity

Re: Coding expertise is going to collapse from AI reliance

#320

Post by throwway120385 »

wry_discontent wrote: post #278
hintymad wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boris: "I don't prompt Claude anymore. I have loops prompting Claude and figuring what to do". Boris: "I haven’t written a line of code by hand in, I think, eight months now… Claude Code, 100% written by Claude Code". Boris: "There’s no manually written code anywhere at the company… All of the SQL is written by models. Everything is just built by the models... Claude instances communicate with each other (e.g., over…

They work on research problems you can define a clear solution criteria for. The kinds of business software I work on don't have those characteristics. If I needed something like a utils library, I think I could easily have Claude write the whole thing and not read the code.

As always, the essential skill in engineering is not providing the right answer it's about asking the right questions.
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